For the first million or so years of retailing, there was only one way to do business: nose-to-nose. Whether it was the mom-and-pop store at the corner or the traveling salesman stepping respectfully onto your porch, selling was a personal thing. Most buyers knew most sellers per-sonally. In small towns around the world this is still true.
In our hometown of Center Point, Texas, I can count on a hug from Merlyn or Nell when we pick up our laundry at the general store. Kat, at the Burger Barn, doesn’t head to our table until she has picked up a small tea, no ice, for Buns and a macho-sized tea for me. While we’re eat-ing (you can’t call it dineat-ing), no doubt we’ll see Johnny the local plumber, Butch who owns the feed store, Allen the coach at our small high school, and pretty much anybody who is anybody in our small town.
Center Point is more the exception than the rule and, while there are a few inconveniences, the fact that there is no way to be anonymous guarantees that everyone, even the old farts who rock on the front porch over at the foundry, are going to get good service.
When catalogs arrived on the scene, you could complete your retail transactions from your house, or even the little house behind the house with a cell phone. Now there is the Internet, the harbinger of the paper-less and cashpaper-less society, which is no longer as useful in the little house.
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There is one good thing about the Internet, though; it is the great equal-izer. Retailers on the Internet all look the same size. In our office, we have done big business with Internet-based companies that I know are located in the corner of someone’s spare bedroom.
To be a player in retail, you have to be everywhere your customers are.
There’s no doubt the Internet is still in its infancy. Few have figured how to do more than post a static page on the site and call it a home page. But as bandwidth increases, perhaps our imaginations will follow.
Payless Shoe Source isn’t a name that you expect to hear in conver-sations about innovative uses of technology, but here they are, strutting their stuff on the Web, rolling out an online sweepstakes with a grand prize of a cool $50,000 and, for Payless, an even cooler haul of demo-graphic information.
Visitors to their site are asked about preferences in shoe styles and are invited to play a game based on one of 15 shoe-buying profiles. Play-ers who miss the Grand Prize are likely to win one of the daily prizes:
$20 coupons redeemable at, you guessed it, Payless.
In exchange, the company is able to make offers that are custom-tai-lored to each of the profiles. (What could you do if you had a psycholog-ical profile of individual customers?)
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Small shop owners go that extra yard to make sure you are well treated and served well. (It is worth paying a little extra to keep it in the community and to get good service.)–
Both Lowe’s and Home Depot make you type in your zip code when browsing their Web sites, claiming that you are actually browsing the inventory of the store nearest you. Inevitably, when you find what you are looking for, and then go to the bricks-and-mortar store nearest you, it doesn’t even carry the item and the service people act like you are from Mars if you mention the Web site said the item was in stock.–
I do most of my shopping on the Internet, and I get disgusted when I have to pay, at the last minute, an additional charge for shipping and handling. Put it in the price!+
Internet shopping is great; you don’t have to put up with people and can take as long as you want. (Great selection and you check out at your leisure)+
I do most of my shopping online, because I’ve had enough of rude cashiers.50 W he n Cu stom ers Talk
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When you shop online and are promised overnight delivery and it actually comes a day later . . . and there is always an excuse (Amazon)–
I spend as little time as possible in stores and spend less money that way.+
If you have been to a store a number of times and the salespeople get to know you, that is wonderful. When you come into the store, they greet you by name and say, “Something came in I think might interest you.”+
Jack’s, an old-fashioned and independent hardware store, always has what I need and knows where it is. Jack and his wife are ex-tremely knowledgeable. They don’t like kids in their store either!+
People who remember my name. We live in a small town, and it shouldn’t be hard to do.TALK TO ME
If listening is part of selling—and it is—then live chat via the Internet may be the next hot idea. Credit unions and banks have been doing it for years, and online retailers were quick to follow. Customers log on, browse to their heart’s content, and, when ready, click for a bit of com-pany.
I’ve seen it in action at Lands’ End and again at Affinity Fedeal Credit Union.
Affinity
Talk’s not cheap, or is it? On the same day that American Airlines announced a nonrefundable fee for talking to a live AA agent (Septem-ber, 2004), I talked to Affinity Federal Credit Union in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, where talk is still cheap. In fact, it’s free!
In late 2001, Affinity, whose field of membership includes high-tech giants AT&T and Lucent, was looking for a way to personalize the online experience. Live chat seemed like a natural. The idea is simple—offer visitors to your site an opportunity to interact directly with customer ser-vice representatives in the form of a two-way, on-screen chat.
The secure version lies behind the firewall of the home banking plat-form, which allows member relations specialists to deal with any level of financial information secure in the identity of the visitor. Member rela-tions specialists, who call themselves chat experts, are truly experts.
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They are selected from the pool of veteran members of the member re-lations department and are screened for their writing and grammar skills, as well as their ability to multitask.
It takes a competent, confident organization to offer online chat ser-vice. Everything a chat expert says to a customer leaves a data trail. It’s in writing, so to speak, and grammar errors stick out like a sore thumb.
To further complicate matters, chat experts routinely juggle three chats simultaneously! Add in the fact that many of Affinity’s customers (who are called members) are also multitasking, and member relations spe-cialists have to be very careful about which information they send!
Fortunately, many of the responses to FAQs are canned, although they can be personalized to specifically address the member online. Af-finity members have been known to be on live chat at the same time they are e-mailing another department and waiting for still another Af-finity department to pick up the phone!
Surprisingly, some chat does not start with the intention to chat. A member may be working online and have a question about his or her ac-count or how to navigate the site. One click on the live chat icon and members are instantly connected to a chat expert. A nonmember may visit the nonsecure site and “chat in” for more information. Either way, the average chat will last eight to nine minutes.
But the question remains, “Is free talk really cheap talk?” Well, if not cheap, this talk is at least cheaper. Chat experts were drawn from the Call Center, where CSRs (customer service representatives) still handle calls the old-fashioned way—one at a time. Chat experts are working three calls at a time. Better yet, when members indicate they wish to close their accounts, the chat experts have an incredible 60 percent save rate! And because chat experts meet members in such a nonthreatening environment, cross-selling and the resultant product penetration are at an all-time high.
Affinity officials say their members love it! It’s quick, it’s easy, and it fits their lifestyle, because they can use it at home or at work. In fact, in nearly four years, there have been zero complaints, many unsolicited testimonials, and the original staff remains unchanged! This is one time when customers talk, you can, too!