Attention retailers. Every experience counts. But the bad ones count more.
Day to day frustrations are a common experience. I don’t know many people that don’t get fed up with hitting that particular red light or winding up trapped in the fast food drive through chute with no way out and only five minutes left to get back to the office. It’s normal. Shopping, of course, has its own set of frustrations. Here is one that I experienced just yesterday that I need to share.
An employee at a popular clothing retailer (Old Navy) rang up my sale and then literally WADDED my things up and SHOVED them in a bag. Hangers and all. Didn’t even TRY to fold them in any way, shape or form. This meant that everything in the bag was a rumpled mess by the time I got home. I don’t expect her to put on a show of folding the clothes and gently placing them in tissue or anything, but I guess I do expect her to realize that I have just spent my money on these items and I’m excited about them. In my mind that deserves a little respect.
So why am I bringing this up?
Retailers are all on a “customer experience” bandwagon. Creating positive relationship between the brand and the consumer at every touchpoint. That means everywhere I come into contact with their brand – TV, online, in-store, catalog, phone – they want me to walk away with a warm fuzzy feeling about them. If at any of those touchpoints the experience is not good, the relationship breaks down and they risk losing my dollars.
Once you start paying attention to the touchpoints, you can see for yourself where retailers are breaking down. And in my experience it is at the store level. For whatever reason, the lofty goals and initiatives of the corporate headquarters rarely trickle down to the employees standing at the registers making the sale.
Disappointing Interenet shopping experiences are usually overlooked (unless they are really bad) because there is no human interaction. It might be frustrating, but it’s not personal. When I am standing across a counter from an employee who clearly doesn’t give a damn, I walk away feeling like they don’t give a damn about me or my business. And it’s just a small step to believing that if she doesn’t care, then neither does the brand. It’s as simple as that.
Shopping Experience, Customer Experience, Old Navy
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