How to Improve Your Customer Experience in Retail

Erik’s wife, Lia, recently had a horrible shopping experience at JoAnn Fabrics and wanted to share all the things that go wrong so that you can avoid making these mistakes at your own retail establishments. So, Lia went in knowing exactly what she wanted to buy, coupons in hand knowing exactly how much she would end up paying. She presented the coupon to the cashier and the point of sales (POS) system was not set up to take off the discount automatically meaning the sales clerk would have to manually calculate the discount. That’s lesson learned #1: the POS system should be configured so that the cashier doesn’t have to do it on her own. If you have a POS system, make sure that the calculations are done for you. Now, the cashier originally gave Lia 50% off even though the coupon was for 65%. Lia pointed out that this was incorrect and the cashier recalculated it 2 or 3 times before getting so frustrated that she rolled her eyes at Lia. That’s a big no-no. Lesson learned #2: If you have a discount coupon, make sure your cashiers know how to do the math and the tools to figure it out. Lesson learned #3: Teach your staff to treat the customers with respect. So the manager then got involved to tell her that the coupon didn’t apply to her item. But when they walked back to the display, it was immediately evident that the sale applied to that item. Ultimately, the lesson learned is that if you are a sales clerk or manager working in a retail store, get to work 5 minutes early and walk the floor so that you’re aware of everything that’s going on. Think through your customer experience and make sure your employees are trained on anything that may arise. — Erik J. Olson is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. The Founder & CEO of Array Digital, he is also the host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups. — Kevin Daisey is an award-winning digital marketer & entrepreneur. He started his first company when he was just 23, and is the Founder & CMO of Array Digital. Kevin is also the co-host of the Journey to $100 Million Flash Briefing and daily podcast, and the co-organizer of the Marketers Anonymous monthly meetups. — For more information on the show, and to check out past episodes, go to journeyto100million.com!