Road trip tests retailers’
customer service skills

It started as a joke. After all, who would be willing to drive 10,000 miles across America to do nothing but shop?

Well, the two people willing to do just that are sales and service consultants Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz. Of course, this was no ordinary shopping trip.

The pair, who for the past eight years have provided workshops and designed training programs for some of the nation’s top retailers (including CompUSA, JC Penney, Eddie Bauer, Coldwater Creek, Build-A-Bear, Linens-N-Things, Discovery Channel Stores and Macy’s) set out on a mission to measure the service level of America’s retailers.

The 37-day, cross-country marathon started in Portland, Oregon, and passed through Seattle, Denver, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and 20 other major cities.

Using an observational data-gathering approach developed and fine-tuned during thousands of store visits over the past decade, the pair visited 987 stores and cataloged data from over 3,000 sales interactions to measure the effectiveness of what Waltz refers to as magical metric moments: specific times in a shopping interaction where sales (and customers) are won or lost.

At the tour’s conclusion the numbers were crunched, results tabulated, and feedback provided to sponsor companies that paid a fee for data on their stores as well as their competitors’ performance. And to say the data are enlightening is an understatement.

The pair looked at 30 specific sales and service behaviors that influence a retailer’s success, from the moment a customer enters a store until he or she exits. For example;

• How long does it take the average retailer to greet and approach a customer?

• What is the average customer-to-associate ratio?

• How many questions do sales associates typically ask before showing merchandise?

• How proactive are retailers when it comes to showing “add-on” merchandise?

• How many items do sales associates proactively show to customers without being asked?
Fenton and Waltz now have the answers. And what exactly did they learn?

“Finding excellent retail service is pretty much hit or miss,” says Waltz, from her office on the outskirts of Portland, Oregon.

“And, unfortunately,” adds Fenton, “for many retailers, it’s more miss than hit.” For example, Fenton recounts his experience in Helena, Montana:

“I’d been shopping in a department store for 20 minutes with no salesperson in sight. Finally, I spotted someone in a sport coat and name badge sifting through a stack of neckties, but the guy didn’t approach me.

“So, I decided to force the situation and approached him, asking if he knew where the sweatshirts were. The man took me to a rack of sweatshirts and showed me a few. Then I asked how much the one with the burgundy stripe cost.

“The man smiled and said, ‘You do realize I don’t work here, right?’ I glanced down at the name tag only to discover he didn’t work for the store at all; he was a pharmaceutical salesman shopping for neckties on his lunch!” Half an hour of shopping and the only service in the entire store had just come from a fellow customer.

This is not to say that there weren’t many great experiences. In fact, Fenton and Waltz handed out Service Excellence cards to the best people they encountered (you can see the entire list of Service Excellence card recipients at www.fentonwaltz.com). Among the superstars were:

• Lisa Burbey, Arden B. (Mall of America, Minneapolis, MN). “Shopping with Lisa is like shopping with a best friend who won’t let you buy the wrong item,” declared Waltz.

• Darren Carns, Borders Express (Shops at Mission Viejo, Mission Viejo, CA). “On a wildly busy afternoon Darren worked the room like a politician working a cocktail party,” said Fenton, “and I mean that in a positive way.”

• Laura Reid, Parisian (Columbiana Centre, Columbia, SC). “I could hear the laughter from across the aisle and had to check it out,” recalls Fenton. “It was Laura Reid, doing her thing by making customers laugh, spend and enjoy every second of it.”

• Christopher Connolly, Brooks Brothers (Keystone Mall, Indianapolis, IN). Christopher crafted one of the best (and biggest) sales the pair witnessed during their entire 37-day trip.

• Pat Dixon, The Doll House (Northpark Mall, Ridgeland, MS). “One month earlier, Pat’s store in Biloxi, Mississippi, was leveled by hurricane Katrina,” says Fenton. To quote Pat: “There was nothing left but the front step.” But there she was, in her new store, doing what she loved most: selling dolls and spreading smiles with service excellence.

The hard data gleaned from the research project are contained in Fenton and Waltz’s just-released, 100-page Retail Service Across America Report, which includes a plethora of fascinating facts for any retailer. To make the report user-friendly, the data are broken into 20 store categories, such as athletic retailers, women’s specialty, men’s clothing, big box stores, gifts, home furnishings, etc.

A sampling of the data contained in the report includes findings such as:

• 19 percent of all retail associates are engaged in stock/tasks at any given time (the high was Discount Department Stores at 64 percent; the low was High-End Specialty Retail and Optical/Sunglasses at 6 percent).

• There are 1.9 associates behind the register (cash wrap) for every customer in line.

• 47 percent of all customers entering retail stores go “un-greeted.”

• When greeted by an associate, the average number of seconds from entry to greeting is 32 seconds (the best was Personal Care/Beauty/Vitamins at 19 seconds; the worst, once again, was Discount Department Stores at 66 seconds).

• 72 percent of all customers entering retail establishments are never approached by an associate.

• The average length of time that associates stay engaged with customers who say they are “just looking” is only 8.2 seconds (Big Box stores scored worst at 3.4 seconds).

• Associates offered unsolicited information to customers only 25 percent of the time, and they asked questions to determine needs only 36 percent of the time.

When interviewed by Stores Magazine upon their return, the pair was asked if they were eager to tackle an undertaking of this magnitude again. Fenton simply smiled. Waltz did not.

We’ll see.