Challenge
To coincide with Disney Pixar’s long-awaited Cars 2, Argos needed to improve on the success of their 2010 Toy Story 3 instore display and establish themselves as leaders in the market for Disney merchandise. For Cars 2, Argos wanted to expand their display range from just toys to also include, books, clothing and homewares and the challenge was how to present these cross-categories effectively.

Activity
Working cross-functionally within Argos we developed a robust VM solution which included space planning and consultation on creative. We implemented improved VM disciplines with more impactful POS creating drama and theatre outside of the norm for Argos stores.

Results
The Cars 2 displays launched in stores on 13th July and there has been a significant uplift in sales across all categories featured during the 1st week as well as extremely positive customer and store team feedback.

Cars 2 launched in UK cinemas on 22nd July.

Other successful Argos projects include launching a video games unit into 500 stores (incremental sales increase of £2m over a two-month period), new technology concepts, and internal team development.

As every new parent, I had to face the prospect of the first outing with my newborn. I soon realised that my confident demeanour could be snatched away when I began to negotiate cluttered store layouts, and poorly navigated displays whilst uninspired staff appear task not people focussed.

Parents out shopping with babies or toddlers require space and simplicity. Frustration is not an emotion that we welcome. While balancing the needs of my baby, locating changing facilities, lifts, baby feeding areas; I couldn’t help asking myself the question, ‘Why isn’t shopping made easier for me, I have money to spend but this is too much like hard work!

After many disappointments trying to find the answer, one store has really excelled. John Lewis gives me the space and clearly defined shopping zones – and I truly enjoy spending money with them!

The high street can be a real friend to a new mum and a place to grow in confidence. From my experiences, I can only urge retailers to re-engage with parents, and ask the question ‘Are you really family friendly’?

In their monthly survey which measures activity in-store and online, the BRC found that total sales in March were down 1.9% on a year ago.

Although the earlier timing of Easter last year slightly skewed the figures, the BRC said shoppers did not want to spend “unless they really had to”.

Interestingly, whilst food and drink, clothing, home ware, electrical and others all fell, footwear was the only growth sector.

Internet sales showed their slowest growth since records began in 2008.  And clothes and book sales suffered their largest declines since 2009 and 2005 respectively.

Stephen Robertson BRC director general said “Falling disposable incomes and the fear of worse to come means people don’t want to spend.”

Helen Dickinson, head of retail at KPMG who carried out the survey said “We have seen an emergence of new, lower spending patterns since the middle of January, which are currently continuing to trend downwards.”

“Many retailers will not be able to sustain this ongoing weakness in demand beyond the short-term and are hoping for some good news around the extended bank holiday period and a feel-good factor driven by the royal wedding.”

Whilst the risk to John Lewis is that it could now, in theory, expect hoards of customers to show up with goods bought years ago, in actual fact, all returned items must be unused and accompanied by a receipt. 

“We’re not doing this so people can clear out their wardrobes” says Retailer Director, Andrew Murphy.  “We are doing it to underline to people in economically difficult times that there is one shop you can buy from where you will not end up regretting it.”

As a policy, it’s not new.  In fact, Lakeland already offer it.  And of course, the risk to John Lewis will have been carefully calculated since the typical quality of its product means it is likely to have lower return rates than others. 

Overall, the chances are that it will actually drive forward sales rather than reduce them.

But with a retail giant such as John Lewis now offering this, other stores may well be forced to rethink their own policies in the ongoing cut-throat battle for customer loyalty.

But for retailers struggling to keep their heads above water, what should surely be of greater interest right now is precisely what sustainable difference good customer service can make to their bottom line?

Perhaps surprisingly, there appears to be very little published research on this.  And yet, one wonders, how many millions of pounds are spent by retailers each year on the presentation and promotion of their product compared with the investment in their staff to build rapport and better understand customer needs?

Improving customer service frequently requires a cultural sea change, away from entrenched attitudes of ‘this is the way we do things here’ and ‘we know what our customers want’ to one in which each customer is treated as an individual, with their needs listened to.

And that investment has to come from the top.  Customer service is a board room issue and one that needs challenging and honing throughout every level of the company.  It’s a great deal more than redesigning changing rooms.

It’s about staff training and support to meet customers’ service expectations.  For, however good staff are, it can no longer be assumed that this comes second nature to everyone.

Such training can include work on valuable techniques such as matching customer’s personality types, listening for clues as to whether they are talking to a ‘controller,’ a ‘thinker,’ a ‘feeler,’ or an ‘entertainer’ and tailoring their responses accordingly.  This approach was recently shown by the authors of a Harvard Business Review study to have reduced repeat calls to one UK-based mortgage company by a remarkable 40%[1]. 

And it’s not just good customer service that matters.  It’s also having the appropriate processes in place for dealing with complaint handling and resolution.

For a fraction of an overall marketing spend, customer service training has the additional benefit of adding value to the brand without having to increase prices for customers.  And a positive customer experience will naturally increase return visits and therefore sales.

Of course, John Lewis could have told us this years ago.  But that wouldn’t make for exciting television either.

[1] ‘Stop Trying to Delight your Customers.’ Dixon, Freeman and Toman. Harvard Business Review, 2010.

By assessing whether they are talking to a “controller”, a “thinker”, a “feeler” or an “entertainer”,  employees can tailor their responses accordingly, “offering the customer the balance of detail and speed appropriate for the personality type diagnosed”.

This fact lies at the heart of how we work with our clients, particularly those whose only contact with customers is over the telephone.

Premium Italian clothing brand Artigiano found this out to their benefit when they commissioned us to help with the transition of their call centre staff from call takers to personal shoppers. 

By recognising and matching personality types, they were able to first of all meet  the fundamental needs of their customer before moving towards opportunities to exceed expectations (as well as profit targets) with well chosen suggested accompaniments to selected products.

Interestingly, the Harvard authors also found that more often than not, companies are willing to spend time and money going ‘above and beyond’ in an attempt to exceed customer expectations.  But in doing so, they miss the opportunity to deliver on the basics.

What Artigiano found was that getting the basics right was critical.  Only by understanding more about the customer and how to positively influence them can you then work towards exceeding expectations.

*‘Stop Trying to Delight your Customers.’ Dixon, Freeman and Toman. Harvard Business Review 2010.

Well Starbucks believes it does.  And so strongly does it believe this that the largest coffeehouse company in the world has now dropped its own name and the word ‘coffee’ from its new logo.

In what can only be described as a bold move, Starbucks says it marks a transition beyond its core product as it plans to extend its product range to include ice cream and even beer and wine.

Should it succeed, it will place it firmly alongside immediately identifiable brands such as Nike, who are now synonymous with their ‘swoosh’- which was designed as long ago as 1971.

However, opinion remains divided for now.  It is arguably premature to drop the coffee association before the brand has established itself in the proposed new areas.  By contrast, Apple already had the iPod, AppleTV and iPhone when it removed ‘Computers’ from its name in 2007.

Only time will tell whether Starbucks will take its place as an iconic brand.

With sales reportedly jumping by 17.6% on a year ago, The Financial Times yesterday reported that at 1.15pm on 8^th December, UK shoppers spent a record-breaking £831,000 online in one minute.

So is it just the cold weather that is to blame for keeping customers out of the stores?

Or could the fires on our high streets do with a much needed stoke to encourage more shoppers into the warmth inside?

We predict that whilst the government’s austerity measures will continue long into next year, it will be exceptional customer service that attracts people back.

And that is going to be a key focus for 2011.

Nevertheless there are some fine examples of how London does ‘Christmas’ so well, bringing seasonal theatre to the high street and quickening the step of the early season Christmas shoppers.

The themes this year reflect the mood of ‘tightened belts,’ especially with the inventive use of paper and card materials for creating everything from Giraffes (Muji) to Winterscapes (Smythson).

It’s definitely a white Christmas this year with many stores choosing this as their main colour scheme.

For a traditional Peter Pan theme, Harrods have used their showcase windows to great effect and were pulling in the crowds of amateur photographers.  Whilst Fortnum & Mason have created exquisite displays using an ‘Old Masters Theme’ displayed with sumptuous F&M fare.

Christmas themes 2010 – London

Interesting that two niche brands should steal the limelight from the big players in the online shopping arena.

Both websites demonstrate a brilliant empathy with their customers and present their products with stunning photography alongside customer reviews and other product suggestions.

As any visual merchandiser will tell you, this is the key to generating more sales; the ‘silent salesman’ in this case being the customer reviews with the ‘add-on sales’ generated by the simple mouse click to see what other products are suggested.

Successful selling, whether online or in store is based on the same tried and tested principles of simple product presentation; clear pricing and customer centric delivery.

Encouragingly, the Which? accolade awarded to these two niche brands shows that you don’t need to be in the Ftse 100 to get it right with the customers.