TIP #355 - Customer Call Backs
Dear Tip of The Weeker
At a time when none of us can afford to lose, alienate, or annoy even a single customer, this story sent in by Sandra Cagan from Simka's Sweets really hits home...
Hello Bob,
I saw you speak some time ago at a NICRA (National Ice Cream Retailers Association) conference and have been a loyal WhizBang! Tip subscriber since then and also bought your book, Marketing Your Retail Store, last year.
Here's my Tip...
Last month I went to a specialty store looking for a very, very low cost item. This is the kind of store that sells things ranging from $1.50 to several thousand dollars. It just so happened that I was in the market for the $1.50 item and it also just so happens that they were temporarily out of stock on that item.
I said that I would stop back when they got it in, and then the sales clerk offered,"Would you like me to call you when that item comes in?". I was thrilled and said, "Yes, please." I thought to myself -- how nice -- this is a very low budget item for the store and they are offering to call me when it comes in rather than having me waste time and gas by checking in in the future when they may or may not have the item. I left the store feeling very good.
I wish my Tip would end there.
You might have guessed it -- they never called me back. I am sure that the item is now in stock, but it's been several weeks and no phone call. My initial good feeling is now replaced with a bad feeling.
My Tip? It's a nice gesture to offer to call your customers when out of stock merchandise comes in. It's an even nicer gesture to actually do it!
Sandra Cagan, Simka's Sweets
Offering service you can't deliver is a really good way to lose a customer. It's far worse than not offering the service at all.
My guess is that the store didn't have a good system for recording customer requests and tracking their call backs. The salesperson probably just relied on their memory or a note scribbled on scrap of paper which may have ended up going through the wash. If this is happening in your store, I have help for you...
Click here to get the form we developed at the Mackinaw Kite Co. to successfully address this problem. It's just one of the hundreds of forms you get in the Retail Mastery System.
Simply print out a bunch of copies, 3-hole punch them, and put them in a "Customer Call Back" binder at your register. It's a central location to record ALL customer merchandise requests. That way when the item arrives, the person who checks in the merchandise can call all the customers who are waiting - it doesn't have to be done by each individual sales person who took the request.
But there's another scenario to explain what happened...
Even though it has been several weeks since Sandra put in her call back request, the merchandise still hasn't arrived or is on back order. We can all relate to that situation!
By using the Customer Call Back binder the store manager can see at a glance how many people are waiting for merchandise and how long they have been waiting. If it has been more than two weeks, the manager can assign someone to call the customers on the list and let them know what's going on - even if it's just that the merchandise is still not in. If you read Sandra's story carefully, you'll hear that it's not that she didn't get her item that annoyed her, it's the fact that she never got a call.
Additional benefit to using the form: because all the requests are in one location, the buyer can see how many requests there are for a particular item and buy enough so they won't run out as soon as the new shipment arrives - which would start the cycle all over again.
Wishing you great sales and lots of fun,
