In an increasingly competitive landscape offering remarkable customer service, is important for your store to stand out from the crowd to drive more revenue. Especially in today’s digital age where providing poor customer service can translate into a poor online review or worse, detrimental social media posts.
In this article, we’re here to help your retail business thrive by looking at four key tips to increase customer satisfaction in your retail shop.
Ask probing questions
Probing questions are a great way to get to know your customer, build a relationship, and ultimately better tailor the experience to their needs. Whether you ask them about what they are looking for or what brings them into your store, probing questions allow you to have a deeper understanding of the customers’ needs to help you make better-suited suggestions.
Open-ended ended questions are better as they usually draw out more information from the customer – giving you more insight into their preferences. Some examples of probing questions include:
- “What are you shopping for today?”
- “How has your day been?”
- “What brings you into our store?”
By utilizing these questions, you open up the customer to a friendly conversation that is helpful and helps foster a stronger relationship between associate and customer.
Give them space when they need it
Shopping can be overwhelming for a lot of people, with so many options and the usual time constraints people can get overwhelmed – fast. In order to increase customer satisfaction, know when to step away from the customer and let them decide what they need.
Make it a rule of thumb to engage the customer when they first arrive to let them know you are available for assistance. From the first interaction, you should be able to tell if they need help or if they need some space.
For example, if you greet a customer and they b-line straight to a pair of pants, they probably knew what they wanted before they came into the store, allow them the space to find what they need and be ready to open up a fitting room!
Suggest Add-Ons
A great way to earn a little more revenue and appease the customer is to suggest add-on pieces to an outfit they already picked out. This helps the customer visualize the outfit in addition to increasing the associate’s sales per transaction.
When adding pieces, remember to use your best judgment from the conversations you’ve had with them. An add-on can be as simple as a piece of jewelry or as intricate as a jacket and a pair of trousers. Whatever the piece or pieces, an add-on can make all the difference – so remember to listen to the customer and make suggestions with their style in mind.
Ask for feedback and implement it.
Lastly, listening to customers feedback is critical in the retail industry to understand what you’re doing well and where you need improvements.
Whether you choose to receive feedback through in-person conversations, mobile surveys, or an in-store kiosk, obtaining feedback can give you visibility into operational performance. With this feedback, you can gain visibility into things you may have overlooked or could have potentially been damaging to your business – and change accordingly.
Increasing customer satisfaction is pivotal to running a successful retail business. By suggesting add-ons, asking questions, giving customers space when needed and asking for feedback, you’re taking progressive steps to better the customer experience and create a higher level of satisfaction.
