A Wildly Successful Retailer Talks About Customer Service
by Nancy Rathbun Scott
Feargal Quinn believes a company can outrun the competition just standing on its ear-its customer-listening ear, that is.
Quinn shares the secrets which have helped build his grocery chain in Ireland to one of the world's most copied retail models.
Give 'em a wow
It's not enough to give customers a "fine" shopping experience, says Quinn. Today's retailers need to "wow" their shoppers.
"Research shows that the most stressful point in supermarket shopping is the checkout. It's a simple thing to make a chair available if people want to sit down, or to provide the morning paper."
But that's only the beginning. "We make sure our customers get a 'wow' when they go through checkout. When it's pouring rain, we help customers out to the car. We have umbrellas available. Why didn't somebody else think of that?"
There's more. "We let customers scan their own products in the store. We give them a scanner when they come in, so they can scan as they put items in the cart. By the time they get to checkout they just pay the bill and go home. People tell me they have shopped here every week since we started this system. They tell me, 'I can't believe I'd ever shop any other way again.' Sure, letting customers scan at checkout can be a cost-saving maneuver. But scanning at the shelves? That's a huge customer benefit!
Quinn believes in using technology to create more "wow!" And, he believes in knowing a lot about his customers. "We have another system the customer doesn't see. When her customer card is scanned, the screen that the checker sees shows the customer's name. Just calling that customer by name gives us an edge over the competition."
How did Quinn get so customer-driven that he's willing to take risks while the competition sits on its hands?
Customer Service is inbred
"As a child, I grew up in the holiday camp business," Quinn told the audience. "Guests who stayed with us paid for everything upfront, so my father always said, 'Our objective is not to sell anything to customers, but to get them to come back again and again.' So I naturally assumed that's what business was all about."
Quinn's lifelong mission to bring customers back has evolved into what he calls the Boomerang Principle. "Every business decision that we make is based on the Boomerang Principle. If it will raise profits, but not bring customers back, we say 'no.' If it will bring customers back, but not raise profits, we find a way to make it work."
While acknowledging that his accountants sometimes shudder at the prospect of customer service leading profit, Quinn points out that the attitude has placed his 16-store grocery chain -- which is 291st in the world in size -- at an enviable 20th in the world in sales per square foot.
The basis of sounds customer service is listening, he says.
Set up ways to listen
To facilitate communication from customers, Quinn's grocery chain convenes two customer panels per year at each store. He personally sits in on the meetings. "The important thing is that the CEO sits at that panel, which sends the message throughout the organization that listening to customers is important."
In fact, at Quinn's stores, the customer service desk is the manager's office. "He's not in a back room somewhere. He's right out front, where he can always be interrupted by customers. Yes, running a business from the floor presents some problems, but it also includes the excitement of listening to customers. Even our accountants spend some time on the shop floor."
Being close to buyers has enabled Quinn to track such major shopping trends as an increased interest in taste over convenience and price, a move to healthier eating and a greater commitment to the environment. "We learned early on that customers want fresh vegetables, so we put up signs showing where vegetables are coming from, who cut them and what time they were cut. That has given us the edge on our competitors."
Such accountability worked wonders during the"mad cow" scare last year. "We had already been posting the name, photo and address of the farmer who supplied the beef that week, so when everybody else's beef sales fell, ours increased."
Listening also led Quinn to the remove the profitable candy and sweets from all check-out lanes. "Our accountants told us exactly how much we'd lose if we did this, but we did it any way."
In-store play areas for children became another customer-driven innovation.
Put customers on the team
How many people work on the Quinn team? "A quarter of a million, he says.
What Quinn means is that, if the company listens and responds to every customer, every customer becomes a team member. Take quality control, for instance.
"At one point I wondered how we could have more quality control inspections that any of our competitors. That's when I decided we could easily have 240,00 quality control inspectors. So we published 15 standards that we regularly slip up on. And we told our customers if they could catch us at any slip up, they'd get a reward. For example, we said if there are three people in a que and you catch us not opening n up another line within 60 seconds, you'll get 200 points. It's simple. If you declare your standards and tell your customers where you're likely to slip up, you'll find yourself prodded to exceed those standards.
Turn on employee enthusiasm
"If somebody comes to us looking for a job, we make sure they know how to smile," says Quinn. "You can teach people a lot of things, but want people who who love meeting customers."
Once hired, Quinn believes in giving authority and freedom to every employee. "Trust your customers and give your employees the authority to trust customers," he says-even when that means telling the customer who forgot a checkbook to pay at the next visit.
To reward employee enthusiasm, Quinn runs contests and competitions designed to create "raving fans" among customers. "We post people at the door to ask, 'How was the shopping experience?' To hear that it was 'fine' isn't good enough. The customers need to rave." The employee who gets raves also will get a fully paid trip overseas, for two.
To Quinn, none of the innovations is brain surgery. "There's an old saying. If you're going to catch a fish, listen to the sound of the river.'"
Short tips on customer-driven service
1. Don't be defensive. The things you don't want to hear are the things you do want to hear.
2. Compensate customers who come by often. "I send a token at Christmas, for example."
3. Select suppliers not by price alone, but also by trust, loyalty, standards and quality
4. In quest of service, be willing to experiment with overall profit.
5. Make coming to work full of humor, fun, and joy for employees.
6. Target your most loyal customers. "Eighty-three percent of our sales now come from customers with a loyalty card. That has helped us reduce our advertising in the paper from four weeks to just one week."
7. Remember: the way you behave comes back to you. "We've trusted our customers and our employees and it's returned to us in multiples."
Nancy Rathbun Scott is a business writer living in the Washington, D.C. area. She can be reached at author@nancyscott.com. Visit www.nancyscott.com for more information.
@2004 Nancy Scott