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Tuesday, November 22, 2016
Media Clutter ? Try building a word of mouth program instead !
With evolving consumer preferences and media habits – and consumers
spending an ever increasing time on their
smartphones and on the internet, gaining their attention and building brand propositions
and equity had made life only tougher for marketers. It’s a given therefore,
that the inclusion and integration of new mediums in marketing plans can’t be
ignored. However, merely having a spend
plan that integrates all new mediums to reach out your core message to
prospective customers isn’t enough; especially when there is a need to
differentiate and gain consumer traction rapidly.
To supplement conventional communication efforts in building a
positive association and context for the brand, it becomes imperative for
brands to also invest in building word of mouth for the brand. This is
especially important for businesses and brands that seek to challenge the
status quo or wish to influence deeply ingrained consumer habits; though it’s
proven to be as useful for brands that simply seek to up their shares in highly
competitive contexts.
Building word of mouth is not as easy or as simple as having a
great product or service that your consumers like and then spontaneously talk about.
In an increasingly cluttered and noisy
world, it requires a dedicated and structured program with multiple
interventions, initiatives and a sound understanding of the cascading network
effects that could be achieved.
Research indicates that consumers especially millennials, are in
active ad avoidance mode. They switch channels on TV and radio, block ads on
the internet and on their smartphones or get into similar ad avoidance
behaviour across other mediums. Most see ads as an unwanted disruption and headache
that they can live without. Their preference is increasingly moving to content
that they can download and consume ad free at their convenience. Conventional
ad heavy media options are increasingly out of sync with this changing reality.
On the other hand is growing evidence of the staggering growth of personalised
feedback and recommendations shared by friends, family, colleagues esp on
social media platforms. Whether you intend to try a new restaurant, or buy a
new washing machine or a food brand to makes you lose weight, a word from a
friend or acquaintance can make a big difference. At the core of this phenomenon is the broad
understanding that – we as human beings are social creatures who love to share;
boast; display; project etc . What is undeniable is that we do tend to trust
and believe the personalised feedback and comments so shared as objective,
non-partisan and without the associated commercial trappings of paid
advertising.
It is in this context that service businesses (retail, hospitality etc ) and
new product businesses can benefit immensely by operating programs that systematically
channel the writer, photographer and critic that social media has made us all. After
all, we as consumers do get tickled by knowledge and by whats’ new and interesting - more than by
forms of paid advertising. Additionally, there is implicit trust in the
information so shared. The crux of a word of mouth program
therefore rests on credible consumer generated content.
The guiding principle behind building a word of mouth or advocacy
program is to turn your consumers into influencers by channelling their individual
energy and interest in your brand and providing platforms for them to share the
same with other like-minded consumers. As the owner of the program, the business or brand needs to continuously
provide relevant insights, inputs and in
general the fuel to inspire, educate, excite and intrigue customers in equal
measure. Customers have a way to imbibe what the brand shares & layer this
with their own experiences. They generate it as their own content and share it with
their extended families on social platforms as well as in one on one
interactions.
The role of the brand is to manage and facilitate this process.
How to go about creating Positive Word of Mouth
1. Identify target
segments that are most likely to share experiences and generate content
Lets
say, your brand targets a chosen demographic - of (say) urban women, 25 -50
years old belonging to upper socio economic segments. From this – basis your
brand needs, you could identify specific psychographic segments that are more likely
to benefit and share your brand with others. For instance, you could chose women
who are in their mid-thirties and are highly health and fitness conscious and
lead an active lifestyle as well as those who are in their mid-forties but more
affluent and prefer brands that showcase their status as TG.
2.
Put a Structure in Place
To
avoid making appear your content and program as adhoc and inconsistent, it is
important to put in place a structure to generate continuous content that is
relevant to your target customers. This structure should encompass
(a) Activities
and events that are staged offline in the real world. This diverse blend of
activities can include performances, lectures, talks, demonstrations, one on
ones with celebrities, celebrity appearances, wine & cheese evenings, fun
events for kids or whatever that’s relevant to the brand & the business.
(b)
A list of influencers – A list
should be drawn up and could include celebrities, experts and everyday people
who resonate with your customers and who you could work with. These could be journalists, public
figures, bloggers, social media stars, chefs, nutritionists, doctors, fitness
experts, fashionistas or even fans of the brand with a large following on
social platforms.
Experts should ideally be those who are seen as
objective, trustworthy and as thought leaders by customers; not those who are
seen to be making recommendations due to monetary considerations. So film and sports celebrities must
be used judiciously and sporadically. Also, they should be from fields that are
relevant to customers and to your business. To be able to work with them over
time, its important that we understand their area of expertise as much as we
expect them to understand our business.
A diverse set of influencers – say a
mix of celebrities, social media experts, and domain experts can be a potent
combination to build strong network effects.
(c)
A consistent tonality and defined zone
for content – As brand owners we should define the broad contours in which
content must operate and make all effort to keep it relevant & unique. Brands
willing to walk this path must look at themselves as thought leaders and be
honest in their tonality and in ensuring authenticity of content being shared.
3. Grow your fans and
Social Media Community over time with consistent and Relatable content
Don’t be in a hurry to accumulate fans and
followers overnight. Cultivate them over time.
The easiest way to directly communicate with your
audience and get them talking as well is via social platforms. But for this to
happen, just having a page on the social networks is not enough. The trick is
to use a consistent approach to dish out relevant content regularly, in a
manner that is friendly, not preachy and humanises the brand, and makes it more
relatable. It should get your fans talking.
For content that is non-activity based, it is best
to focus it around different themes so that different pieces over the next week
or fortnight don’t start looking disjointed , making customers wonder what your
brand stands for.
While you are engaged in growing your base of
followers, one area you should be wary of is acquiring customers through
excessive paid promotions. My own experience is that for sharply positioned
brands, paid acquisitions end up targeting and acquiring large sets of customers
who don’t necessarily relate to the brand and thus serve no real in getting
influenced or influencing others. However,
it’s a great option for brands targeting the large mass of consumers.
4.
VARM your customers, fans and followers
a)
Value them - Show your
customers that you value them and their contribution by acknowledging and
viraling good content generated by them.
b)
Acknowledge their achievements
as much as you would like them to acknowledge your special achievements and
milestones. This has to go beyond wishing them on their birthdays and
anniversaries. Integrate with their lives. Build stronger one-to-one
relationships with your customers; and buzz will follow naturally.
c)
Responsive - Make your
platforms as aggressively responsive as possible. Nothing irks customers more
than delayed responses. A well-handled complaint, irrespective of the issue is
more likely to keep customers happy and engaged and talking positively about
your brand or service.
d)
Make them feel privileged - Invite select few to
preview your new content before it becomes public or invite them to your events
and programs or get them to try your new products or services before they are
out in the public domain. The feeling of being part of an exclusive set and being
recognised is something that gets their creative juices flowing and gets them
to actively engage in generating positive content and sharing it happily on
their walls online and with their friends offline.
Word of mouth marketing can be highly
effective and relatively inexpensive if it’s part of a larger integrated
content strategy.
5. Create and maximise
Network Effects
To
be able to maximise the impact, you could plan a mix of offline events and
social media activities running sequentially and sometimes concurrently. The
target is to have different sets of your target consumers and fans talk about
your brand and help build its equity distinctly.
For
instance, for say an apparel retail business, or for a cosmetic retail store or
an upmarket furniture or gourmet retail business, you could
(a)
Content themes - have your regular
social media content themes centred around your specific product lines, new
launches, your sourcing approach or the refined nature of your products or
about how to choose fine products from the rest etc etc. Run contests regularly
to keep customers interested and your brand on top of their mind
(b)
Experts - you can intersperse this social
platform activity by getting domain experts (say every month) to conduct live
demos in your stores and one on ones with customers. These demos themselves
need not be drab. These could be exciting sessions where keen customers actually learn a trick or two. But the trick here lies in milking every
event – before, during and post the event both offline (through leaflets,
newspaper listings etc) as well as online.
c)
Events / Evenings - In some months
you may wish to either skip these demos or just add onto them say a wine and
cheese evening for your social media stars and keen customers or a super celeb
to visit your stores or endorse a product line or two.
d)
Surprise Events - Keep the interest
alive by surprise events and news of sightings of stars (from films, sports, Tv
world etc) at your stores.
e)
Needless to say, whatever you do offline, take the pain to viral the same
online.
f)
Changes in your policies and promotions
must be actively disseminated on your platforms to allow customers to both know
about it as well as discuss it if need be.
A
consistent, transparent and exciting approach to building word of mouth helps
create multiple ripples across diverse consumer segments and generates for the
brand a wave of support sooner than later.
Saturday, September 17, 2016
Is your organisation paying lip service to customer ??
Customer focus at one level appears to be something
that no business should be able to do without. Yet there are countless examples
of businesses that would rather focus on unending analysis and countless
(mostly unproductive) meetings to discuss balance targets and team performance
than on understanding the voice of the customer or acting on it.
One common syndrome that afflicts many of these
organisations is the belief that they are customer centric. I am yet to meet a
CEO who says that his organisation isn’t customer centric. After-all their
sales went up last year, they conduct research once in a way and have set up a
customer service department as well. If that isn’t being customer centric, then
what is ?
To my mind, irrespective of the industry the
organisation is a part of, or its business model, an organisation that equates
customer focus and customer centricity with having a customer service cell or
infrequent research that it conducts – is in some ways like a frog in the well,
unaware and oblivious of what lies ahead and most likely to fail when the
business environment gets tough. An uptick in sales is therefore more likely to
be temporary.
To me the answer about the customer focus of an
organisation lies not in whether it has a customer service department or the
frequency with which it conducts research. It lies in focusing on the
customer at the expense of everything else. It lies in the attitude
of management when they would rather give preference to resolving customer
issues than attending to the demands of their superiors. it also depends on the
linkages of the customer insights or service teams with the rest of the
organisation and the integration of consumer feedback into the processes that
this organisation runs on. In this context, an organisation that responds,
attends to and closes customer queries, concerns or feedback in 24 hours vs 4
days would definitely be more customer focused and customer centric in its
approach.
Customer-centricity rests on 2 core pillars and a
bedrock
1. The first
pillar : Consistent and ongoing understanding of customer needs,
desires, motives and actual demonstrated behaviours including feedback on
products and services;
2. The second
pillar : Processes that collate and convert this information into insights
that become the raw material for new or altered propositions, programs and
products
3. The bedrock :
The firm belief that the organisation needs to err on side of
delivering superior customer experience even in situations where
there could be a conflict between company need and customer need.
The first pillar is all about actively and
proactively listening to customers. Informally at stores and markets etc as
well as formally through periodic research as well as through solicited and
unsolicited feedback on company’s websites, social media platforms, etc.
The second pillar is about the routing of
information gathered through above processes and to appropriate departments at
pre-defined intervals and discussions about how the insights gained can be used
to refine processes or introduce new products and services and defining both
timelines as well as process owners for the same.
The bedrock is perhaps the most critical. It is the
belief system that makes the organisation design its products and
services; it is what makes leaders and teams design processes that
continuously captures and it is what helps inculcate and percolate this value
into rest of the team members.
It therefore becomes critical for the head of the
organisation to demonstrate the same value system on a day to day basis for it
to percolate down to his team. A leader can easily get away into zillions of
other priorities on a day to day basis, but one who is customer focused would
not hesitate to roll up his sleeves to daily look at or help resolve actual
customer issues (a) from a view that the problem that caused the customer some
grief should be looked at not as an isolated incident but as a systemic issue
that must be addressed and relevant corrections made to prevent recurrence of
similar issues (b) the value of sending the right signals to the rest of the
organisation.
In this context, several corporate leaders like Mr
Anand Mahindra, are seen as trend setters. They are available to anyone who
cares to reach out to them on social media and actively address these issues.
It is not just a great practice of a leader demonstrating consumer centricity
but also a great PR tool and even better for converting aggrieved customers
into firm believers and brand advocates.
For those of you wanting to start the journey – the
chart below captures the broad points.
To make matters clear – let me explain through a
real life situation faced at one of our businesses. Through ongoing consumer
tracking in our gourmet retail business, we figured that one of the pain points
for customers was time taken to transact at the cash
tills. At one level it was a relatively minor issue that could have been
neglected as business was continuously delivering high double digit same store
growth. However, we chose to accept and address this feedback from existing
customers seriously.
The entire cashiering process was mapped to
understand that the time taken at cash tills was a function of several things
including placement of the bar code reader on the cash till, the space
available on the till for the cashier to scan products & bag them simultaneously,
updated inventory in the system, number of redundant & duplicate SKUs
carrying the same bar code as the product being scanned and training of
the new cashiers in the system (given the high attrition rates) etc. So
addressing the billing speed issue needed to actually tackle all of these for a
really meaningful impact on the customer.
Programs and action plans were made for each of the
identified issues and key responsibilities and timelines defined. For each of
the Process owners, it was ensured that relevant KPIs are modified and actions
that impacted billing speed, incorporated. Stake holders identified and Clear
targets set.
We modified our reports dashboard to have a monthly
update on billing speed for each store that could be further drilled down to
the level of each cashier and then into every transaction. Simultaneously, we
closely monitored customer feedback and as performance on billing speed
improved, we actually saw a fall in the level of complaints related to billing
speed.
The journey of capturing what is important to the
customer and actions and ownership to address the issues, is however continuous
and relentless. It is critical as well. For, customers are smart and their
observation and perception that the company creates products and services that
resonate with them or responds to their concerns and feedback in meaningful
ways, goes a long way in building their sense of overall satisfaction and
delight with the business. It also directly impacts the way they talk about the
business and recommend it to their peers et al. This perception of a company
that cares can seldom be created through a single action. It is something that
is built over time into the fabric (and the processes) of the entire
organisation through consistent effort and belief that it is the customer that
is their raison d’etre. Mere lip service to customer focus can obviously never
be enough.
Monday, August 29, 2016
Effective Leadership Styles for Retail businesses
Given the constrained levels of profitability in
retail, the sheer significance of improved business fundamentals in the
industry is high. In this context what usually gets spoken about is the need to
generate increased business through repeat footfalls and efficient and
productive teams that can grow margins as well as make the business customer
centric. The sub text that often gets missed is about the kind of leadership
style that can effectively enable the organization to achieve these objectives.
What differentiates great and effective leaders from
ordinary Managers lies as much in the long term vision, focus and quality of
decisions that they make as it does in how those decisions are arrived at or how
those are implemented. The focus of this article is really on the latter two
aspects or the leadership style.
Talk is usually focused on task centricity vs people
centricity as an approach. One school of thought vouches for leaders who drive
discipline, rigour and business programs incessantly. However, very often, task
focus is confused for effectiveness! This school of thought favours leaders that
drive their direct reports relentlessly who are then expected to drive the rest
of their down-stream teams in a similar cascading fashion. Nothing wrong with
it except that it doesn’t factor in the levels of knowledge, understanding or
concerns and feedback that ground staff may have.
Democratic styles have their own drawbacks in retail
situations where generally there tend to be too many loose and open ends. Speed
of execution could suffer!
What needs to be remembered is that retail organizations
in general depend a great deal on the energy and efficiency levels of front end
consumer facing staff in the field as also of the lower down staff across
functions. Ensuring their efficiency and passion on a day to day basis is of
paramount importance especially if the business wishes to make a day to day
connect with customers. This calls for an appropriate leadership style and an organization
culture that can help the organization being perceived consistently as consumer
friendly and efficient.
The kind of organization culture that encourages such
an environment is often a silent contributor to the success of the business.
Imagine walking into stores where you not only like the merchandise on offer
but also value the staff for their ability to smile, connect, recommend and
service your requirements efficiently. Such a culture and environment is in
most cases not an accidental flash and it flows in the day to day working of
the organization. It cascades down pretty much from its leadership and has some
important tenets…like a team that understands its role, its goals, is empowered
to take decisions in crucial / conflict situations and is confident that the
management will back them in crunch situations.
Those who have been in retail understand that the
success of retail businesses lies as much in their execution as in their strategy.
The job at hand of running a retail business is a hectic, intense and energy
sapping exercise. It requires a combination of not just deep analytical skills,
or attention to detail but also genuine people skills, quick decisive action
and the passion to give it your all. Given the 365 day nature of the job, it
requires leaders who are available to their teams at all times and then who can
back their teams when they most need it. For this reason alone, it has little
or no place for either the 9 to 5 types or for those who can’t work well with
large teams or have little concern for people in their teams.
It is important for leaders to understand and imbibe
the fact that overly autocratic styles that emphasize the “do it as I say” or
“only my way or the highway” approach could be deeply flawed in the context of
retail. While they can ensure discipline and task orientation in the short run,
they are more likely to lead to unhappiness and a serious feeling of demotivation
and not being understood in the medium to long run, causing stress, burnout and
eventually a higher level of attrition. Also willingness and openness to share
facts with the leader can present a serious challenge for reportees. They are
more likely to refrain from sharing issues, concerns and bad and awkward news
rather than risk unpleasantness from leaders who believe they know best. This is
tricky in situations where team members down the levels have better product,
process and domain knowledge than their leaders.
Leadership styles that have relatively a higher
probability of succeeding in retail business are collaborative, flexible and situational. Such styles encourage and
create an environment of transparency and openness, where employees across levels
feel happy to be empowered and to be a significant part of the system and therefore
work efficiently on a day to day basis. The environment encourages and welcomes
them to speak up on a day to day basis and share their issues and concerns with
their direct superiors without feeling constrained about escalating issues when
the need arises. The environment while keeping consumer facing employees
energized enough to be giving off their best daily, also enables leaders to derive
critical ground knowledge consistently. This added ground knowledge
substantially improves their ability to make appropriate as well as fast
decisions. And none of this comes at the expense of any loss of focus on tasks or
business goals.
When it comes to goals and tasks – several Managers
prefer to set goals, leaving the nitty-gritty of execution to the concerned teams.
There is nothing wrong with that except in situations where the targets and
goals are far removed and way too tough to comprehend or achieve. Here true
leaders don’t abandon their colleagues. Instead, they lead the way by working
with the teams and demonstrate “what to do and how to do it”.
In general, it is critical to treat team members in
every industry with respect, especially so in retail organizations. This is so
because the behavior of team members’ often mirrors that of their bosses. Any
laxity here directly reflects in terms of a grumbling and sulking environment and
couldn’t care less attitude of retail staff.
For leaders, looking or acting the part of a CEO is
the easy part of leadership. The tougher part is knowing and understanding what
works or what doesn’t. A combination of common sense acquired through
experience and the ability to work towards a solution without ego in a manner
that breaks barriers and builds natural connects just makes it easier.
Simultaneously, leaders that allows team members to evolve and grow, pat them
on the back every now and then, kick them hard when needed, set a vision and
target, define the broad path but allow them freedom and flexibility to execute
within given boundaries and importantly show them the path when they flounder,
are likely to elicit a far greater sense of ownership, responsibility and
desired outcomes from their teams as well as effectively lead their
organisations towards higher order goals.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Pushing high Quality Private label and Avoiding Common Mistakes
Private label products are clearly an important though not
the only solution to improve profitability for retailers. Yet they represent an
important tool to improve long term customer retention and value. Given this
context, it is not a surprise to see this as having been a focus area for
numerous retailers over the last couple of years… and yet, poor quality and
sometimes poorly packaged products abound.
To ensure consistency and high quality results, it is
imperative to avoid common pitfalls and mistakes during product development, while
the products are in store and in their day to day management.
During
development
·
Treat the PL
brand as an independent entity not just an easy to sell rip off of a
national brand. Develop it with the same
rigour and concern for consumer acceptance in every possible way including product
testing. Also as a brand ensure that it has distinct USPs like every good brand
must have.
·
Understand
competition – in terms of competing brands, claims, perceived quality
levels, product features, packaging aesthetics, pricing, et al. Some retailers
do a packaging rip off of national brands. While it can help their consumers
understand what the product stands for, it in no way elevates the product stand
out on its own as a high quality product. The only reason why customers may
prefer such a product would be a lower price tag and not product superiority.
·
Proportion
of product name vs brand name – Given that PL brands – in general do not
tend to be as well known as national brands, it makes sense to keep the
proportion of the product category name bigger than or atleast equal to the
brand name. This ensures that in no case the product is missed on the shelf by
prospective customers. Only in a situation where the retail chain operates on
predominantly PL brands and does not stock national brands, can the risk of the
brand name being bigger -be taken.
Leading
National Brand Private
label brand
(More weightage to brand name) (More
weightage to product category)
·
Invest in
good packaging – go looking for design / packaging agencies that can can
truly add value. Don’t blindly ape national brands nor compromise on packaging
quality. Aim to identify genuine need gaps in terms of product taste, form or
packaging.
·
Never
trade quality with price – Negotiate with your manufacturers with eyes and
ears wide open. Ensure that product specifications are recorded and understood
and not touched when pricing negotiations are underway. A lower negotiated price
should not be at the expense of a lower product spec. While a national brand can,
a PL brand that trades quality for a lower price is unlikely to succeed.
In store
·
Superior Merchandising
on the shelf is as key as the development of a high quality product. Placement
of PL brands must be comparable or better than the leading brands from a
visibility and easy to reach or pick perspective. Placement of PL products on
the bottom 2 shelves completely defeats the objective. Similarly on online
sites – PL brands must be upfronted better than national brands.
National brands are
usually well merchandised. PL products too could follow the same colour
blocking approach.
·
Align
with staff – For PL products to be upfronted effectively in stores, it is
critical to ensure their consistent availability, superior merchandising and
point of sales support at all times – actions that cannot happen without staff understanding,
involvement and support. This requires ongoing engagement, dialogue and product
understanding (between the PL or category teams at HO and the store teams) and Linkage
of private label sales with the overall incentive programs as well.
Ongoing
·
Collaborate
with PL contract manufacturers and make them partners in your success. This
clearly means understanding their strengths, constraints and motivations as
much as you do your own organisatons’. Streamlining of basic processes and Preferential
treatment for PL partners will help elicit their support on a day to day basis
and ensure faster growth for the ranges.
·
Invest in
checking Quality – all national
brands have teams that ensure consistent quality output for consumers. PL
brands that take this area lightly could suffer in terms of being taken for
granted by suppliers. Results could range from differing appearance of the end
product to poor quality of the end product or even external inclusions like
hair, wires or sometimes even mosquitoes and flies contamination in the
product. Having your own team to monitor production, packaging and checking
quality at inward, in-process and outward level will help drive the desired
focus on quality and process compliance.
·
Maintain
samples of approved packaging and details of product quality in as much
granular a manner as possible – or have it monitored by an external agency. Too
often, in the absence of a quality team, these simple aspects tend to get ignored
or overlooked and the PL products that hit the shelves month after month don’t
necessarily bear a resemblance to when they were originally developed.
@Mohit Khattar
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Why encouraging greater participation of women in modern food & grocery retail stores is a good idea?
A cursory look at any modern food & grocery retail store
across formats and cities reveals a far greater percentage of men in the
workforce than women. In most such stores and formats, women don’t seem to
comprise more than 10-15% of the workforce when their number should be atleast
3 times higher, if not more!!
While this may have to do with some of the policies that have
shaped modern retail in india and with the prevailing environment of perceived
security threats to women’s safety and security, to my mind it also has to do equally
with historical perceptions carried by decision makers who in most cases happen
to be men on what women staff can or can’t do.
I guess elaborating these perceptions or policies is futile. It
will suffice to say that for every perceived drawback and perception there is a
robust rationale on why participation of women in food and grocery retail must
be encouraged for this sector to move forward.
Context
The
following 3 points need to be borne in mind to better understand the
recommendation
a)
The end
user: Most food and grocery formats stock a multitude of brands
and skus – sometimes over 5000 to 7000 SKUs – in a single supermarket store and
more than 20000 SKUs (food n grocery) in a hyper!! These are brands, products
and SKUs that burgeoning India is familiar with and buys on a day to day basis.
While most of such products are consumed by the household in general, there is
greater connect that the products have with women – than with men. Think fruits
and vegetables, daals and spices, attas, rice, sauces, cooking masalas and
pastes, cosmetics, household cleaners, detergents, shampoos and skin creams and
so on. For most such products the key end
user is a woman.
b)
The decision
maker: More than 75% of the shoppers in most such stores happen to
be women on a consistent and ongoing basis. They come in, browse, engage, make
their choices and then take the final call based on their past experience,
recommendation from friends or store staff or basis shelf displays, POS
material or by advertising that they may have seen.
c)
Intuitive
knowledge: Most employees (incl men and women) that work in the front
end as contract staff in retail stores come in from relatively weaker
socio-economic segments. So their own first-hand experience with many of the
products is likely to be low. In such cases, their intuitive knowledge on such
products or their usage is always beneficial.
The Rationale
My view is
built around 3 pegs – Intuitive Knowledge,
Inherent skills and attitude.
1)
Knowledge: In a
scenario where most users and most shoppers who engage with food and other fmcg
products are women, as retailers, if we are serious about influencing choices,
then one of the first questions that we must ask is whether the predominant male staff – is
aiding or actually becoming a hindrance to achieving the said objective.
How can someone with his own limited experience and
intuitiveness (shaped by his gender and past experiences) and perfunctory
knowledge of these products suddenly become effective in influencing the choice
of consumers who in almost all cases are likely to know more about the product
than him. In most such cases, experience shows that women staff members are
able to bring their superior innate
knowledge (shaped by their gender and experiences) to the fore more
effectively and help increase store and format productivity.
2)
Skill: Many of the
front end roles in retail stores involve merchandising, maintaining cleanliness
and hygiene, cashiering, etc. Again from a larger and maybe traditional
perspective, these are roles that have been the domain of women for years. The
fact that they seem to enjoy these tasks better than men do, makes it easier
for them to appreciate the rigour and
importance of the jobs and to excel in them. Ask a guy to spot dust and
grime in the store and ask a woman employee to now do the same thing. The
difference would be apparent when you notice the half a dozen areas highlighted
by women employees that could be maintained better. Ditto for merchandising
stuff on shelves. Women, thanks to their inherent
skill tend to arrange and organize better as also maintain hygiene and
cleanliness better than their male counterparts. They also tend to be more agile,
skilled and in general dexterous with their hands. The fastest cashiers in
Natures Basket for instance tend to be women. So more women would mean not just
better presented stores but operationally more efficient stores as well –
something that consumers are likely to notice and talk about as well as make
front line Managers happy.
3)
Attitude: The final
point that I make is that of attitude
and connect. The way women easily make friends, engage, converse or connect
with other women is far superior than the way men connect with women or say even
with other men. Observe women on trains, flights, salons, in markets or while
exercising in the gym. There is a natural conversation almost always on! They
are also likely to be part of many more whatsapp groups than men!! It is rare
to find them coming out of any public place without having conversed with
at-least one complete stranger. This is again something so intuitive, and so
innate that it doesn’t seem to require any extra effort; nor does it seem to be
limited to any socio economic class. Unfortunately for most men, forming such
easy connects is going against their grain. This makes the job of front end
male store staff who are mostly faced with women shoppers, that much more
difficult and stressful. Conversely, more women as front end store staff is
likely to have longer term benefits in terms of improved productivity as well
as improved customer loyalty for the business.
None
of the above is to suggest that men can’t do some of the things detailed above
as good as women staff members can or that women are good only in the roles
described above, or that external training inputs can’t change any of the
above, it is just to point out that in certain areas, women are naturally more
gifted and all things being equal, better equipped to perform and contribute to
the business better.
Arguments
from front line Managers ranging from perceived instability in the business due
to attrition caused by marriage or pregnancy, in the case of female staff must
be challenged with hard data. Surprisingly, attrition – which is in general
high across retail businesses - tends to be lower for women than men!!
As
retailers and marketeers, we need to be cognizant of this reality. The
perceptions that our operations staff may be carrying about the alleged capability
of women staff must be challenged by making them understand and appreciate the
above. To begin with food retailers could experiment in catchments that are
perceived to be safer. The argument to have an open mind and a willingness to
experiment to make our retail workplaces more gender diverse stems from the understanding
that no one gender can completely understand or appreciate the mindset and
behavior of every consumer. By giving women an equal opportunity to showcase
their natural skills, we as retailers would go a long way in improving consumer
connect and make our stores more productive than what they are today.
****
Retail theatre can help brick and mortar retailers build repeat footfall
Why retail theatre is
here to stay?
With increasing competition at one end and more retail points
beginning to look like each other, the consumer has ever increasing choices of
where to shop and what to expect in every category from retailers in general.
The moot point for brick and mortar retailers is the need to not just bring
back customers more frequently but also positively influence their in-store journey,
and in general have the ability to influence choices through information,
interesting forms of engagement or entertainment. All retailers will tell you
that this is easier said than done. What with shrinking attention spans, time
constrained lives, traffic overload on roads etc, it is tough to bring
customers back to stores in any case. To top this, with increasing penetration and
convenience of online retail, the scenario for brick and mortar retailers
starts looking even tougher.
It is in the above context, that one needs to examine the
significance of retail theatre.
To me, retail theatre is the essence of going beyond the
mundane and infusing elements that breathe literally life into a physical
store. These elements could be physical, audio-visual or digital or a
combination of all of these.
The physical elements could be – product display led,
engagement or activity led or even audio-visual led.
Imagine walking into a departmental store – first into the
kids section to pick up something for your little star, before venturing into
the evening wear section for ladies or for that matter men and then into the
home furnishing section. What if, instead of standard uni-tonal music, the
audio experience could be different in every section? The chirping of birds and
animals in the kids department, followed by mellow music in the ladies wear
section and then by a more aggressive sporty music in the men’s section. Would
it not enhance the experience for customers and make every section seem real
and lively.
Now imagine being in a food store with endless aisles of packaged
food products all around you and yet you stand there confused, not sure of what
to buy. Imagine a kiosk in the midst of
these aisles, where a cheerful promoter is happily demonstrating a new range of
cooking sauces and pastes. Don’t you automatically gravitate towards it? Or a
section where the product displays are not on the standard mid floor racks but
are displayed loose like in an old style wholesale market? Does it suddenly not
cue freshness better than any packaged product ever can. You can not only touch
but smell, feel and sample too!
Now think of walking into a furniture store. Rows and rows of
endless furniture and furnishings -neatly divided by sections. You start
browsing when your eye falls on an oversized screen where you notice one of
India’s foremost interior experts sharing practical tips to make your house
more beautiful and engaging with customers live!
Or an apparel store with loads of clothes and a line of
customers in front of the trial rooms awaiting their turn. Replace this
scenario with a Magic Mirror (recently introduced by a leading department store
chain in India where customers need not physically try on products. Agreed, It’s
a novelty but more than that, its amazingly relevant for the category too.
Digital disruption is another way of grabbing consumer
attention. But digital disruption done from the perspective of analytics is
likely to be less successful for offline shoppers unless it is specific, in
real time and customized for individual shoppers while they shop. For instance,
getting personalized offers through the deployment of beacons in stores can be
both informative and engaging. Similarly there could be other forms of digital
intervention in stores that make the journey more pleasurable and remind a
customer what they could be missing if they were shopping online.
All of the above are real life instances where businesses are
employing retail theatre to disrupt the
journey of a customer inside the store and making it more engaging, more enjoyable
and giving the customer a solid reason to return back. One can think of
infinite more ways to create and enhance the customers’ journey in stores. But
whatever is chosen needs to be scalable and relevant to the business one is so
seeking to enhance. These are things that the customer is more likely to
remember, talk about and then come back to the store again for.
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