newsletter

Five Ways to Lose Credibility with Your Customers (Doug Fleener)
McDonald’s McCafe Doing Well?
Panera Bread Loyalty Program Lacks Cash Register Express
Retail Sales Outlook
Time To Renegotiate Your Lease Now (Follow Up)
Contacting pcAmerica 

Five Ways to Lose Credibility with Your Customers (Doug Fleener)

Here are five ways to lose credibility with your customers:

1. Speak poorly of your competitors. I was visiting a retailer once and heard everyone on the staff constantly put down one of their competitors. When I brought it up to the owner she said that they were just passing along what their customers told them. I reminded her that while that might be true, it sounded like sour grapes. Now if someone asks about their competitors they just smile and say, "We're happy to say that our customers tell us how much more they like shopping here."

2. Speak poorly of a customer. While shopping recently I heard a store employee get off the phone and then go on and on to a colleague about the "stupid" customer. As a customer, you can't help but wonder what they say about you after you leave the store. The only stupid person here is the employee who lost all credibility.

3. Speak poorly of another employee. This sometimes happens when a customer has a problem and one employee blames another for making a mistake. You'll hear things like, "He's new and doesn't really know much." While I'm sure the employee is saying that without malice, it doesn't sound good. Instead he might have said, "Since he was new I'm sure he was mistaken."

4. Speak poorly of a product in the store. I think this is a cardinal sin that unfortunately is committed more than we'd like to admit. Employees don't think about the message they're sending about their company when they make comments like, "You don't want to buy that" or "I refuse to sell that." The customer is left to wonder why the company continues to sell the product if it's such a dog.

5. Speak poorly of a manufacturer or distributor you do business with. The customer can't help but wonder why you're carrying their products if they are as bad as the employee is making them out to be.

Remember the old adage, if you have nothing good to say then say nothing at all. Just as important, if you have something good to say then be sure and say it!

The above comes from The Weekly Experience (Doug Fleener)

Doug Fleener is president and managing partner of Dynamic Experiences Group LLC, a Lexington, MA based retail and customer experience consulting firm dedicated to helping retailers improve their customer experiences that results in higher sales and profits. Learn more at: 

www.dynamicexperiencesgroup.com.

Every retail store manager or owner should visit Doug’s website and subscribe to his FREE weekly newsletter at:

http://www.dougfleener.com/

McDonald’s McCafe Doing Well?

If you have been reading past newsletters, you know that I have been mentioning McDonald’s quite often in recent weeks. It’s not that I am a fan of McDonald’s; it’s that McDonald’s keeps doing well.

In the past week, McDonald’s stock took somewhat of a hit on Wall Street (down 1.9% in a single day). What happened? McDonald’s sales only went up by 5.1% in May and same-store sales only climbed by 2.8% within the United States.

McDonald’s dollar menu and value meals are doing well. Wall Street experts just expected more.

McDonald’s 5.1% comp-store sales increase in May marks the 73rd consecutive month of increased sales.

The bad news is that the economy is not recovering as fast as retailers had hoped. Retailers and restaurants are heavily promoting discounts, low prices, and value in order to survive.

Read the McDonald’s article at:

http://www.rttnews.com/Content/TopStories.aspx?Node=B1&Id=972384&Category=Top%20Stories

Panera Bread Loyalty Program Lacks Cash Register Express

Panera Bread should be using Cash Register Express. Panera just cancelled its frequent drink/bagel loyalty program.

Panera used one of those loyalty programs where the customer got a card. Each time a customer purchased a coffee or a bagel, Panera employees would stamp the card. Buy 8 and you get one free.

The problem is that the successful Panera program was too open to fraud. There was little control over employees who could stamp a card multiple times for each purchase. The stamp was often missing and employees would just use a pen to mark a purchase. And...some industrious customers stole thousands of cards.

Stolen cards and fraudulent cards were frequently sold on EBay.

All Panera Bread loyalty cards are expiring at the end of the month. If you have one, cash it in now. I give credit to Panera who will give you a free item (bagel or coffee) for turning in a card even if it has only been punched once.

That’s good for my family because we have lots of cards with only one punch on it since we frequently forget to bring our previously punched card with us.

Panera is now testing a scanned loyalty system (just like the Loyalty Program available through Cash Register Express).

To see the article, go to:

http://blog.pennlive.com/go/2009/06/panera_bread_cards_to_expire_t.html

Retail Sales Outlook

The Retail Sales outlook is not great. Smaller retailers can normally get hints about future sales by looking at the larger stores. Comp-sales for May are down. It’s very possible that the comp-sales figures are down because they were up more than usual last month because of rebate checks. So, May sales may not be as bad as they appear to be. Consumers are being very cautious about buying anything. The experts believe that the worst is behind us, but the recovery will be very slow.

Kohl’s, the discount store is doing very well with a 4.1% increase in sales. Saks Fifth Avenue had a 25.8% decrease in sales. People are only buying what they need.

Read the entire article at (this is a .pdf file from Bernard Sands, a provider of retail intelligence and well worth looking at):

http://image.vcfww.com/emailBlasts/VCF/VCF%20Report/June%2009/CompStoreSalesMay09SAMPLE.pdf

Time To Renegotiate Your Lease Now (Follow Up)

We wrote about renegotiating your lease in the newsletter a few weeks ago. Retaining Today has an informative article related to lowering your rent or getting other perks. If you own or manage a business, click on the link below:

http://www.retailingtoday.com/editorial.aspx?id=105533

Or write to me for a copy at HGosman@pcamerica.com