Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 24, 1994 TAG: 9404220168
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Sandra Brown Kelly
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
"I will not continue to shop at any store where the clerks don't look at me and thank me when they hand me my receipt."
It wasn't an offhand comment, even if that's the way it sounded. If an employee doesn't acknowledge my existence, I read that as meaning he or she doesn't care whether or not I shop there.
In one week in three grocery stores in the Roanoke Valley, my purchases were checked by distracted workers. Once, two clerks chatted with each other about social plans while they were scanning and bagging my groceries. In another store, the cashier just looked around the store, but not at the customer line. In the third, the checkout clerk had the blank eyes and face of someone in a trance.
Yet, a smile, a "thank you," and eye contact can help turn a shopper into a repeat customer, and the experts say that's who merchants ought to be courting.
Stores - businesses in general - don't have much to offer except courtesy, service and goodwill.
Merchandise that is exclusive to a store is rare. So is original merchandising. So what's a business to do?
Treat us as if we're special, that's what.
I still try to shop as often as possible at a pharmacy where the people who work there recognize my voice when I call to place an order, I can charge my purchases and get personalized medical information - even if it has higher prices than impersonal competitors.
"The best customer is the one you've already got," say consultants at Frequency Marketing Inc., a Cincinnati company that helps other companies find ways to keep customers.
What Frequency Marketing espouses is self-serving, but difficult to dispute.
Frequency Marketing pulls a section from a 1993 book, "The One-to-One Future: Building Relationships One Customer at a Time," to support its claims:
The book points out that one-to-one marketing means trying to sell many products to one customer rather than a product to many customers. Accomplishing that means building close relationships with customers.
The trend Frequency Marketing has built its business on began 13 years ago with American Airlines' AAdvantage program, said Rick Barlow, president of Frequency.
Barlow says the trend isn't just short-term, nor "simply the reincarnation of trading stamps, as some people said at the time." He said he expects the objectives of American's plan - improving customer retention and improving customer share - to be the "pre-eminent concern of marketers in the '90s and beyond."
Here are some examples of the ways in which companies have reacted to the trend:
The Scripps Howard Inc. newspaper chain set up the NewsCard program, in which subscribers who pay in advance for a six- or 12-month subscription get discounts and special offers at restaurants, service establishments and retailers. The businesses cooperate in the discount program, because they get free advertising through the newspaper project.
Arby's Inc. has been testing a frequent-diner club since late 1992 and plans to roll it out this year. Kmart has a Preferred Reader program in its Waldenbooks chain.
Weight Watchers Inc. has begun an at-home program for people too busy or disinclined to go to meetings and hear pep talks.
Home Shopping Network Inc. launched HSC The Club Card, a private-label credit card, and sends approved applications to 900,000 Home Shopping Club members.
The November newsletter from Texas A&M University's Center for Retailing Studies was devoted to relationship selling. Sharon E. Beatty, professor of marketing at the University of Alabama, described in detail one apparel retailer's "Call Customer Program."
Under the plan, each sales clerk must maintain a book that includes details of customer preferences, previous purchases, names of family members, employment and other information that helps serve customers.
The store's employees use this information to tailor their services. For example, the employee who runs the career clothing department will pull together clothing and accessories and have them waiting for the executive when she comes for a shopping appointment.
One result of this special treatment was "Customer Love Letters," which included this one, sent to a salesperson in children's clothing: "My little girl was hard to fit because she was chubby. And without a doubt, Linda has dressed her ever since, adorably. If she thinks she knows where something else is, she is going to call that store and get it for me. ... And she is like a friend."
Beatty said the apparel retailer's effort works because the company hires the right people, trains them properly and then values and empowers the employees. The program "looks simple, but is far from simple," she said.
And who wouldn't enjoy being that store's customer?
by CNB