THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 21, 1995 TAG: 9508180670
SECTION: BUSINESS WEEKLY PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JASON HIDALGO, BUSINESS WEEKLY
LENGTH: Long : 199 lines
Need to have something done during the week? Good luck.
Finding time during the weekdays to squeeze in those little daily tasks is a task in itself.
Consumers struggling to manage their time may welcome changes popping up around the corner.
Retailers are extending their hours, making deliveries, and adding new products and services outside their traditional lines.
``It's revolutionary,'' said Theodore Smith, associate professor of marketing at Old Dominion University.
``Customer relations is something that has invaded even the military,'' Smith said. ``You now have ROTC assigning customer service hours. That's not the military I knew several years ago.''
At the forefront of this customer-friendly wave are businesses trying to adapt to people's changing lifestyles.
``You have to adapt,'' said Scott Ukrop, marketing director for Richmond-based Ukrop's Super Markets. ``You have to if you want to survive.''
THE RISE OF THE CONSUMER
Work is nothing new to Americans.
But the advent of two-income families, is redefining the traditional family structure, said Fred Steier, engineering management associate professor at ODU.
``There are so many definitions of family now,'' Steier said. ``You have the nuclear family, you have mixed marriages, grandparents living with the family - where do you draw the line?''
Regardless of where that line is drawn, the impact of changing family structures can't be overlooked.
For one, there is now an increasing emphasis on the value of ``quality time.''
Because of their time constraints, people are prioritizing the things they do in relation to how much time an activity is worth. The most important activities get priority in people's to-do list while the not so important ones get bumped to the bottom.
One effect is customers patronizing businesses that give them the most convenience.
``My husband and I usually get home at eight,'' said Debbie Seinman, who used take out services a lot and is now the co-owner of Take Out Taxi in Virginia Beach, a service that delivers food from different restaurants. ``We'd rather pay extra for delivery rather than stay in the kitchen or run out for groceries.
``There are a lot more better things we can do with our free time like being with our family.''
TRYING TO STAY AHEAD
Businesses have not always operated from the standpoint of what is convenient for the consumer.
Take supermarkets.
Smith remembers taking a marketing course in the `50s that touched on the ideal design of a grocery store.
The ideal layout was having staples such as bread, milk and eggs at the back of the store to force customers to weave their way around. Customers were forced to spend more time in the store and, in effect, make them buy more groceries.
What this eventually led to, however, was the rise of the convenience store.
``Grocery stores just made it so inconvenient for customers to shop,'' Smith said. ``In trying to trick customers, they ended up tricking themselves instead.''
Supermarkets are now moving toward changing such practice said Michael Julian, chairman for Farm Fresh in Norfolk.
``For years supermarkets categorized products in a way that best meets the needs of the store,'' Julian said. ``Now it's clear that we have to categorize products in a way that best meets the needs of the consumer.''
Farm Fresh is trying to score big with customers through new management concepts, Julian said.
One is category management, which arranges products in ways that make sense to customers and makes shopping more convenient.
Pizza, for example, can be found in different sections in the supermarket. You can get a fresh one from the deli, get a ready-to-heat pizza from the frozen products section, or just get the crust and other ingredients which are scattered all over the store.
``We think it might be more convenient for customers if we just grouped similar products together,'' Julian said. ``That way customers don't have to wander around the store trying to find them,'' he said.
Micro-management is another customer-oriented concept that's catching on with supermarkets.
This concept tailors individual supermarket branches to the customers in the area they serve rather than having a whole chain of supermarket branches that look more like clones of each other.
A Farm Fresh store in Newport News, for example, might stock different products than a store in Norfolk.
``Once we thought this wasn't practical,'' Julian said. ``Now all supermarkets are attempting to manage this process.''
ACCESS TO SERVICE
Most customer-oriented changes are basically geared toward making services more accessible to consumers.
One of the most popular concepts is bringing services to consumers instead of having customers go to businesses.
Having your car fixed now, for example, doesn't necessarily mean having to bring it to a shop.
Mobile repair services such as Dr. D's offer same day on-site repair whether you're at home, work, or stranded out on the streets of Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake or Portsmouth.
Adding a twist to the mobile repair concept is Car Care for Busy People in Norfolk. Car Care picks up your car while you're at work, then services it in a shop. By the time you leave work, your repaired car will be waiting for you at a place you specified.
``Most people complain about how inconvenient it is to have their cars fixed,'' said Peter Zeigler, in charge of technical services for Car Care. ``They usually have to leave work and ask a ride from somebody.
``What we're doing is eliminating those hassles and make it as easy as possible to have your car fixed.''
Delivery is also playing a major role in making services more accessible to consumers.
The food industry has been using delivery extensively, with fast food places that offer pizza, fried chicken, Chinese food and the like.
Some supermarkets are starting to offer delivery. Ukrop's in Richmond has limited delivery for seniors and disabled customers. Farm Fresh used to have full delivery services but stopped as demand for it declined, Julian said.
Supermarket delivery ``isn't there yet,'' largely because of the difficulty in handling perishable items, said Gary Levin, senior manager for the consulting firm Arthur Anderson.
``Customers are especially leery of produce,'' Levin said. ``Most customers still want to pick out their produce themselves.''
But that hasn't stopped other businesses from entering the delivery fray.
Birdland Records, Tapes and Compact Discs joined the growing number of businesses that service people at work.
``We found out that a lot of people get trapped at work and we figured, `if you can't come to us, we'll come to you','' said owner Barry Friedman.
Birdland takes orders from Monday through Thursday and does all its deliveries on Friday. It doesn't do home delivery but delivers to workplaces in business districts such as downtown Norfolk with no extra charge.
Offering extra services like this is important for a business to be viable, said Abby Buchberg, merchandise buyer for Colley Discount Pharmacy in Norfolk.
``Customers have so many choices now,'' Buchberg said. ``There a lot of business that offer the same services so what we're doing is offering new services to distinguish us from the rest.''
Colley Discount Pharmacy, like several other pharmacies, delivers medicine and other items to its customers. To increase its chances against the competition, the pharmacy installed a night deposit box that people can use to drop off their prescriptions.
The drugstore also offers one-stop shopping like a specialty store. It offers expanded service like UPS mailing, gift items and a ``travel and health kiosk,'' which customers can use to plan vacations and get basic medical advice.
The Heritage Store in Virginia Beach is cashing in by expanding its definition of service.
The store began 26 years ago selling health food. Now it also offers crystals and gems, a massage service, psychic consultations and classes for activities such as yoga and tai-chi.
These services are the result of anticipating what health food customers want and listening to their comments, said store manager Robert Clapp.
``These different services complement each other,'' Clapp said. ``Customers appreciate variety.''
The increased competition among businesses targeting the same customers have also increased the value of the individual consumer. Businesses emphasize keeping customers they already have because it's more cost-effective, said ODU's Smith. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Gary C. Knapp
Dr. D's Mobile Auto Repair
Wyatt King watches as his '83 Mitsubishi is inspected by Joe
Sposito, left, and David Denton, right, of Dr. D's. Mobile repair
services such as Dr. D's offer same-day on-site repair at home, work
or on the road.
Color photo by Charlie Meads
Heritage Store
Michelle Richardson of Norfolk receives a chair massage from the
Heritage Store masseur Bob Clapp. Richardson was in the Virginia
Beach store for a psychic reading. The store began 26 years ago
selling health food. Now it offers crystals and gems, a masage
service, psychic consultations and classes for activities such as
yoga and tai-chi.
Color photo by L. Todd Spencer
Cooley Discount Pharmacy
Nathan Berger consults a map before going out to deliver
prescriptions to Colley Discount Pharmacy customers. Offeing extra
services such as free delivery is important for a business to be
viable, says Abby Buchberg, a merchandise buyer for the Norfolk
drugstore.
Color photos by Motoya Nakamura
Local businesses, such as the Kiln Creek Farm Fresh, are customizing
services to meet the demanding times and tastes of their
patrons.[color cover photo]
Farm Fresh
Customers at the Kiln Creek Farm Fresh can get salad and hot food
on-the-go at the Gold Cafe express bar. The supermarket's offerings
differ from branch to branch and are tailored to area consumers.<
by CNB