Over the weekend I belatedly added to my winter wardrobe that new staple, a sleekly designed, precisely fitted, insulated black coat. I got mine at Searle, where they do a creditable version that's cut well for me, and the experience of buying it was an unexpectedly illuminating demonstration of modern marketing and sales.
Searle fashions are sold at Bergdorf's and Saks and other places, and also at Searle's own retail stores, of which there are half a dozen in Manhattan, arrayed along the East Side from 5th Avenue and 21st Street to Madison Avenue and 84th. I called ahead to a couple of the stores to be sure they had it in the size I thought would work. (I was guessing based on having tried on a friend's.)
My Saturday travels took me to the downtown 5th Avenue stores, but when I tried the coat on I wasn't sure that the fit was right. A size smaller might be better, I thought. The salesman I was talking to quickly determined that they'd just sold their last one in that size. Then, almost as quickly, he learned that no other store in Manhattan had one. But there was one in the warehouse in Long Island City.
That I was not staying in the store's neighborhood was no hindrance. Basically what he said was -- pick a store and we'll have it there for you in an hour. I named a store -- the one three miles uptown on Madison -- and he quickly verified that they also had one in stock in the bigger size, just in case. So I could pay for the coat now, arrive uptown at my convenience, try on both sizes, and walk out with the one that fit best. No fuss, no muss, no extra delivery charges.
What retelling this doesn't fully capture is how effortless and almost instantaneous it all was, or how gracious was everybody I dealt with, including everyone at the uptown store, who had no connection with the sale except to serve as a delivery point and a place for me to try the coats on.
What the experience showed me was a sales staff with a complete 360 mastery of their business and the ability to deploy it seamlessly to make and close a sale. Searle has combined its website with a transparent inventory control and monitoring system carried on its intranet (and the training to use it all) to make every person on the selling floor knowledgeable about the company's entire inventory. And they've facilitated movement of inventory from warehouse to store, and cooperation between the stores, to make the most effective use of that knowledge.
True, many of their fashions are available at high-end department stores, but why go there when Searle's own stores can provide this level of service? And compare my experience to the more usual one of convincing a sales person to call around to other stores (if you can), and get busy salespeople there to check their own inventory... or, more often, schlepping from one store to another yourself in the hope of finding the item you want.
Being able to do what they did made that sale. And it made me a happy customer. I didn't have to come back, I didn't have to wait (and maybe go somewhere else to buy a competing product). Almost anything that might have stood in the way of the close had been anticipated and provided for.
There's a moral here for all small businesses, not just retail operations with a half dozen locations in one city.
It's vital to know all the factors necessary to make a sale, and every bit as vital to give the people who are your front line control over them all. To do less is to fight with one hand tied behind your back. The requirements are different for different businesses, but the principle remains. Not just know your customer thoroughly, but put yourself in a position to meet your customer's needs as (seemingly) effortlessly as you can.
Good story and analysis, Beth. Maybe you are too young to remember when customer service meant this kind of attention and follow-through. Having just completed a frustrating couple of hours trying to make travel arrangements, I long for the days when you could rely on someone who knew what they were doing and were willing to help you. And, as you point out, this approach is not only nice, it can be profitable, too.
Posted by: Diane | January 16, 2009 at 06:33 PM