Love them or lose them

Addressing the SFMTA AGM in November 2015' Jonathan pointed out things that YOU and your team can do to deliver a better service experience was the focus of his talk. He immediately put everyone at their ease by revealing that the overall satisfaction rate in the Scottish survey was 84% and this compare to a 77% rate for the serve over counters and farm shops in the UK.

His mystery shoppers were asked to answer a simple question to gauge reaction on exit; if this was your local store would you be a regular customer? 76% answered yes, which is good but what about the one in four where the answer was no? Why did that happen and this could flavour opinion on all the whole craft butcher sector and so indirectly affecting everyone.

His examination started outside the shops where first impressions are important. Was the window attractive? 62% were given pass marks. Jonathan suggested that you walk in your customers shoes and get your team involved to assess how others see us.

“Ask them to walk down the street and approach the shop from every angle. Write down what looks good and what needs improving. I guarantee they never do it but with Christmas coming up it is time to freshen it up a bit.

“Butchers and farm shops are hopeless at promoting what they are really good at” said Jonathan. “For butchers it is natural what you do but for customers it isn't.” He backed that up by highlighting that only 61% had signage to indicate Home Made Produce. Only 57% had signage that indicated the shop sold local produce. You have to promote this better because that is the uniqueness and what you are all about.

“If you go to supermarkets they are claiming British made but you can say local made and you must get better at promoting that. Less than half promoted being a member of Scottish Craft Butchers, surely being part of an association like that is something that you should be really proud of and it should be something you are promoting.”

Next for scrutiny was the personal experience. None of the shops surveyed wore name badges and maybe that could be defended on food safety grounds but there are name badges or even woven named clothing that can be deemed safe. This it was claimed creates a greater feeling of personal attention. Jonathan continued:-

“We know that name badges do have a massive effect. Out of 300,000 mystery shops surveyed if you are wearing a name badge you get a 12% better overall experience than if you don't wear a name badge. If the staff member is displaying their name they feel more responsible and the customers' perception is that this is a more personal experience because they know their name.

“If you don't do it how are people going to get to know your staff. You might say that they are all locals but what about the new customers, what about the ones who are not local and the ones that you are trying to attract in? Name badges are really important; if your staff have their name on, customers know your name, you can quite rightly ask them their name, then you start a relationship and then that whole love thing starts to happen. That is how you create loyalty, it is a really simple way.”

Selling more was the next topic. Are your staff order makers or order takers? Order makers start building up a conversation and start building up an order by talking about products. In the survey 74% attempted to start a conversation but just 64% asked open ended questions to define needs (when is it for, how many are you cooking for?) It is about building rapport and the crux is attempting to upsell but In the survey just under a third attempted to upsell.

“It is not a McDonalds things asking if you want fries with that, it is just creating a conversation asking great questions and matching the answers to the question to provide a solution. It is as simple as that.

“If you ask great questions and take an interest in them, they like us and if they like us they come back to us.”

Seek feedback, ask every customer two very simple questions:-
What do we do well? How can we improve? Find out if it was the customer running your business what would they do different. Supermarkets pay £100,000s every year to get yet butchers can do it for nothing.

Jonathan ended by asking everyone present to write the letters PMMFS on a post it note. Then stick it to their foreheads.

“Every customer has got his on their head. It stands for 'Please make me feel special'. Every member of staff should see that written on the forehead of your customers and comment on their jacket or tie or 'I saw you down the street the other day, you must have had a great time'; whatever it is your competition can never get anywhere near this. Please make people feel special is what it is all about.”

Jonathan used a quote from Charles Darwin as a call to action:-
“The species that survived were not the most intelligent, they were the adaptable to change.”

In customer service it is all about change and keeping ahead by constantly changing and improving. “If we do the same old thing, guess what, you get the same results. If we want the overall score to go up to the 90% mark then we need to make a few changes.”