In addition to this, we include the relationship that is created between your staff members and the customers that walk through the door, as everything
does go hand in hand in that respect.

Without the proper relationship you will find that customers
will simply go elsewhere and the only time when this does not apply is if you are selling something
that is specialised and you are the only person that does so. However,
thanks to the Internet this is becoming
almost impossible, so every retail manager has to come to terms with the fact that they need to focus on the relationship and nurture it as much as possible.

Of course it is going to irritate
you and you are unlikely
to want to go back there - so what does that then do for the manager of that store and their targets?

However, to fully understand
the importance of the relationship we need to look at the flip side of things, should it not go as well as you had hoped.

No
relationship means no loyalty

This is perhaps the most obvious point in that if you have no relationship with a customer
then it is wrong to expect that they will be loyal to you. It is important to remember that they need to feel as if they have that connection
to come back to you and that can only be achieved through building
the correct relationship. Companies spend huge amounts of money trying to convince
people to become loyal customers,
so if you fail to build the relationship, then you are effectively wasting a huge amount of money in the process.

No word of mouth marketing

One of the best things about building a relationship with a customer
is that they are more likely to recommend you to other people, even without thinking
about it. There is no doubt that word of mouth marketing
is still extremely powerful and yet if you do not work on building that relationship, then they are more likely to tell people to stay away from you rather than the other way around.

No desire to spend more than they intended

If there is no sense of a strong customer
relationship, or any kind of relationship, then there will be no sense of the customer
breaking free with their spending
habits in your store. In actual fact, they are more likely to leave if their needs are not being met or they may purchase the absolute bare minimum that they require and then leave, never to return.

Build a relationship and the size of the average shopping
basket will increase
accordingly.

Just with these three points, as there are additional
points that could be discussed
depending on the industry you are working in, you can see that they are not exactly going to be beneficial for your store. The main thing affected
is the turnover of your store and obviously this is something
that you have to maintain
or increase in your position
as the manager. In other words, you need to make sure that everybody
is doing everything that they can to build those relationships.

8.2    How to Build that Relationship in an Effective
Manner

When it comes to building that relationship in a professional and effective manner, it is going to be a bit easier than you initially thought.

We are not talking about you becoming
best friends with the customers, but there are a number of simple
steps that you, as the manager, have to make sure that your staff are following.

In order to best explain this, we need to take you through the key steps.

Be friendly

One of the main things that customers
expect whenever they walk into a store is for the staff to be friendly to them. It is not necessary to get involved
in a long drawn out conversation, but merely acknowledging their existence and saying hello can make a huge difference.

Be helpful

Another key area that has been identified
by customers is the need for them to feel that the employees of the store have been extremely helpful if any assistance has been required.
You should be seen as going out of your way to make sure that the customer is able to obtain whatever
they need without it being an issue. If you look at reviews of stores, then you will often find that one of the things that they mention is the way in which the staff were helpful.

It is your job as the manager to make sure that each member of staff is aware of their responsibilities when it comes to assisting
customers.

This will have a major impact on the way in which they feel about your company and it will make all the difference to the relationship that they have with you.

Make sure that the store is up to scratch

This is a point that is often overlooked by many, but it is important to a customer that the store meets their expected standards. By this we mean that the store is tidy, it is well stocked, and it is clean. In other words, it fits in with what we said earlier regarding
creating the correct
retail environment, because the benefits
that this can bring to your store should never be underestimated.

Focus on customer satisfaction

A happy and satisfied customer
is one that is going to be beneficial to your store for a number of reasons. However,
too often stores will focus on other things that detract from the simple fact that without customers,
you will find that you have no store. Customer satisfaction means that you have to constantly discover
what it is that they are looking for when they come to your shop. What do they expect to see or expect to experience when they are about to spend money with you? Finding out this information and then implementing plans that can make it a reality will only serve you well and boost your ability to further strengthen
that relationship.

Once again, the actual way in which you build this relationship with your customers
is going to depend on the type of store that you are involved
with, as different
industries have different
customers and their expectations will vary. It is up to you as the manager to correctly identify
what your customers
want in their relationship and to then make sure that those things are in place so that your store can go from strength to strength.

The clue is in your job description,
the manager, in other words you have to manage the relationship and if required provide your staff with
everything that they need to make sure that this is something that happens, to stop people from moving to your competition.

FACT

The top five retailers
by turnover are: Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Morrisons, Marks
& Spencer, John Lewis Partnership

Source: retailappointment.co.uk

8.3    How to Deal with Issues that Arise in the Relationship

Aside from trying to nurture that strong relationship, it makes sense for you to expect that something
will go wrong and some kind of issue will rear its rather ugly head.

However, just because there is a problem, it does not have to mean that the relationship has come to an end. Instead, how you deal with that problem is going to make a huge difference to the future direction of the relationship and it is always possible
for things to be turned around in ways that you never expected.

The key here is in how you deal with the problems and one of the most testing things about being in retail management, is that customers
that are irate or upset about something
will tend to ask to speak to the manager rather than dealing with the member of staff in front of them. This means that you need to be well versed in handling complaints so that, by the end of it, the relationship between the store and the customer has been somewhat resolved.

As the manager, it will be your job to pacify the customer and identify what the root problem is to then determine how best to tackle the issue. By actually acknowledging that there may very well be an issue can get you off to a good start, because
as soon as a customer
feels that they are being ignored it can ultimately
lead to them feeling as if their time with you has come to an end.

However, to better understand the way in which there may be problems in the relationship, we can look at several key examples
and how you would handle that particular situation.

Unable to find a member of staff to help

If a customer
is looking for some help with something
in the store and they are unable to find a member of staff within an adequate period of time, then it is reasonable to assume that people may get rather irate. As the manager, it is your job to calm the situation
by apologising, but do not make up any excuses for why there appears to be a lack of staff working at that time. You need to ask what they require help with, see if they are content with the help that they are eventually given, and then ask if there is anything else that they require help with.

Problem with returning a product

Different companies have different opinions
when it comes to returning
items and as the manager
you need to know what your own retail store says should happen in this instance.
However, each member of staff has to be made aware of what your procedures are and it is your responsibility to make sure that this is the case. However,
if there are still problems,
then it is going to be left to you to clear up any issues.

In this instance, you would have to explain
your returns policy and reasons
why your store was perhaps unable to accept the products.

Make sure that you show them the part of the policy that corresponds to the reason in order to counteract their arguments. You should also remain professional at all times as this is key.

Now, we may have only mentioned two things here, but they have been noted as the two main issues that people will complain
about and that you will have to deal with. However, other things will include the belief that they have been overcharged where you need to rectify
any mistake, or that they have some misunderstanding that has to be explained
in  more  detail. 
If  this  does 
indeed happen, then you are best to gloss over the mistake
and do not labour the point too much as that will only further hamper the relationship with the customer.

The one thing to remember is that very few issues are unable to be resolved.
As long as you handle these situations in a professional manner then there is no reason why you cannot rectify them and allow everybody to just move on. However,
the one thing that you really have to avoid doing is to allow an issue to brew and boil up inside the customer
because the longer that their issues are not addressed, the more stress and strain will be put on you when it comes to trying to pull things back and to turn them back into a loyal customer.

8.4    The Difference it Makes to Your Store

Finally, we look at the difference that this makes to your store because
without the correct relationships, you are only going to head one way and that is down.

Customers enjoy a sense of loyalty with certain companies
and that is why you have so many businesses offering rewards for those loyal individuals that continue to go there and give them their custom. In other words, build the correct relationship and you will build your customer base and your store turnover will increase as a direct result.

However, it goes further than that. The way in which you forge relationships is going to reflect well on your store in so many different ways and that will help you to not only build a strong and loyal base, but they will tell others how wonderful and amazing the staff is, how welcoming
the store is, how good the prices and products are, and so on.

Customers that you have built a strong relationship with can effectively become your own marketing tools via word of mouth marketing and that in itself is worth all the work that has to go into developing the relationship in the first place. Just think about that for a second.

If you do well with one customer
then they are going to tell others about you and invite them into your store and spend money. It saves you much work when it comes to advertising and marketing if you can get other customers to do the hard work on your behalf.

What we can say here is that without a relationship you have no customers. Without
customers, you have no store and that is the reason why this is so important;
all summarised in a nutshell.
However, it is up to you to make sure that you are able to nurture
those relationships and develop them in such a way that the customer feels almost obliged
to come to your store time and time again because of the positive experiences that they have previously enjoyed.

MODULE SUMMARY

In this module we have focused on something that is extremely
important which is the building
of the relationship between your store and your customers. This is something
that has to work well for the future of your store as the benefits that come from it are astronomical. However,
the flip side of that is also true and there is no doubt that each and every store, no matter the size of the parent company, builds their success on the relationships that they have with their customers.

Give people a good time and they will keep coming back to you. Give them poor and rude service and bad products and you can wave them goodbye forever.