A champion of customers

Connecting with your customers is important, especially in a world where so much can be purchased on the Internet instead of inside your independent garden center. We asked consultants who’ve worked with Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Federal Express and Coca Cola, and a customer service expert from Zappos to share their insights about how to keep customers happy. Here’s how you can maximize your garden center’s look, feel and employee morale to keep shoppers coming back to you instead of turning to their screens.
 

3 Tips to improve your customer experience

The power of stories
Garden center managers know that pleasing customers starts with employee satisfaction and empowerment. Engaging employees by having them share their success stories is an age-old trick that’ll never go away.

Sharing ideas that have worked in the past can help motivate the rest of the team, and in turn, create a better collective outcome, says former Disney consultant Dennis Snow, who managed Disney’s Coca Cola and ExxonMobile customer relations. A hypothetical example: An employee shares a story with his team about a customer who was looking for a specific plant. Instead of finding that plant and getting the customer out the door, the employee asks more questions about what effect it would have for his garden and what he is trying to accomplish. After learning more, the employee finds a better plant for the customer's garden. Then he shares his accomplishment with his co-workers.

“It accomplishes two things. It helps the customer experience get better because you’re constantly improving it, but it shows your employees you’re valuing their input so they feel more engaged in what they do,” Snow says.
 

The little things matter
Sometimes small steps on a retailer’s part can make a big difference in a customer’s experience when it comes to convenience. “Especially just looking at websites, it’s really hard to find [a company’s] phone number, which can be really frustrating when you have a problem and you need somebody to help you with it,” says Maura Dailey, a senior manager in Zappos’ customer loyalty team. “So at Zappos, we for years now have had our phone number on every single page of our website so it’s super easy for our customers to reach us if they need to.”

Another example is extending return policies. At Zappos, customers have up to a year to return something. “Most customers don’t take that long, but you will have some customers who forget they even have [an item],” Dailey says. “Little things like that can make the customer experience a lot better.”
 

Make your customers “information rich”
Establish an effort to give the customer more than a product when they leave your IGC. “The reason people go online is they want to learn more,” says Ron Kaufman, customer service consultant for Federal Express and Microsoft, and author of “Uplifting Service.”

“You can help them with that. So if somebody buys a particular something, you may think, ‘Well, it’s up to the manufacturer to put an instruction manual inside,’” Kaufman says. “But you as a garden center can also put up or print out and hand out very useful instructional information: how to choose, how to use, how to apply.” The key is not to simply reprint these examples, but to make them specific to the garden center.

IKEA is one such example, Kaufman says. No matter where the product was made, when it arrives, the instructions are written and designed a certain way to reflect IKEA’s brand.

“What is your garden center’s style of teaching, educating, informing and assisting customers? You might say, ‘We don’t have one. We’re just selling products.’ That’s the problem,” he says.

3 Ways you'll ruin your customer's experience

Don’t “process” your customer
Sometimes the daily grind of people revolving through your garden center can cause things to be repetitive; but you are no robot, and you must remember your customers aren’t either.

“Here’s the difference at a checkout: This happens to us all the time. You’re checking out and the employee says to you, ‘Have a nice day,’ as they’re turning to the next customer. What they’re really saying is, ‘You’re dismissed,’ even though they said the right words, ‘Have a nice day,’” Snow says.

Looking a customer in the eye and smiling takes no more time, and instead turns that moment into a connection.

“Don’t assume you’re selling plants and flowers because that’s not what you’re doing,” he says. “You’re partnering with your customers in making their home more beautiful.”

Never argue
Sometimes customers are wrong. Sometimes they forget, or even lie, Kaufman says. But once you begin arguing with them, you’ve already lost. “You can agree with them on the importance of what they value without necessarily agreeing on the details of what they say has happened,” he says.

For example, if a customer complains that a product was delivered at the tail-end of a delivery window and is upset, you can show you care by saying, “You have a very good point. I understand your time is valuable. I understand scheduling really matters, especially for someone who has a busy life like you.”

And the idea that the customer is complaining in the first place is a gift, he says. “They have the option of not telling you, but instead going online and damaging your reputation. Orient yourself for the whole year to say that a complaining customer is my best friend because they’re actually saying to you, ‘You can win me back.’”

 

Don’t forget to have fun
Dailey swears by the old saying, “Happy employees equal happy customers.”

“Most customers are asking for some kind of service because they need help and they’re having trouble with something, so if you’re also in as state of unhappiness, then you’re not going to help them in any way,” she says. “So if you can lighten the mood in a way, that definitely helps.”

Zappos employees have even sung songs to customers on the phone in the call center to liven things up, she says. But what’s most important is what Zappos calls PEC, or personal emotional connection. It means listening to cues, like a baby crying in the background or understanding from customers’ voices that they’re in a rush. It gives the impression, “Hey, I’m not a robot. I’m a real person,” Dailey says. “I think it always helps the mood a little bit.”