Before Shanda Jerrett opened GumDrops Wet Weather Boutique in late 2007, she thought carefully about the customer experience she wanted to provide. Located in Vancouver’s beachside Kitsilano neighbourhood, her shop greets visitors with a colourful display of fashion-forward raincoats, gumboots and outdoor accessories. Ms. Jerrett says GumDrops appeals to the emotions by evoking memories of early childhood – and offering an escape from the West Coast’s frequently gloomy weather.
In the same spirit, she and her staff aren’t looking for a quick sale. Instead, Ms. Jerrett explains, they make their customers feel like friends. “If someone walks in and they have an awesome experience – they’re just looking and I don’t have what they want and I can find it for them at another store, I’m more than happy,” she says. “My job is to fulfill a customer’s needs, whether or not that customer is giving me money straightaway or they’re giving me word of mouth.”
This low-pressure strategy appears to be working for GumDrops, which has never run an advertising campaign. But the company is also smart about gathering information that will help it build customer relationships. Staff match shoppers with the right product by asking them how they will use it. And when Ms. Jerrett swipes someone’s credit card, she thanks them by their first name. “When they come back in next time, I always have it in my mind [to ask], ‘Oh, how did that trip go? How did it work out? Was everything good?’”
To make her business grow and sharpen its customer experience, Ms. Jerrett is reorganizing. Besides running the shop, she oversees GumDrops’ online storefront. Ms. Jerrett – who also designs her own raincoats – has learned that each of these tasks is a full-time job. Another challenge is that calls from the website land in the shop, which isn’t set up to deal with them.
In search of the right balance, Ms. Jerrett has decided to separate GumDrops’ production, e-commerce and bricks-and-mortar retail divisions. Starting this month, she is franchising the shop and handling website calls through a dedicated 1-800 number.
For GumDrops, service is just one facet of customer experience, or CX, which encompasses everything that happens between a firm and its customers. Large or small, many companies lack a big-picture view of CX. They may also forget that their relationship with a customer doesn’t end with money changing hands. Instead, it takes a new turn when that buyer becomes a user who expects support and recognition.
A company deals with customers through several channels, notes Tedde van Gelderen
Sometimes, a company will favour a particular channel, he adds. Mr. Van Gelderen says Canadian Tire used to offer online shopping, but now its website is only for product searches. “The clear signal to anybody who interacts with that company is that, ‘Well, we don’t take the Web seriously – we don’t even try to make it on an equal footing with the bricks-and-mortar version.’”
