Customer Empowerment

3328 Words7 Pages

Customer Empowerment

The Choice is Yours

The Internet has permanently changed the relationship between

consumers and the retail industry. Electronic commerce has provided

consumers with more options, more alternatives and more opportunities

than ever before.

Consumers are no longer limited to physically visiting "main street"

or "big-box" retailers. Instead, they are able to choose from products

and services from companies large and small, located all over the

world, without leaving their homes.

Tangible points of comparison between retailers, which now can be

automatically aggregated by software buying agents in seconds, include

more than selection and price. Shipping costs, return policies,

privacy practices and personalization of products are examples of

tangible points of comparison.

Equally as important are intangible points of comparison, specifically

the customer experience. Everything from the look and feel of the home

page to the shopping and buying process defines this experience. It

encompasses everything the customer sees, clicks, reads, or otherwise

interacts with. The customer experience is the key to dotcom survival.

Consider the options available at the Land's End Web site. Consumers

can browse the catalog online or shop with a friend, speak with a

customer representative on the phone or online, create a model to try

on clothes virtually, ask questions about specific products, place an

order and track past orders. Concern over the customer experience has

clearly driven the design of the Land's End business model, creating

numerous options unavailable in the physical world.

Of course, this overlooks the most powerful and fundamental option to

consumers on the Internet: the ability to leave one store and enter

another within seconds. And if a satisfactory purchase cannot be made,

online auctions provide alternative shopping venues that directly

compete with many traditional retailers.

Central to the creation of a positive, unique and personalized

shopping experience are technologies employed to remember customer

preferences. Tracked preferences help expedite, and sometimes fully

automate, the shopping process while offering targeted marketing and

discounts.

Online chat, bulletin boards, user reviews, auction sites, consumer

feedback, online help and other customer-oriented features are als...

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...e the price was just too high (because of the pricing error). I

asked him if he could change it and he said no. He also knew that they

would be throwing out the oranges soon if they didn’t sell. His

frustration in not being able to correct such an obvious problem in

his own department was evident.

The Lesson.

I tell these two contrasting stories because they relate directly to

customer satisfaction and profitability as a function of employee

empowerment. Two good grocery chains with two very different

approaches to management.

At Fresh Fields, every employee is aware of his or her impact on

profit and is empowered to take independent action to maximize it.

The decision to give two expensive cookies to a customer is not an

insignificant decision. It is a business decision that may influence

the relationship between a store and its customer.

Unfortunately, it is a decision that most employees in traditionally

managed organizations have no authority to make.

My hope is that these two examples will clearly show how customers and

profits can be won or lost when employees are enabled to take

ownership of day-to-day problems. Once again, it just makes sense.

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