Fresh pair of eyes

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that cost us the most money in our businesses. Hellen Ward discusses the importance of looking at your set-up from an outside perspective

A fresh pair of eyes can often find problems”, the saying goes, and that is very true of not just the business we are in, but any commercial venture where the bosses don’t spend enough time at the coalface.

Picture the scene… I am at B&M in Portsmouth (think a cross between Poundland and Wilko if you’ve never had the pleasure) on my weekly Saturday shopping trip with my mother. It sells everything from garden furniture to baked beans, so we go and stock up to save her money on her grocery essentials.

It’s the type of place you might go in to get tea bags, but end up coming out with an inflatable pop-up camping tent and a pasta maker – you know the drill (a middle aisle of Lidl scenario)!

There are wire baskets by the door and outside there are rows of big shopping trolleys that require a £1 coin. Great – except that nobody has coins anymore. So, like every time we’ve ever shopped there, we carry a wire basket each. By the time we have done one aisle, my 83-year-old mum is struggling to carry her basket, so I take it from her and am now juggling two, albeit unsuccessfully. Incidentally, so are most of the other customers, using their children to balance potential purchases in their arms, themselves laden with stuff.

We struggle up and down the aisles and I can’t help but notice the many, many bargains I would have happily picked up – except I can’t because I can’t carry them.

My mum and I moan about this to each other every time we go, wondering why they don’t have the pull-along floor trolleys like Lidl, which are like large baskets you don’t have to carry. We decide to find out.

When we get to the till, we ask the disinterested cashier. She is still in her teens, and while we have been waiting in the queue, we’ve been subjected to a number of conversations between her and her colleague at another till, all within earshot of the poor, largely ignored customers. They have been complaining about a) the manager b) how tired they are c) how long before they go on their breaks, in between asking each other what they are doing when they knock off. She robotically asks if we’d like a bag but doesn’t bother to listen to the answer and so forgets to give us one.

Persistent problem

Regardless, I decide to instigate the chat. Not that I am expecting her to show the slightest interest but because I don’t want to leave the store before finding out why a huge chain like this has overlooked that something as basic as the trolleys they provide is having such a profoundly negative impact on their turnover. Do the powers that be know? And do they care?

“Why don’t you have pull-along trolleys, dear?” ventures my mum. She ignores her. My mum asks again. “I don’t know what you mean – it’s all kicking off in here today”. I explain our point. She repeats that she doesn’t know and that it’s all kicking off in here today. We can’t help but chuckle, but in seriousness it made me feel quite sad.

“Business owners and managers CAN’T GRUMBLE about their team’s service skills if they DON’T BOTHER TO SHOW THEM, or if they don’t put themselves in the CUSTOMER’S SHOES ”

Sad that those employees are working for a company they don’t care about. Not only do they not care about the company’s customers, they don’t care about their jobs.

It’s not their fault, it’s the company’s for not training people properly, not creating an environment where people know what’s expected of them, and not setting the expectations in the first place. And for not creating a culture where staff are made to feel that their feedback is important and will be listened to because I know that as soon as I tell her, she won’t bother passing my comments on to anybody more senior.

Expensive issues

Once we’re in the car, we start totting up just how much we would have spent if we’ve been given the opportunity. Then my commercial brain starts calculating the footfall and, therefore, the weekly, monthly and annual loss of this simple ergonomic part of the shopping experience being overlooked, and it’s mega.

Young people who may have never experienced old-school service need to be shown what “good” looks like. Business owners and managers can’t grumble about their service skills if they don’t bother to show them, or if they don’t put themselves in the customer’s shoes occasionally and look at their offering with fresh eyes. Recently, we had a young team member who I overheard telling another assistant, “I’m soooo bored.” Rather than ignoring it and letting my blood boil, I tackled it head on. I told her that it’s not acceptable to say that under any circumstances, let alone within earshot of the boss. Hopefully, she learned a lesson.

Facing facts

We know it’s easier to turn a blind eye and not call people out on their behaviour. It’s a pain to have to constantly pick people up on things, and intensely frustrating – I could have said to her that I was the one that was bored of having to pull her up! – but if we don’t, there will be some customer somewhere looking at us with fresh eyes, and they might not like what they see. And that’s too risky for any business.

P.S. An update on the issue of charging cancellation fees, which I wrote about last month… We had a client cancel a five-hour appointment for hair extensions on the same day, citing an extreme emergency. Lost time is lost turnover, yet because she’d booked online at the standard setting we only received a 54p deposit. We’ve since made a policy to charge 50% upfront for all hair extension appointments – non-refundable. Out of bad can come effective policy change, and more stringent enforcement. Fresh eyes work every time.

Hellen Ward is managing director of Richard Ward Hair & Metrospa in London, vice president of The Hair & Beauty Charity and co-founder of Salon Employers Association (SEA).