Retail Business Reviews in store and online

Peakinsight offer a number of services to help you understand how to improve your business, with practical plans driven by customer insights and our own shared retail expertise.

All of our services have been developed to give you a real action plan, created with you, to help drive footfall, sales, profits, and customer satisfaction.

Our programme offers a full retail improvement experiences, with different packages designed to suit all budgets and needs.

1.Independently review:

Shopping experience

Shop layout

Online layout

Customer experience

Sales opportunities

Profits, stock control & costs

Leadership & Team skills/knowledge

Personal development

  • I want experienced and expert advice
  • I need to understand what I need to do differently & what I could do better
  • It’s lonely being an independent and I want impartial advice
  • How do I get more customers?
  • How do I get my customers to visit me more frequently?
  • How can I get my customers to spend more with me?
  • How can I know why people don’t shop with me?
  • How do I know if I’m selling what customers want to buy?
  • Why do customers come in to browse and leave without buying from me?
  • I can’t afford to advertise, and it never brings me, new customers, when I do
  • What’s all this about ‘social media’ – Twitter etc?
  • How do I get my Team to do things in the way I like?
  • I can’t leave the shop so how do I continually keep up to date?
  • How do I know if I’m using my shop space effectively?
  • It’s too expensive to set up and run a website
  • How can I reduce my costs and increase my profits?
  • How do I get my landlord to understand it’s tough at the moment?

We will spend time initially with you, looking at your total retail experience.

We will then create an action plan with you based on their review and your retailing skills profile feedback – this will be exclusively for you, and will help you grow your business profitability. We focus on your customers needs and wants – always and never lose sight of this. Always promise to give World-class customer service!

Every retailer today knows that the service they give to their customers will be their making or breaking. Products and shiny stores aren’t enough any more if you want to survive and thrive.

The larger retailers invest £millions into training programmes for their Managers and Teams, and often cannot get a consistent level of service in each of their stores.

As an independent retailer, you have a great advantage. You probably see, and work with, your team every day – you are able to see how every customer is treated. You can make sure that every customer experiences fantastic service. They will go on to tell their family and friends – your very best advertisement!

We can make all this dead hard . . . . or beautifully simple!

The basic minimum must be in place first; don’t pass GO without these!

  • A clean, tidy well presented shop and team and represented as such online
  • A 100% welcome both face to face and online
  • A team who love their work and care about your business

The next level – your team as your Ambassadors – a team who:

  • Are proud of what you sell, love your products or services, and tell their friends and family too
  • Really want to get to know your customers and their needs, lifestyles and interests – they genuinely care about them, and your customers grow to trust them
  • Are comfortable with, and happy to make, helpful suggestions to your customers
  • Get excited about new products or services, and often give you tips on ‘the latest big thing’ or ‘must have’

And you’re on the way to World Class when:

  • You handle complaints calmly, showing that you are serious about resolving the problem. When your customer is satisfied that their complaint has been properly addressed, thank them for bringing the problem to your attention. Remember, no amount of advertising can repair the damage done by failing to properly address a customer’s concern. Even more damaging to a small business is the “silent complainer.” That is the customer who simply walks out of your shop without saying a word, and you never see them again. These silent complainers have friends. They are typically going to tell 25 of them about their experience, so make sure it’s a goodno 9 one!
  • You offer to deliver to their home or workplace if they can’t get to your shop, or you were out of stock of their favourites when they visited
  • You follow-up on a customer’s big purchase – ask the11m how they’re getting on with it either next time they visit, or if you have their contact details, why not give them a call or e-mail them?
  • You frequently ask for customer feedback so you can continually delight them – encourage them to use Facebook, Twitter, other social media etc. to leave you a comment. Ask them when they’re in your shop – don’t be shy about this as they’ll feel valued if you show you value their feedback. Invite them to a focus group or a customer evening with drinks and nibbles. Ask someone to mystery shop your shop to get feedback when you’re not there
  • You use your customer database in a way that is helpful for them, not just you! Make sure it’s relevant to their likes, interests and lifestyle. There is a balance to achieve here between being welcome or annoying so ask your customers how they’d like to hear from you
  • You actively listen to your customers to understand their needs – don’t assume you know! Ask questions to help you really understand
  • You remember their favourites, and show them what’s new – if you run a food shop then let them taste new lines to encourage them to try something different
  • You greet your regular customers by name whenever they visit you – everyone loves to be recognised and acknowledged
  • You give your customers honest advice – shoppers are far more inclined to re-visit you if you do. Don’t be tempted to let a customer leave with something unsuitable just to secure a sale – especially important for fashion and beauty retailers
  • You have a website which is inspiring, informative, easy to navigate, and secure to shop
  • You have a loyalty scheme that rewards your loyal customers – and keep it really simple. Help your customers save for a freebie or a discount on future purchases.

As we say, we can make all this dead hard . . . . or beautifully simple!

It’s much easier to delight your customers than you may think. It doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated.

As long as you keep your customers at the heart of everything you do and consistently apply your care for, and genuine interest in them, you will be rewarded with their loyal custom, and they’ll tell many more people – the cheapest and best advertising for your business!

2.Provide feedback and recommendations from:

  • The Retail Visit
  • The Retailing Skills Profile
  • Team & Customer Surveys
  • Website reviews
  • Social Media reviews
  • Financial Reviews

An understanding of these common reasons will help you grow your business, and avoid the same mistakes.

The 8 reasons why Independent Retailers fail:

  1. Not knowing who your target Customer is
  2. Forgetting to market their products and/or services
  3. Not having a motivated and trained team
  4. Being tied to one physical location and online offering
  5. Not utilising data and opinion
  6. Having a poorly merchandised store or online e-commerce website
  7. Too much focus on price rather than service
  8. Trying to be too generalistic and not finding their niche

Do make sure that you look at each of the reasons and challenge yo13urself to ensure you are not failing your customers in anyway.
We can help you look through them in ‘bite-size’ sections with clear actions to improve – do make sure that you look at them all in your priority order.

Lifetime Value’ of a customer13
Knowing your customer takes time and effort, but it is worth every second of your and your team’s time. Every penny that you invest in the customer will be returned in multiples if you make your customers happy and fulfil their needs.

Gaining a customer for t18heir life time is an ongoing process that can be
implemented in many ways – the main idea is to think about the total value the customer will bring to your business, and use some of the profits from that regular customer as an incentive or discount
to ‘earn’ their loyalty.
You will need to ‘pay’ for the loyalty of the customer via discounts or other ways, but all of these will cost your business and you will need to make an investment into customer loyalty.

Visualise your customers16
In order to understand your customer, and be able to sell the products and services they want, at the price they want to pay, you need to ‘get under the skin’ of your customer – really understand what makes them buy your products or services or indeed experiences.

To do this you need to fi
nd out about their lifestyle. Ask them, directly or indirectly, what are their interests, sports and hobbies etc. Use this understanding to model a picture of their lives – look for trends in the information. Maybe most of your customers like cookery, golf, Formula 1 or painting – if so  then make sure your products and stores attract people with those interests.

With the power of search engines like google 15and all of the free tools that are available now, such as  google analytics, google +, social media insights, to name a few; these tools will help you gather your primary and secondary research so much easier now and will really help put together your customer profiles.

Use pinterest to start putting putting together pictures and ideas of each of your individual customer profiles. Give them nicknames and get as close to understanding your target customers as you can.

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