Read about different ways of creating brand advocacy

This is a follow up to my last blog entry (see http://mytimeinretail.blogspot.com/2015/10/see-how-converting-loyal-customers-into.html) where I looked at converting customers into loyal customers and then into brand advocates. Today's blog is concerned with different strategies for enacting this conversion. There are many different ways of doing this, and as a retailer you will have to find your own way but I'll look at some examples. It's all about creating that relationship with your customers that transform the way they feel about you and how they shop with you.

Loyalty schemes

These have become more abundant in all forms of retail after the success of the Tesco Clubcard. Every coffee shop, large and small, will give you a free coffee after you buy 6 or 8 or 10 with them. But for me, a loyalty scheme should be about more than just trying to twist someone's arm to come back. Loyalty is one thing, but were looking at brand advocacy as the target here. The next step is to offer your loyal customers something that other customers can get. This can be one-off products that the rest of your customers can't buy, invites to exclusive events, the first chance to see new products or another exclusive that only your very best customers can get hold of. These customers will talk positively about you and some will become advocates.

Events

As I've mentioned above, having an event that gives exclusive content to your best customers creates brand advocacy. A new product launch, products that you just can't get anywhere else or additional benefits to chosen customers promotes advocacy. If you have a guest list of certain customers that gain access to these feature then you're creating the next level of customer. If your best customers get a free cup of tea, a personal shopper, somewhere to store their shopping whilst they browse or extended guarantees as a set of examples then they are more likely to return and to tell their friends,

Exclusives

As unintelligent retailers compete more on price and race to the bottom, the intelligent ones are looking onwards and upwards. Exclusives is a huge area to build your advantage over the competition. If you can sell something that no one else sells then the customers of that product will come to you. Of course this means that your sourcing of the product needs to become a focus. Either it's products you make yourself or you need to have an exclusivity conversation with your supplier. Having an exclusive could mean

• a short-term exclusive (for the first month)
• a different design or packaging of an existing product
• a different size to what is available elsewhere

If you then add a high level of customer service, an event or a loyalty scheme to add to your exclusive then you're heading down the road towards brand advocacy.

See how tapping into café culture can reap rewards

There's no doubt that there's a café culture in the UK today. I'm at a large shopping centre today before 10am when the shops open and every café is almost full of people drinking and chatting before embarking on the days shopping. Costa, Starbucks and Nero are the main three chain coffee shops and there are a staggering 3 Starbucks, 2 Caffé Nero and 6 Costa Coffee (yes, six as the vidiprinter used to confirm on the football scores.) Andcthats before you start to add up the Greggs.

And, as usual, this gets me thinking about retail and how all of these things knit together. For instance, there's two stand-alone Costa and the others are situated within other shops-

• Debenhams
• Namco
• Odeon
• WH Smith

And this is where I think that the angle is - using a coffee shop offering to get customers into your store. Of course the big retail players can look at strategic partnerships with the likes of Costa to make this happen but what about independent retailers. Most of my readers are independent retailers and I think that for some businesses, a coffee shop offering could really help their business. By having a quality, well-respected destination for the coffee drinkers you can have a ready-made custom for your store. I visited Lincoln recently and the coffee shop that really caught my eye was upstairs in an art and craft shop. In a quiet early morning when any large numbers of customer traffic was up at the castle and cathedral, this set and craft shop had 20 people browsing and a further 20 in the café - all of whom had walked through the arts and crafts to get there and would walk back through the arts and crafts to leave. In addition, there were art classes advertised on the tables and the café itself was decorated subtlety with arty type things. It was a great way of getting people through the door and spending.

This isn't the solution to all retail woes, but for some retailers with the space and the vision to create this, there's definitely something in this.

Not everything can be bought on the High Street-

Celebration of my 100th Retail blog entry!

It's now reached 100 blog entries for "My Time In  Retail - Where The High Street Goes From Here." To celebrate I will be taking a look back at the first 100 entries and some of the themes that have been developed over the last 100 blogs.

This current entry is number 101, and is a short piece to explain what you will find over the next 3 or 4 blogs from me.

I'll take a look at ongoing themes from the blog and how they knot together into a coherent (hopefully) series that gives retailers everywhere the benefit of my many, many years of experience in working in shops and on the High Street.

I'm looking forward to the next few blog entries - I hope that you are as well!

A stitch in time saves nine applies to business as well

There is such a thing as work that stops more work. For instance, at home yesterday my wife didn't want to take the extra 30 seconds in checking that she had the right log-in details for online banking. She put in the wrong code 3 times, and locked herself out of accessing the account. This prompted a 5 minute telephone call to the bank, passwords being reset and having to effectively re-register through the system to select new passwords and then having to reset access through the apps on both the iPhone and the ipad. In total, approximately 15 minutes of extra work.

And it's like that in retail. Being able to see events before they happen comes from forward-thinking and experience. Having witnessed events unfold before is a good market that they may happen again if left unchecked. Seeing an employee is unhappy or down is the point in time to deal with it - not waiting until they've handed in their notice. The extra work in ensuring that they are happy is a lot less work than dealing with the fallout and the recruitment and training process.  Having that sit down talk and being able to listen and hopefully help one of your team is easier than processing the resignation, doing exit interviews, advertising the role, assessing the applications, conducting the interviews, selecting the applicant, offering the role, completing the paperwork, starting the induction and training the new recruit.

It's just a short blog today, but I must emphasise the point before I go. Every part of your role is determined by decision-making. Even inaction is a decision not to act on a particular issue. The people who work around you will form their opinion of you based on what you do, how you act. It is therefore important that you seek to address issues at the earliest convenient juncture and try to avert situations from becoming things that absorb vast amounts of your time.

And this applies to situations with customers as well. Dealing with potential complaints in a decisive and definite manner will stop them turning into complaints that turn ugly and take up your time. And your customers will appreciate it. For example, if a customer believes that they have been wrongly charged for an item, taking them to the relevant part of the store and going through the pricing with them usually resolved the situation at source, rather than it escalating at the till point into some kind of argument. If this doesn't help, then a course of action to satisfy them is much better than allowing them to walk away unhappy.