This week I am calling out five basic areas of retailing where some newsagents make the rest of us look bad. I am writing about these five areas because in the minds of plenty of Australian shoppers all newsagencies are as bad as the worst one they have visited.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Even in basic customer service there is a big difference in newsagencies from uniforms and name badges to eating and drinking behind the counter to over the counter service. What one newsagent things is good service another may consider appalling and another may consider too good.
While in banner group businesses with which we compete such as 7-Eleven, Officeworks, Australia Post, Smiggle, supermarkets and others there are guides to drive consistency, in the newsagency channel among independent businesses there are no such minimum standards.
Does this matter? Not so much if we each care about our own businesses. However if we are relying on public perception about our business based on experience with other newsagencies it does matter.
This is why I think we need to be concerned about other businesses trading under the same shingle as us. We all need to do better, to meet minimum good standards for our future.
It is very basic retail management to focus on a consistent professional customer service offering. I think it’s something that we as a channel need to talk about and work on together.