How do you win in your business? There are all sorts of things you can focus on whilst trying to drive your business forward - the key is to understand what is special about your business and focus on that. Most retail businesses can say they compete on Authority (specialising in their field), Price, Convenience, Customer Experience & Choice. This is all very well but realistically they can only really win on two or three of these. When you know which two or three you can win on, that is what you focus on without trying to do it all.
Take the Supermarkets for example, jacks of all trades, masters of none - so 'Authority' is not one of their focus points, neither is 'Customer Experience' (except in a robotic way at the check-out) - 'Choice' is sort of there but only two real versions e.g. Value or High end ranges. So that leaves Price & Convenience. They know they can and do win on Price & Convenience so that is what they focus on - ad campaigns about being cheaper etc and beating competitors on price - as far as 'Convenience' goes they have 24hr trading in some of their large stores, local shops, city centre shops, edge of town stores & petrol station stores as well as on-line shopping & home delivery.
Focusing on what they know they can win on rather than focusing on everything works for them and that is why they are so successful. Boots does the same and you will have noticed a new store open in the village 'your local Boots Pharmacy'. Boots can win on 'Authority', 'Customer Experience' & now 'Convenience' .
Anyway you may be wondering where this is going - well it's just to give food for thought really and to encourage us all to help each other to identify what we should focus on - after all we are all pretty much each others customers and therefore should be able to give each other constructive feedback.
At The Sweet Shop we have an 'after school rush' as you expect in a sweet shop. It lasts for about forty minutes and if you don't like waiting you'd avoid that part of the day. Friday, in particular is busier because it's treat day! - last Friday the shop was really full after school and there was a long line waiting with both adults and children. Some people chose to wait, others went off and came back later, but everybody seemed happy and nobody complained. Two people, independent of each other left our shop and went to browse around another whist they waited. They mentioned how busy it was in the sweet shop to the owner who explained that after school was a busy time. The owner of that shop mentioned this to us the other day, so now we know that it does bother people we can do something about it. So, on Fridays between 3.30pm & 4.15pm there will be two of us behind the counter!
When you give feedback to someone you take a risk because you don't know what the reaction will be - I take feedback as a gift because it always makes me think and can lead to me doing something different. Only when you truly listen to your customers and organise you business, day & week around them to meet their needs can you start to win.
What can you win on?