Engage P/L executive and staff engagement specialist Kevin Panozza will be presenting at the L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival Herald Sun Marketing Breakfast next week. Here he gives a preview of key talking points for the March 14 event.
Are we seeing a seismic shift in how Australians shop? Is bricks and mortar retail dead? In short, yes we are seeing a fundamental change in how Australians shop, and no, traditional retail is not dead. Far from it. In fact, for every retailer who is struggling to adapt to the ‘new normal’ of retail, there are many who have innovated and embraced the different ways their customers want to interact with them.
Can you imagine a world with no shops? Where we all sit at home and buy everything online? If you believe the hysterical retail doom and gloom in the media, then it’s not hard to picture this shop-free world happening in the not so distant future. The fact is online probably accounts for between 5 per cent and 7 per cent of total sales. While it is growing, there is no question that people will continue to shop in stores.
What’s retail all about? What does it mean to you? For most, it’s about theatre; it’s about the excitement of seeing something new, something that you have to have. While shopping is a major pastime for many Australians, there is one factor that pushes people away from bricks and mortar – poor service.
We all have a poor service story. Sadly, most of us have many experiences of poor, lacklustre and disinterested service. Many retailers are lazy – they invest millions opening stores, but fail to adequately invest in building a service culture. If you are a CEO and you can’t serve all of your customers yourself, then it’s critical that all of the people you employ love coming to work. You want people at the front line who value service as much as you do.
Is it that simple? I travel the world, talking to companies about the barriers to building a strong service culture, and will be speaking at the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival seminar about creating a service culture. I have developed The Eight Enemies of Engagement - negative environmental factors that prevent employees from doing their jobs. They kill passion, they create disengaged clock-watchers who don’t care about service. The Enemies are countered by The Eight Champions of Engagement, a collection of ideas and practices that create high performance workplaces through commonsense people management techniques.
The Eight Enemies are probably killing your business; the Eight Champions can save it. Building a successful service culture has never been more critical; and for many retailers, time is rapidly running out.
Tickets are still available for select L'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival industry forums.