Shopping should be a pleasant experience. Ideally, your customers should leave with a satisfied and memorable feeling. But sometimes the shopping experience doesn’t measure up. One solution to this dilemma is to enhance your customer’s “exit experience”.
We know what a bad exit experience feels like:
• Long checkout lines; understaffed cashier counters
• Checkout stands cluttered with junk food and magazines
• Clerks who grunt and can’t speak in full sentences or impersonal, mechanical, disingenuous greetings
• Items that do not scan or scan at the incorrect price
The foundation of a pleasant, memorable exit experience is based on human interaction.
What makes for great exits?
• Match the experience to who you are as a retailer (low-price vs. specialty)
• Define the clerk’s role and let them improvise within that role
• Hire people adept at the art of conversation and who know how to connect with customers.
The role of the exit experience.
Many conventional retailers focus on generating impulse sales in candy and gum. But why stop there. Think of a shopper’s exit as an opportunity to elevate your store’s brand, product and reputation. It’s a golden opportunity to create a consumer connection and a favourable memory. If you think of
a customer’s exit as a transition “back outside” or back to the real world you can send your customers off with a clear and positive experience and you’ll probably see them again.
“Destination shopping” is different. Destination shopping requires a customer to drive up to 45 minutes. Niche retailers have a unique theme and product base which attracts shoppers from kilometres away. Unique food stores like the Garden Basket or the Village Grocer are a good example. They have transformed their aisles into a sensual journey through food and specialty items.
They have cashiers who love food, who understand exactly why shoppers are there and who revel in sharing their own experiences with food or recipes. Their staffs care about a shopper’s experience. Shoppers leave feeling affirmed, appreciated and connected and most will return.
Even big box discounters have figured out their best exit experience. It’s just a little different. Costco, for example, figured out their own unique exit experience by getting rid of anything that would distract shoppers or slow down the checkout process. Costco knows that, despite all the wandering and searching, they aren’t selling things that require much explanation. And they know that no one sees them as experts in any of the products they sell. So, they focus on getting shoppers efficiently out the door. They remove point-of-purchase merchandise that wastes space. They use large carts, lightning fast clerks to grab items and scan them with “guns”, and refuse to take personal cheques. They focus on one simple goal: moving large amounts of goods through the registers as fast as humanly possible.
Retailers often view cashiers as a mere “labour cost” and not as a critical marketing mechanism. Checkouts should be an important process in marketing.
Think about what impression you’d like to give. If you want to be seen as a low price leader, then clean, fast exits focusing on efficiency and politeness may be most important. If you want to be seen as a specialty store, then inspiring cashiers to display their product knowledge will help sustain and retain credibility and authenticity as a valued retailer.
Human interaction is critical to creating an exit experience that builds positive buzz and prevents negative gossip. It doesn’t mean that cashiers need Ph.D.s or be world travelers. They need to be improvisational performers. They need to show some personality preferably matched to your products. The trick is to have cashiers adept at the art of conversation, who can figure out how to connect with shoppers.
A satisfied and happy customer will have positive and memorable things to say about your store and will definitely return to shop again.
2600 John Street, Unit 207, Markham, ON L3R 3W3 T: 905.475.5222 F: 905.475.6369
