Your college store retail system is essential to your store. From back-office functions to your eCommerce site and POS efficiency, your system should empower associates and continue to evolve alongside your store. One way to ensure your store is getting the most out of its system is through practical training that is tailored for your store’s specific needs.
The Monroe Community College Bookstore in New York identified an opportunity to streamline students’ rush experience. In the 2018 fall term, they made two major changes to how they handled textbooks in their store: they reorganized their shelves by author and they switched to clerk service. Recently, we sat down with Book Store Manager Charli Suter and Textbook Manager Darren Kwiatkowski to discuss what led to this change and how it has helped improve the student customer experience.
If you’ve worked on a campus before, you probably don’t need anyone to tell you when finals are approaching. You know because the term is coming to an end, of course, but you also know because the atmosphere changes. The collective tension-level rises. Students behave strangely: They’re easily triggered, easily confused and sometimes downright rude. It can be a rough time for collegiate retailers and their associates. But it can also be an opportunity to burnish your store’s reputation as a refuge from the academic grind.
What’s the biggest retail shopping day of the year? It’s not Black Friday. Actually, December 23rd and Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas) have replaced Black Friday as the busiest shopping days of the year, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that the entire holiday season from Thanksgiving through the New Year is primed with shoppers who are ready to spend their money on bargains. But, how can college stores take advantage of this annual gluttony of consumerism?
Discovering what satisfies customers can be as simple as self-reflection. Young and old, we want courteous, swift service that meets a need, slakes a thirst or fulfills a desire. We also want shopping to be fun, and we want associates to be personable and informed. However, knowing when and how a customer experience has gone awry is complicated.
Improving the customer experience doesn’t have to include investing money on a store redesign or flashy events. In fact, there is a fairly easy solution. Customers want shopping to be easier. Sometimes, shoppers simply want to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible.
The latest Chicago store has a laptop-shaped roof. Once finished, the retail haven will resemble a giant transparent box, blurring the boundaries between inside and outside, architects have said. Whatever you think of the brand, it’s hard to deny that Apple is a leader in redefining the brick-and-mortar shopping experience.
Think about when you go to a store. What do you enjoy? What parts do you dread? What if you could take out the experiences you don’t like — would you shop more or less? For over 20 years, Amazon has bet on the fact that if you can remove the areas that cause friction with consumers, they will shop more in your store. Looking at the current state of the retail market, they are right.
There are as many definitions for customer service as there are industries. The position has to be fluid enough to cover whatever needs to be done. However, defining expectations for employees helps them meet the business’ and customer’s expectations.
As the English poet John Donne famously posited, “No man is an island.” College campuses can often feel like their own, self-sustaining world. In a lot of ways, that’s what they are; jobs, housing, food and even medical services are often provided. However, no one exists in a bubble. Embracing the greater community beyond the campus walls can drive foot traffic, enhance the shopping experience and support the local economy.
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