Retail 101 (Part Two): Sell me, don't 'tell me'.

(Part Two of a series on how retailers miss the customer message.)

Recently, we walked through the mall entrance of a Macy’s. Depending on where you are, walking into a Macy’s can be anything from simply a mediocre experience to a dive into the very bowels of Hell. One recent excursion involved a visit to a Macy’s store on a 90+ degree day where they’d simply shut off all air conditioning, so I rest my case on the Hell portion of the experience squarely on those shoulders.

Macy’s is best described as the “everything-in-between” shopping at Wal-Mart/Target/K-Mart/Kohl’s and the Neiman-Marcus/Saks Fifth level of catering. Retailing there isn’t based on the quality of the experience, and anyone with a pulse knows it. If you truly believe I’m being unkind, I’ll simply ask anyone to walk into any Macy’s anywhere in the country and tell me how much you felt welcomed, pampered, and impressed by the personalization of your shopping experience. It just doesn’t happen.

But rather than digressing, my wife went in for a specific item — the reason she usually goes to Macy’s — where she can run in and out in as record a time as possible. This left me for a time in Men’s Fragrance, steps away from the cosmetics counter where she knew what she wanted and was purchasing. As I’m walking past the fragrance counter — there’s nothing stronger than a cologne, perhaps an EDT or two here — two salespeople are standing nearby as I sample one scent. In an almost screaming tone, I hear a voice from ten feet away screech through the air whilst I’m standing in place.

“Can I help you with something in fragrance?” the associate says perhaps 15 decibels too loudly.

Apparently, subtlety wasn’t something in which she was coached or mentored — this is suburban New Jersey, after all, the place famous for use of a specific finger waved at other drivers. But there’s more than a couple of things wrong with this approach, one used not just once but twice during the five minutes I was there and looking around the counter.

First, it seems an open-enough question. “Can I help you with something?” But it still leaves lots of room for only one response. “No!” I’m not seeing what I want, and based on the bottle you have in your hand right now — one of a collection of four Ralph Lauren-branded colognes, none of which are striking — I already know that your answer will be whatever is in your hand. Even that might have been fine if a bit more finessed.

Which brings me to my second point. If subtlety wasn’t a strong suit, finesse isn’t even in the lexicon. I’m pretty sure that her request to help me was heard in timepieces halfway across the floor. I’m standing less than 10 feet away (warning: Random and obscrure Looney Tunes reference to “Little Red Riding Rabbit” — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Rabbit — this woman reminds me of the character who continues to interject “Hey Grandma!”, at least the loudness is similar). Would it kill you to walk a little closer (unless you’re still going to yell, in which case, I’d much rather you walked over to timepieces)? Just ask me if I like the fragrance I sprayed or offer to try spray a card with…well, whatever dreck you’re holding out as a sample.

The experience leaves me feeling as if the fragrance counter is off-limits for children and shoplifters, and I’m neither of those if that was her suspicion. Instead? I get the scream treatment. Twice. Not nifty.

Has service improved over time? No. Well, perhaps I should qualify that.

Certain parts of it have. Instead of needing to run a gauntlet of cologne samplers looking to drench you in something top-note heavy and alcohol-laden, causing extreme mental anguish at the thought of walking in, now they simply stand there looking lost. And rather than even offering a card of fragrance to draw me in, they…once again…stand there. I’m doubting that Macy’s compensates based on commission because the salespeople would starve using this approach.

No, better still, they’d scare away any would-be thieves, so they could probably decrease that security team that walks around and routinely ignores the tagged-item alarms at the exits.

What was wrong with the scenario was simple: There’s no personalization. Instead of bothering to understand the customer, the sales approach resembles more of a newspaper hawker: Shout as loud as can be understood at anyone walking by to pick up a copy. It doesn’t work well. Instead, the customer gets loud screaming and if they’re fortunate, acknowledgment of their presence with a yes/no-response question. Not much effort made to understand my needs, then steer me accordingly.

Granted, in my case, it probably wouldn’t have taken much, but it’s pretty typical of an experience in Macy’s, and in my view it’s gotten worse. In a sense, they already know this and they’ve begun a feeble attempt at gathering data for feedback — here’s how that works.

Once you’ve purchased a product (see the first problem?), there is a web-address on the receipt for your feedback where you can say “how excellent their service was today”. This requires two things.

A paying customer.
The premise that every customer is providing feedback versus simply paying lip service to the survey in order to receive a promotion.

It stops far short of addressing the issues of getting to know the customer. Macy’s knows who their customers are: They hold charge cards with them. It’s their first line of getting to understand their core customer base better and forming the right focus around reaching out to those people to understand their weaknesses. It’s a great opportunity to hear the voice of the customer. My wife has a Macy’s charge. If she received that sort of survey, she’d probably answer. Sadly, it’s a missed opportunity.

Going back to my first point, Macy’s knows who it serves: Everyone between the Wal-Marts and Neiman-Marcus’ of the world. Suppose I need a decent dress shirt, nothing fancy. Macy’s fills that need at a somewhat different level than say Kohl’s, and at a more reasonable price point (and lower quality) than a Neiman-Marcus. It’s simply where ‘everyman’ shops with a couple of caveats.

Don’t ask for nor expect service.
Don’t look for product expertise.
Forget look and feel, it’s not there.
Get ready to trip over a lot of stuff — product placement is “stack-’em high and sell a lot” and “a lot” wind up unpackaged and rummaged on the floor.
“Service with a snarl”. You’ll routinely be faced with “We don’t have that”, even if the product is under the salesperson’s nose (because they don’t know what they sell), or they don’t have a motivation to sell or serve the customer.

What else hasn’t worked.

Discounts: As a Macy’s Charge customer, my wife gets these wonderful discount cards in the mail before any major sales event. “Take 15% off any item…” with a long list of exceptions on the reverse of the card in fine print. Those exceptions? Usually, everything. Or at least everything you might truly want. Excluded is anything worthwhile, such as electronics, sale items, cosmetics, anything manufactured on a day ending in “y”, you get the idea. Want to bring people in? Quit doing that, it’s a complete turn-off to shoppers and sends the wrong message.

“Everyday Values (EDV’s)”: This is all the cheap-stuff that couldn’t otherwise be sold at normal price, so it’s now listed as an “Everyday Value”. Basically, it’s designed to draw you in, make you realize that it’s the cheapest junk running, and hoping to suck you into buying something else. For me, it’s an incentive to shop elsewhere, or make me compare it to — don’t make me say it — Kohl’s.

Dead locations: Macy’s has become so ubiquitous that there’s one in nearly every shopping mall. If there isn’t a Macy’s as an anchor store, there isn’t much else either. So in locations such as Nanuet, NY, there is a Macy’s. It’s not as busy as the Sears at the other end of the mall, where I could likely purchase much of the same merchandise with far better service. Restocking occurs infrequently, and the store looks as if it’s on a death-watch for maintenance or a decision to finally euthanize it. It’s also silly to keep it on life-support since another Macy’s is some three miles down the same highway.

Can we learn something from Macy’s? Sure. It’s how to be a dominant player in the market, and still suck at closing the sale at every possible opportunity. I’m sure they think they’re doing ‘well enough’, because the customers who speak to them — mind you, not the ones who leave and go elsewhere or don’t use their Macy’s charge for an eternity — may tell them as much with ample prompting. Sadly, though, it remains a case for me of “coming in hungry and leaving starved”.

In the case of the salesperson with the loud voice yelling from not-so-afar, she might have taken the time to understand her customer versus focusing so much on ringing up the sale. Too much focus on not serving that customer isn’t going to lead her to the right outcomes, and if given the choice of “do you want it or what”, smart money is on the “or what” side of that equation. The answer is to “sell me”, not to “tell me”, and unfortunately that’s what Macy’s hasn’t figured out.

Next installment: Who’s the customer?