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What Customer Service Do You Offer?
By Phyllis Schiller
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| Legend by Amrapali |
The 4Cs are not the only things that make a piece of diamond jewelry a sales winner. In an ongoing series, Rapaport Magazine explores the “3Ws” — what’s selling, what’s not and why — by going straight to the people who really know — jewelry retailers. Each month, we ask a sampling of retailers to comment on the important issues that are facing the industry today. Here is what they had to say when asked: “Are you doing any additional customer service to encourage customers to shop in your store?”
“We’re very customer oriented. Where we are in the panhandle, not everyone can get here, so we make it easier by going to see them, whether it’s showing jewelry or picking up or dropping off repairs. We have a stronger presence on social media now than we did a year ago — Facebook, Instagram, blogging, updating the website. We also bring in different jewelry than other stores. For instance, right now we have pieces from the estate of one of the biggest ranches in this area. We’re honing in on the historical side of it; everyone in this part of Texas is very familiar with this ranch. The most important thing is to be there for the customer. If they say they want a needle in a haystack then we find that for them.”
“Customers want everything faster. We used to do everything in a week; now we do it much quicker, so I would say speed is a big thing for us. We’ve always done custom work and special orders. We custom-make pieces to fit customers’ style and the stones they have. And when I travel to Antwerp to buy our diamonds, I special shop for clients when I’m there.”
“We just did a cross-marketing event with a local flower shop, where people could make their own flower arrangements inside our store. There was wine and food. People rotated through, eating and looking at jewelry and making an arrangement. We limited it to 20 spots and charged $10 a ticket. Purchasing the tickets drove people to our website, which brought them through our whole online experience, which we’ve trying to push as well as bringing people into the store. So it touched both areas.
“We want to be able to communicate and sell to our customers on all platforms — in the store, online and via phone and text. We do off-site parties and have the ability to run credit card payments through iPhones, email billing. After the sale, we use HubSpot software to stay in touch. It will prompt certain emails to be sent to customers throughout their engagement time and after the wedding to help keep them connected with us.”
“We have been doing a lot of email blasts, just keeping in touch with customers and sending them newsletters, letting them know about specials that are going on. We’ve been doing some store events featuring local artists, hanging their art in the store and inviting customers to an opening reception. We try to do a lot for different community charities as well.
“I just did a survey online to ask customers to rate us and tell us what we can do to make things better. And we’re about to do a mailing to 13,000 people, encouraging them with a $25 gift certificate to answer our survey and let us add them to our email database. Everyone who does gets entered into a contest for a $200 gift certificate.”
“When clients leave and they’re happy, we are extremely diligent about our follow up with them. We’ll make phone calls and we’ll send personal cards and handwritten notes. Everyone gets a list of the client base they worked with, whether it’s a repair or a nice purchase. It’s that continual client relationship that we work very hard to develop. We’ve got an estate sale coming up and we chat with people about it. And they appreciate it. We revamped our website last year and do social media and a newsletter using our client database but we don’t text when repairs are done, we pick up the phone. We’re old-school still.”
“The customer service angle is something we all need to up our game on. On weekends, we get a lot of bridal customers in the store and we really create a fun, festive environment where we open champagne and serve Mimosas on Saturday. And we get a really good response.
“Anything that we can do as a retailer to provide some extra value to customers and follow through is becoming even more important because it’s so hard to get their attention. It all starts with getting them through the door. ”
“At Elleard Heffern, we proactively offer services that forge long-term relationships. For instance, we may visit a client’s home to curate her jewelry collection, redesign existing pieces to better suit a client’s personal style, custom-design jewelry with a client’s gemstones using CAD, 3-D printing, and with the quickest turnaround possible.
“We work with our clients in whatever way they prefer. We communicate more frequently with photos via text instead of an in-store visit, make more house calls and office calls, and in general stay much more connected to our clients than in years past.”Article from the Rapaport Magazine - June 2017. To subscribe click here.
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