Customers expect competent advice

Any retailer using customer friendliness and competent advice as its marketing message also has an obligation to take active steps in this direction. To this end Hagebau Austria employs ACNielsen at regular intervals to carry out test shopper studies in its stores, which then provide the starting point for far-reaching education and training schemes.
Competent advice is highly valued by customers.
A first important step is to audit the status quo and identify the strengths and possible deficiencies in the store’s customer care policy. “Even if we have already achieved top customer service ratings there is always the possibility of improving just that little bit more – and regular quality controls are essential to pinpoint exactly where,” explains Helmut-Dieter Kus, managing director of Hagebau Austria.
Tests area weighting
(pdf file download)
Training and workshops
The current study has given rise to numerous training sessions and workshops organised throughout Europe for all Hagebau employees. The first step involves presenting the results of the study to the store managers. In this context it is possible to make certain improvements at once, such as the wearing of name badges and uniforms, or the presentation of products and accessories in a more customer-friendly way. These shortterm measures, which can be put into practice directly, will immediately bring the desired effect.
The second step involves schooling staff in the company’s own training workshops to behave appropriately in different situations – advisory discussion, behaviour at the checkout or reaction to a customer complaint. “The training sessions are measures that perhaps do not immediately bring a measurable degree of success, but are indispensable to a company from a long-term point of view,” according to Kus. Hagebau Austria is at the moment already planning the next Mystery Shopping Study, in order to see in which areas it has been possible to make improvements and which measures have failed to bring the desired success. “The studies can only ever document the actual situation at a particular point in time,” is how Kacnik describes the procedure. “Only a comparison over a period of time can show whether changes have taken place in one direction or another. Which is why a repetition of the study is necessary after a certain period of time for the purpose of evaluation.”