the Proprietress

business: su boutique es mi casa

May 27, 2009

while managing the boutique i founded in san francisco, when i hired & trained new sales staff, I explained that my philosophy for customer service was to treat each person who walked in the door as a if they were a guest in your home. be cordial, helpful, charming…but never pushy, uppity, or standoffish.

and of course, if you are having guests over – you clean up and make everything look special and pretty. and you dress for the occasion! and make sure everyone has a great time.

i just read this article in the Etsy Success Newsletter that hit that same chord. the focus of the article is etsy online storefronts (natch) – but the thinking can be applied to any boutique.

what are some other great customer service philosophies?

little tipsy: dressing rooms

May 7, 2009

could your dressing rooms be the reason you didn’t make a sale today?

sounds crazy – but it could be true.

a friend of mine told me that she didn’t buy something in TWO stores today because of crappy dressing rooms. one had horrible lighting and the other had an unflattering mirror. in neither case did she want to venture out into the store to seek better lighting/mirrors. so she left without buying anything.

make sure this is never your fate! your mirror doesn’t have to be fancy – but it should be straight up and down (a tilted mirror may make you look tall & skinny – but it’s nice to how you actually look) and well-lit. if your dressing rooms are tiny – it would behoove the shop to have a 3-way mirror somewhere close to the dressing room area….but ALWAYS have some mirror in the actual dressing room.

go on – try something on in your dressing room (it may have been awhile!) and see how it feels. make sure you have enough hooks for both the try-on merchandise and the customers own clothes/purse. make sure the lighting is not too bright – nor too dark. make sure you can adequately see the outfit in the mirror. if none of these are right – it’s an easy fix. do it now! perhaps you’ll see a bump in sales….

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