March 2019 - 20

Management
THE POWER
OF SHARING
WHAT DO YOUR
Customers
THINK OF YOU?
By Danny Summers
Knowing more can put money on your bottom line.
N
ormally, the answer to this question is " We
really don't know " or " I'm not really sure. "
A garden center can certainly study sales
and product movement. We can get into
transaction counts, average sale, and some POS
systems can even help you determine how often your
customer is coming in to your store, and help you
determine your success (or lack thereof) in retaining
customers and gaining new ones. You can observe
staff interaction with customers and their comments.
These are all good to know and study.
But there is much more depth to this question and
its possible answer(s).
Seldom do you have the opportunity to really
ask your customers in-depth questions about your
operation and their experience in doing business with
you. Questions like ...
* What are they thinking as they walk in the door?
* How did your staff make them feel during their
shopping experience?
20 | LAWN & GARDEN RETAILER | MARCH 2019
* Did they find what they were looking for when they
came in?
* What was the overall experience like doing
business with you?
All of these questions are very important for your
business, but most customers just don't have the
time to give you the answers. So, one very effective
way to measure the experience in your store is a
Mystery Shopper Program.
Asking All the Right Questions
An effectively designed Mystery Shopper Program
can help you see through your customers' eyes. Did
you notice I said " effectively designed? " Once you
begin considering such a program, the next step is to
decide what questions to ask the shopper. Developing
your own questions can help you make sure you have
your store's basic principles in view.
What do you want your store to look like in the
eyes of the customer? I will provide you with some
Being independent is great, but you're on your
own to figure out how to grow and manage
your business. The Garden Center Group
(The Group) is an alliance of garden centers,
consultants, service providers and vendors
who work together creating a community of
professionals with one goal in mind ... helping
each other build successful companies.
The Group is your resource for solutions
for garden retailing - benchmarking,
budgeting, inventory and margins; marketing,
merchandising, brand building, property and
site design; human resources; team building
and succession, and more. We offer direction,
support and step-by-step assistance in some
of the most important aspects of operating a
successful garden center today to reduce the
time and trials of doing it alone.
When you join The Group, you will have
access to the industry's leading experts and
more than 120 garden center owners from
across the country - centers facing the
same business concerns as you. Although we
are innovative and don't like limitations, we
actually like to " think in the box " because our
box is full of a culmination of hundreds of
years of experience, boundless energy, brilliant
ideas, and an openness to share.
Unlike a buying group that boosts your
purchasing power on products that you sell,
we focus on business solutions designed to
help you increase sales, improve operations
and retain more profit. The Group's Exclusive
Annual Profit and Loss Study, now in its 15th
year of extensive financial benchmarking, is
unmatched in helping garden centers make
solid financial decisions.
By consolidating garden centers that agree
to work together toward a common goal,
The Group is able to provide a network of
professionals and business services most
centers would not be able to afford on
their own.
So why go it alone? Tap into the power of
The Garden Center Group today.
For more details, visit
www.thegardencentergroup.com.
http://www.thegardencentergroup.com
March 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2019
