Brick and Mortar's Savior: Humanity

As technology continues to advance, it will allow consumers to shop in a "wholly immersive way," writes DPHA Conference keynote speaker Doug Stephens in his spell-binding book ReEngineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post Digital World.  Virtual reality will take us wherever we want to go, Stephens surmises.  Virtual augmentation will create lifelike stores wherever we happen to be at the moment.  Will technology eliminate shopping as we know it?  The answer is a resounding "no".  Stephens argues that "As long as humans shop for reasons beyond the mere acquisition of things, physical retail spaces will remain relevant.  In fact, as we become increasingly tethered to technology, they will become even more valuable, more cherished, as our hunger for visceral and emotionally connected experiences intensify." 

Moments of discovery, surprise and delight are additional reasons why brick-and-mortar will continue to be destinations of shopping choice.  Technological advancements have not expanded the world around us.  Instead, they contracted our vision and perspective.  As Stephens points out, Facebook does not increase our circle of friends, it contracts who we network with by limiting our interactions to only those who are like us and avoiding those who are not like us.  The same can be said of Netflix.  It does not expand our film watching horizons, it actually contracts them by recommending offerings that are similar to the ones previously viewed.  Recommendations based on past experiences and patterns saps buying of  the possibility of accidental discovery. 

"The joy of shopping lies in the delicate balance of relevance and randomness," Stephens writes.  Humans crave the surprise and delight of encountering products and stores we had no idea we would cherish, products that we did not know existed or experiences that come out of nowhere to surprise and enhance us, Stephens says. 

Another reason for brick-and-mortar survival is the human need for human interaction.  We like crowds.  Need proof?  Watch the lines of people outside department stores on Black Friday or outside an Apple store before the launch of a new product. 

Shopping is also physiological.  "Our brains love shopping.  In fact, when it's good, retail is essentially a legalized form of crack. No joke.  Our neurological response to a great shopping experience is virtually identical to the one produced by crack cocaine - because they're both reliable producers of a chemical called dopamine," writes Stephens. You don't get a jolt of dopamine buying on Amazon or any online etailers. 

Physical stores have a distinct competitive advantage over online shopping by having the ability to deliver custom experiences.  Decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms can deliver compelling customer experiences through working displays, demonstrations and the ability to surprise and delight by introducing products and applications that your customers could never have encountered regardless of how much time they spent on Houzz or any other website. 

Want to learn the secrets to making your showroom deliver jolts of dopamine to your customers?  Plan to hear Doug Stephens at the DPHA Annual Conference and Product Showcase, October 12-15, at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, Chandler, AZ. 

Click here to reserve for the Conference.

What Business Are You Really In?

In the 1960s, Harvard University marketing professor Theodore Levitt wrote that most companies focused almost exclusively on producing goods and services that they don't try to understand what customers really want.  In other words, companies had their sights set on making a quarter-inch drill when customers only wanted a ¼ inch hole.  Levitt's point to decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms is to move from the obsession with different products to what your showroom customers truly want and sometimes, they don't know what they want.

Levitt pointed out that one reason railroads failed was that they believed they were in the railroad business when in fact they were in the transportation business.  If railroads had understood the job they performed for their customers was getting them from point A to point B, they might have evolved into manufacturers of cars, planes or even drones. 

When a customer comes to your showroom, what do they really want from you?  It's not simply to select a tub, shower system, vanity, cabinet hardware, faucets, mirrors and lighting. What do your customers really need?  Peace of mind?  A place that they can call their own?  An oasis they can use to wash away the stresses of the day?  A statement of their personal style?  The opportunity to avoid undue stress and save time? 

Brainstorm with your team, representatives, manufacturers, trade allies, designers and other stakeholders to determine not only what customers say they want from your showroom, but to also deliver on needs they don't even know they have.

What We Can Learn From Sephora To Enhance Our Customer Experience

Let's face it.  Traditional brick and mortar stores are having their lunch eaten.  Shopping centers are reinventing themselves to put more emphasis on dining, movies and entertainment as opposed to relying on Macy's, Bloomingdales, Sears or others as anchors.  Sephora also recognizes that the mall may not hold the attraction it once did despite the fact that it has approximately 400 of its sprawling cosmetic emporiums in malls around the country.  Sephora's success has been well documented.  Consumers are met with rows and rows and shelves and shelves or products when they cross the store's threshold, not dissimilar to most DPH showrooms.  Sephora sales consultants offer advice and will even perform a full makeover at special stations, writes Elizabeth Segran in Fast Company.

Sephora is not about to rest on its successful experience with sprawling stores in shopping malls.  In July, it opened its first boutique on tony Newbury Street in Boston, name Sephora Studio.  The new concept store is much smaller than its shopping center counterparts. 

The experimental store in Boston is Sephora's response to changing consumer habits.  Sophia believes that many of its existing and potential customers don't want to schlep to a suburban shopping mall. They want  to buy closer to home quickly.  That's why Sephora picked Newbury Street, because it is a shopping street destination in Beantown, not unlike Fifth Avenue in New York or Rodeo Drive in LA. 

Sephora understood that it could not merchandise the Studio in a similar fashion to a shopping center store.  It's strategy was to be extremely product selective.  Most of the product is makeup whereas at shopping center locations you will find perfume, skin and hair care products, tools and brushes and bath and body products.  The Studio features makeup stations to connect in-store beauty advisors with clients, build relationships and deliver a compelling customer experience. 

Sephora commented that the Studio locations are not designed to replace the mall stores, but rather to complement them.  The company's long-term goal is to establish as many as 80 Studios throughout North America.

Lessons for decorative plumbing and hardware showrooms:

• Have a plan to respond to the new shopping paradigm.  Time for most DPH customers is a precious asset.  Tout your ability to save time and ease stress based on your expertise designing new baths and specifying products for them.
• Less can be more.  If you search for farmhouse sinks on Houzz, there are 77,000 options.  One key to Sephora Studio's strategy is that it does not display all of its products, but the sales professionals are well versed in merchandise offerings and can make recommendations for products not on display that they will ship freight free to customers.
• What has worked in the past most likely is not as applicable to the present or future.  What can you and your team do to provide your customers with a more delightful in-person experience?  If you would like to receive innovative ideas for improving your in-store experience, attend the upcoming DPHA Conference, October 12-15.

Contented Cows Give Better Milk

One of the biggest challenges for DPHA members is attracting and retaining top talent.  That's why DPHA has invited Richard Hadden to present his signature workshop, Contented Cows Give Better Milk, at the 2017 DPHA Annual Conference and Product Showcase, Sheraton Wild Horse Pass and Resort, in Chandler, AZ.

 

Hadden believes DPHA members could learn a lot from a message echoed by generations of dairy farmers: "Contented cows give better milk." This workshop is not a management tome. Instead, it is testimony to the power of treating people the right way.  Hadden will present:

• Case studies and new examples from on-site research in a number of real organizations, as well as inspiring examples of companies that know how to do it right, and a few that didn't.
• Fad-free prescriptive advice informed by Hadden's combined four-plus decades of training and consulting with thousands of managers and employees, conducting employee engagement surveys, and translating the attendant learning to management audiences in a form they can appreciate and use.

Direct from the horse's, actually the cow's mouth, this workshop will teach DPHA members  the bottom-line benefits of having a focused, engaged, and capably led workforce.

 

Click here to reserve for the Conference.

Learn the Five Elements of Remarkable Customer Service

Plan to attend the 2017 DPHA Annual Conference and Product Showcase, October 12-14, 2017 at the Sheraton Grand at Wildhorse Pass Resort in Chandler, AZ and learn The 5 Elements of a Remarkable Customer Experience as presented by Doug Stephens.

Brands struggle to meet and exceed the expectations of today's sophisticated customer. Although it's widely recognized brands best positioned to thrive in the future will compete on customer experience, there's a misconception about what "customer experience" really means.

Join author and internationally renowned consumer futurist, Doug Stephens, for an amazing tour of the future, where every aspect of the retail experience as we know it, will be radically transformed. Stephens will present what constitutes a truly remarkable customer experience and how DPHA members can create one-to-one intelligent journeys to deliver connected shopping experiences to secure their place in the hearts and minds of tomorrow's showroom customer.

True customer experience design means digging below the surface within each interaction to understand the underlying customer need. It means engineering the exact combination of people, place, product and process to deliver delight in every moment, whether online or in store.

Doug Stephens is one of the world's foremost retail industry futurists. His intellectual work and thinking have influenced many of the world's best-known retailers, agencies and brands including Walmart, Google, Home Depot, Disney, BMW, Coca Cola and Intel. Doug is also listed as one of the retail industry's top global influencers by Vend.com.

Prior to founding Retail Prophet, Doug spent more than 20 years in the retail industry, holding senior international roles including the leadership of one of New York City's most historic retail chains.

He is the author of two groundbreaking books, The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism and Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World. 

 Learn more about the 2017 DPHA Annual Conference and Product Showcase.

How To Make Your Message Go Viral

Word of mouth is responsible for 93% of messages passing from one person to another. Everyday, Americans engage in 16 word of mouth conversations where they say something positive or negative about a showroom, product, service or person. We recommend restaurants and movies we've watched to coworkers, tell family members about a great sale and recommend babysitters to our neighbors. American consumers mention brands 3 billion times a day. Our mentioning of brands is about as involuntary as is our breathing. We do it so often, we don't even thing about it.

In his book Contagious: Why Things Catch On, Jonah Berger notes that there are six key steps to creating viral messages.

Step 1: Social currency.

If we want our customers to talk about our showroom, we need to craft messages that help them achieve desired impressions. We need to make our customers feel like that have insider information and provide them with visible symbols that they want to show others, because it makes them look good.

Step 2: Triggers.

When you mention peanut butter you almost always think of jelly. Link the services and products in your showroom to cues in the environment. How can your showroom trigger a response and make a connection?

Step 3: Emotion.

A new kitchen is not about countertops, cabinets and appliances. It's about how it makes your clients feel every time they set foot in the space. People share emotions.

Step 4: Public visibility.

Things that are easily observable make them easy to imitate, and that makes them more likely to be popular. Trip Advisor has been monumentally successful because people use others' experiences to make decisions. In your showroom, highlight products that were used in different types of projects and applications. Write product reviews to help your customers make decisions. Have your designers designate a favorite product and explain why they like it.

Step 5: Practical value.

What information can you share that is useful? The secret behind Marcus Sheridan's success was to answer the questions his customers asked most often. Practical value is reducing stress, troubleshooting problems and being accountable. Help others helps them to share what you did with others.

Step 6: Stories.

You need to embed your projects with stories and ideas that others want to tell. The story needs to be valuable and covey a message so integral to the narrative that people can't tell the story without it.

People Don't Read: What Effect Does that Have on Your Marketing?

Fact: Most people don't want to read copy if they have a choice of watching video or listening to audio.  According to a study by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Americans read an average of 19 minutes per day, including texts and emails (there are some exceptions, of course). Those aged 35 to 64 read an average of 19 to 23 minutes per day. Conversely, people watch more than a billion hours of YouTube every 24 hours.  That's only YouTube.  That does not include Netflix, Amazon, other social media sites or conventional television.  Your web site and social media can no longer function exclusively as a resource to educate.  They need to transform into a venue where education is mixed with entertainment.  Your content needs to be offered in different formats that combine audio, video and text.  Guidance for doing so will be offered at the DPHA Annual Conference, October 12-14, at the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass Resort, Chandler, AZ.