There was a time when not very long ago when it was usual to be greeted in a retail outlet with words like

Good morning sir/madam how can I help you today?

This clearly implied that the greeter recognised the importance of the occasion, had reasonable manners and was willing to put themselves and their expertise at the disposal of the potential customer in helping them to arrive at satisfactory conclusion of their needs, and is above all an open ended question likely to create a response which engages the customer and the retailer.

The new greeting of “yor rite” which is believed to be an abbreviation of the expression “Are you alright” is more like the line of enquiry that may be expected from a passing stranger after falling off a bicycle.

Its biggest issue is that it is a conversation stopper. A response by the potential customer of “Yes” closes the door to further enquiry and a response of “No” is likely to put the retailer in some state of concern about what might be coming next. Neither option being constructive to either party and as every good salesman knows open ended questions are far better for engaging customers.

The fundamental point that the people who allow such behaviour in their retail businesses are missing is that service is a very powerful sales tool one that ,when used professionally, can generate revenue. Before the days of euphemistic job titles people who worked in retail were called “shop assistants” or put another way were there to assist customers to shop, that is, for the truly disconnected, to help customers to buy stuff, to spend money and thereby create revenue and, hopefully, profit to sustain the business.

The professional People dimension of service quality is comprised of 4 key skill areas.

1. Skills and Knowledge. Customers have the right to expect that someone working in a retail environment has the process skills to “assist” them to buy and has prepared themselves with the knowledge, or immediate access to it, about the products they are retailing. In a restaurant which offers “Soup of the Day” it is not uncommon to ask what kind it is to have the waiter respond with the reply that “I will have to go and find out!” As it happens every day surely it should not come as a surprise to the waiter. It is not just in restaurants, many businesses have offers that appear to be a mystery to their employees. So what is Soup of the Day in your business and are your employees properly equipped to bring its benefits to the notice of customers? Product knowledge is where the retailer should have the advantage over the customer and be better equipped to assist them to make a wise purchase. The danger to retailers is that tools like the internet are enabling the customer to increase greatly their product knowledge so having staff up to speed becomes an even more important factor for the retailer.
2. Teamwork – Most business rely on some kind of formal or informal teams and most teams work better when everyone understands not only their own role but the role of the other team members. A customer needing a refund or a product exchange may be required to deal with different team members and it is important that the processes are understood by all who may have to help the customer move easily from one service function to another
3. Awareness - of the importance of customers as the only source of revenue and thereby imperative for the survival of the business and therefore their continued employment .Awareness also of the general needs of customers of that business. What do they want to achieve with what they buy? The same customer’s needs will be different in a butchers shop and a builders’ merchants so while a generic understanding of customer satisfaction is the foundation a more developed awareness of how the goods and services they provide may be used by their customers is an even more important factor.
4. Responsiveness - Behavioural skills and attitude are important. There is a retail mantra that says “Recruit for attitude and train for skills” . This has a good foundation in common sense for the interface between customers and retail staff is very important. However it is possible to go far beyond the purely instinctive levels of people interaction and to use simple tools that help retail staff respond to the different behavioural needs of individual customers. This may be a bit tricky to apply effectively at the fleeting customer interface at a supermarket checkout but it does becomes increasingly important in areas where the purchase frequency interval is quite long and the purchase value quite high. e.g. Cars, property etc.

These skills are not selling skills, they are additional, complementary skills that truly make service the most powerful selling skill of all. The more eagle eyed reader will have spotted the mnemonic S.T.A.R in the above and to be a retail star all of these skills have to be professionally employed.

So “Yor rite” is not just simply sloppy retailing that fails to meet basic standards of good manners, nor is it simply a poor opening line that has a high chance of failing to engage the customer, it may well be the tip of an organisational iceberg that is symptomatic of a much deeper malaise in the customer focus of the organisation and a not very coded warning to customers that this retailer may well be worth navigating around.

Philip Forrest ACII, FCIM, CM, FICSI
The View of the Osprey
Co-Founder - The International Customer Service Institute