Refining the customer experience

CELEBRATIONS of Turriff started in 1994 as a specialist gift store of about 1,500sqft, before moving to much larger premises five years later.

At the time, some people were unsure that a 25,000sqft store would survive in Turriff, a rural town with about 4,500 residents.

But over 15 years later, we are still here.

Our sales are over £5million, we employ 100 people with a mix of full time and part time, and two years ago we opened a specialist beds and bedroom furniture store in Stonehaven.

We have had to change and adapt over the years and we continue to do so.

Being a family-owned independent business, we can react very quickly and change ranges to suit customers’ needs.

We are members of the largest non-food buying group in the UK so we can access deals and discounts which allow us easily to compete with the national stores.

It is quite rare to find a department store in a rural location which has so many product ranges under one roof.

Over the years one thing has not changed - the customer experience must be first class.

That is something we work very hard at, and if something does not go as well as it could we have a policy of “review and improve”.

The staff we have here do a fantastic job and are the main reason we have grown over the years.

Being in a rural location, there is not a huge potential employee pool, so we have invested in training - we keep our employees fully informed on how we are doing and many of our staff are long serving.

We have a very low staff turnover which helps greatly as they get to know our customers personally, and being rural, we need to look for repeat customers.

Getting the right customer experience right in-store is vital, but now with the growth in online shopping we must get that experience right too.

It is a great opportunity for our business but it is fast-changing and right now sites like Amazon and Ebay are becoming the shopping malls where shoppers go looking for products.

Basically if we want to be in their “mall”, we have to pay their rates (their commission) and the rates are not cheap.

We are changing our technology and we are working hard on our online strategy.

Our new website focuses on the in-store experience, but with a growing online store with click and collect as we have to suit the changing needs of the consumer.

We are having to invest more time and money on e-commerce and social media, and as we are used to dealing with people face-to-face, it does feel strange at times having members of staff working in front of a PC rather than on the shop floor.

Online shopping is growing rapidly and price is very important but it is vital for anyone selling online to ensure that it produces an acceptable bottom line and it’s not just creating turnover.

Retail shopping, rather than online shopping, has now become more of a leisure event and we must ensure the experience is what they want and we see customers come in, browse, then have lunch in our restaurant and then continue shopping - a day out.

“The customer is king” – yes, but the customers’ needs and shopping habits are changing and we must change to suit them.

Without satisfied customers, we have nothing.