Talking customer service - International Mass Retail Assn. roundtable - Discount Store News Special Supplement: AM Apparel Merchandising - Panel Discussion

Discount Store News, June 21, 1993

Competition in the mass market apparel business has never been keener, but the battle for market share is no longer predicated solely on maintaining the lowest price in a trading area. Price is only one concern of the cross-shopping consumers who buy clothing at discount operators.

Customer service is an essential variable in the total value equation that directs consumer purchasing. A panel of prominent retailers and manufacturers discussed the current state of customer service in the mass market at an AM-sponsored roundtable during the International Mass Retail Association (IMRA) convention held in Orlando, Fla., in May.

The group included Fran Braun, vice president, general manager, Hanes Activewear; Kathy Hurley, vice president/gmm, Roses; Liz Levin, sr. vice president/gmm, Venture; John Schamberger, president, Wrangler; Alan Shapiro, vice president, marketing, Jacques Moret; and Cecilia Swartz, sr. vice president/gmm, Bradlees.

AM: How do you provide customer service in what is essentially a self-service environment?

Swartz: Traditionally customer service has really been approached from the operations end, and, it may be because I'm a merchant, but I believe there's a whole part of customer service that should really come from the merchandising end. It's more subtle, but certainly a big part of customer service - having the right assortment and selection, having consistent predictable quality on the floor.

Shapiro: It's kind of like what Lee Iacocca [the keynote speaker at this year's IMRA show] said the other day. You have to make sure that you deliver what the customer actually wants.

Hurley: That's very true as it relates to quality. Customers don't want to be fooled or surprised. You have to have advertised product, and they like consistency. They want it to be of good quality, they want it to wash properly, things like that. That's a big piece of giving people what they want.

Levin: One of the things that we tackle that may be operational is fixturing, displays.

Swartz: Sure, but I guess I think of that as merchandising. One of the things we use are customer service cards. Generally on Saturday morning I sit in my office and read them through. And, one of the most common comments is that customers find the racks are too crowded, and in some cases also too high.

Levin: In-store merchandising is one of the frustrations of our business. When I was a department store buyer, in many cases I was buying the same merchandise from the same vendors, but it doesn't look the same [on discount store floors] and our customers don't perceive it as having the same value.

Shapiro: It's interesting thinking about value. I made some notes the other day about the heritage of value at the mass merchants. Value always equated to price. Today, however, the more intelligent customer doesn't just take price into consideration. It's also aesthetics and it's quality. The people in the apparel business who forgot that are gone. I think we are all fighting that battle of what's the best we can put out in the stores that fit into the price parameters.

AM: How can presentations be maximized in the limited space of mass market apparel areas?

Levin: It's not even just the fixturing; that you can somewhat overcome by merchandise. A big part of the challenge is getting the store people to handle the merchandise and how to present it and deal with it and keep working with it. There is a big training issue involved.

Hurley: It's especially difficult in apparel because when you are dealing with a mass chain that has had a hard lines emphasis. The manager may be very familiar with the hard Knes side of the business, and getting everyone in touch on soft lines can be a difficult thing.

Customer service for apparel is, think, making the store customer-friendly. Not just in terms of presentation, although that's part of it, but making it customer-friendly in terms of being able to find your size. That's something that we as retailers and manufacturers both have to work on. There's nothing more frustrating as having to go through rack after rack looking for a size. We've got to clearly designate sizing, because I don't think that most of our customers have the time to search for their size.

Schamberger: That's something we are very concerned about as a manufacturer. How do we make it easier. We found that size strips really help.

Shapiro: It's very important to provide information, both in terms of in-store signs and point-of-purchase information on hangtags.

Levin: Do customers read hangtags?

Hurley: I think more customers read hangtags than we think. Even if only three out of 10 read, if they want to read it, it should be there. Worst come to worse they'll just throw it away. If you look at a department store line like Liz Claiborne, the tags and the information is there.

Schamberger: I think some of that information is important after they take the product home.

Hurley: The specialty stores do a particularly good job of displaying information on signs. It's done subtly, even subliminally, but I've seen a study that showed that consumers were really absorbing the information.