Page 268 - DMGT550_RETAIL_MANAGEMENT

Unit 14: Information System in Retailing

as we thought that no internal resource could be enough professionally detached to Notes
guarantee a correct evaluation.
First thing the company did was to separate needs: wholesale and final customers. This
meant almost doubling the job but it allowed checking whether the requests of the retail
channel (both wholesaler and property shop) matched with the “real” final customer
wishes.
Physically the job has been done through check lists compiled by hired personnel both in
the case of retailer and of final customers. Actually final customers were divided into two
major categories: customers contacted in shops (already aware of the brand) and people
looking at apparel shop windows (apparel keen but not especially on the brand).
Every interview was then graded according to the expectation of satisfaction both as need
and as answer to it. The complete results and the exact form of the questions are not public,
what we can derive are the changes the company did in its customer policies.
Question sheet results: as far as final customers are concerned we found that:
 Product aesthetics and fashion alignment: The product was perceived as “fashion”
but “middle low class” and definitely not “high class” as the company thought it
was. Competitors were quite different from what the company dreamed they were.
Some product categories were “identified” while other were considered “useless”
 Product reliability: Quality was recognized but the price was considered too high
 Product availability: Very low, even if much paper presentation was made on the
product, the real possibility to find the item in the shops was low. Part of the
problem related also to the fact that the company had decided not to offer on the
web a certain number of “flagship” items
 Subjective recognition: Sales people “customer service “ attitude was judged barely
sufficient
 Subjective attention: Sales people technical support counseling was perceived as
not sufficient and this contributed heavily to the perception of a middle low class
brand
 Subjective empathy: Obviously related to individual sales people but, on the average,
not very high; the brand was definitely not felt like “friendly”
 Social belongness: A strong feeling of group belonging was felt
 Social distinction: Fulfillment of this need is low, probably due to inadequate CRM
systems.
For retailer the results were:
 Product aesthetics and fashion alignment: The product was perceived as “average”;
the rating was better than the one given by final customers
 Product reliability: Good, little commercial returns and very few items with quality
problems
 Product availability: Medium/ low due to poor respect of delivery dates
 Subjective recognition: Quite good, the “retail” customer service was considered
very effective
 Subjective attention: Low, customer perceived some sort of company haughtiness
 Subjective empathy: Obviously related to individual agents but, on the average,
sufficient
 Social belongness: No group feeling existed for retailers
 Social distinction: Low, probably due to inadequate CRM systems.
Contd....

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