Customers or Operations: Is this the right question?
There’s often a tension between the realities of providing customer support and the policies established for retail operations management. On the one hand, the reason a business exists is the customer. True customer service builds a base of loyal supporters and the empowered employees who provide that service. Operations, the mechanics of management, are equally important because inefficiency and waste will drive a business into the ground as systems cease to deliver products to the shelves and staff gives up in despair.
There needs to be a different question.
Customers and Operations Need Each Other
Both customers and operations have value and should be seen as interrelated. The question shouldn’t be “customer or operations” at all, because that’s sort of like asking if people or vehicles are more important. The vehicle exists to get the people to their destination and needs to function smoothly so that the destination is reached.
It’s easy to see the right question with transportation: how can we get the people to their destination safely, comfortably, and efficiently? The right question with retail management should be similar in scope.
How Can We Establish Operations That Maximize Customer Experience?
Retail Operations Management is the vehicle that gets the customer to the destination — loyal, repeated business transactions. Just like the various systems in a smoothly running vehicle perform, the operations in retail need to work well. Store and employee performance, loss prevention, budgets, and sales targets are the mechanics that empower the staff and supply the inventory your customer comes to purchase.
Customer-Centric Marketing is part of ChainDrive’s Operations Management software because customers are the reason for the business. All the systems within operations are important because they keep the store functioning, and a functioning store is a business that profits.
Empowering your employees by incorporating their observations into the overall strategies of the enterprise provides the energy that keeps your store alive, and the customization abilities of ChainDrive give you the tools you need to integrate all the details of operations and maximize customer experience.
