Customer Experience for Retail Owners
The online course. Learn what your customers are actually feeling, and what to do about it, before your busiest weeks of the year.
Your product isn’t the problem. Somewhere between the search that brought somebody to your door and the walk back out of it, something is quietly costing you customers. Nobody mentions it on the way out, they just stop coming.
Christmas is when that gets expensive. More first-timers, more gift buyers, more stock running out, more deliveries that have to arrive on time, and less time to notice any of it. The customers you most need to win are arriving at the exact moment you have the least time for them.
This is a live online course for retail owners and managers, run over two weeks in late October, so you go into the busy season knowing where the gaps are rather than finding out in January. Every example, every scenario and every stage of the journey comes from real retail experiences. Not a generic business, not a call centre, not a cafe. It’s not a video library and it’s not a webinar.
A small group, live, with a week in between to look at your own store and bring back what you found. The second session opens with what everyone noticed during their week, and that discussion is usually the most useful part of the course.
Who it’s for
Retail owners and managers. Anyone responsible for what a customer experiences from the moment they search for you to whether they choose you again next time. The same principles apply from a single boutique to a multi-site store.
If you’re about to bring on casual staff for the busy season, this is worth doing first. It’s much easier to hold a standard once you can see where yours is slipping.
Why we run it for retail only.
The framework applies to any business. Running it for retail changes three things, and all three matter:
• The examples are yours: The Saturday before Christmas, the item showing in stock online that isn’t on the shelf, the gift buyer who needs an exchange in January, the regular who has shopped with you for a year and still gets asked if they have a loyalty card or if they have been there before. You spend the session thinking about your store rather than translating from somebody else’s.
• In the session is other retail owners: The most useful thing in the course is usually something another owner has already tried, and you only get that if the room shares your problems.
• The timing works: Sessions run on Monday afternoon, on what is usually the quietest day of your week.
What we cover
Session 1: See it
• The 6 Business Life Support Customer Experience Principles, with retails examples for everyone.
• Where each principle usually slips in a store, from the Saturday rush to the returns counter.
• Your customer journey, walked stage by stage, from the search that happens before anyone arrives to the decision about where to shop next time.
• Where you could lose somebody at every stage, including the nine that happen when nobody from your business is in the room.
Between the sessions: Check it
• Six observation pages, one for each principle.
• Every touchpoint in your store, mapped. What could go wrong at each one, and what you would change.
• Three questions to bring back. Session two is built on your answers.
Session 2: Fix it
• What you found, worked through with the group.
• REBOUND, our complaint resolution framework, applied to real retail situations. The item that wasn’t in stock, the parcel that missed Christmas, the exchange with no receipt.
• What a solution actually costs, and what your team, casuals included, is allowed to fix without finding you first.
• When it doesn’t go to plan. Stock that doesn’t arrive, a delivery that won’t make Christmas: what your customer hears, who tells them, and what you can offer instead.
• The Christmas customer. Why most first-timers never come back, what brings them back in January, and why recognition beats a loyalty card.
• What you are taking back to your store: this week, before the rush, and in January.
What you’ll walk away with
A map of your own store’s customer journey, marked with the stages most likely to be costing you. A method for handling complaints you can teach your team, casuals included, before the busy season starts, and a plan for what your customers hear when stock or deliveries don’t arrive, and a clear read on what your online presence is telling people before they walk in.
One specific thing you are changing this week, and a list for before the rush.
A competitor can stock the same brands at the same price. They cannot buy a customer being known by name.
| Format | Two sessions over two weeks, 2.5 hours per week, live online, small groups. Retail only. |
| Investment | $345 + GST per person. |
| Includes | Workbook in two parts, a homework pack, and a combined workbook afterwards. |
Next Available Class
26 October & 2 November (4pm)
Not ready to book yet? Start with the free masterclass, Tuesday 6 October at 4pm. Book your place for the Free Online Masterclass for Retail Owners
What your store looks like to someone who hasn’t been there yet. 45 minutes, free, recorded.
Common questions
Monday afternoons, 4pm to 6:30pm, because Monday is usually the quietest day in retail. Sessions finish at 6:30pm, so arrange cover for close before you book. If a different time works better for your week, tell us. We schedule cohorts as they fill, so ask about the next one.
Because the gaps are easiest to fix before the busy season, not in the middle of it. You’ll have time to act on what you find, brief your team and tidy up your online presence before the rush arrives.
Same framework, rebuilt around retail. Every example, scenario and journey stage comes from a store rather than a generic business, and the room is other retail owners. If you are not in retail, the general course is the better fit.
This course is for you rather than your team. The smaller the business, the more of the customer experience is decided by you, and the fewer people there are to notice what is slipping.
That is Customer Service Essentials, run on site for your team. Plenty of owners do this course first and then book the team session, because it is much easier to hold a standard once you can see where yours is slipping.
A small group is a better course, not a worse one. It means more time on your store specifically, and the work you do between sessions gets properly worked through rather than skimmed.
Yes. There is a full cafe version, and restaurant and salon versions are in development. If you would like a course tailored to your industry, please reach out to our team.