Retail Idioms

Have you ever been served dinner on the red plate? Not any old red plate, but THE Red Plate.

You can get one on eBay: it’s simply a plate that says, “You Are Special Today,” that’s used to celebrate birthdays or achievements or just to cheer someone up.

In our homes and in our companies, traditions say, “This is who we are and what we do. We always do this.” Traditions are comforting and reassuring. Traditions like the Red Plate take this to the next level by adding, “YOU are an important part of who we are and what we do. It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

What traditions do you have in your corporate family? How do you make your customer feel like part of your family?

Sounds like the childhood equivalent of the “Employee of the Month” parking space, doesn’t it? But I like it. I’d like to be served a piece of cake on the Red Plate.

Wouldn’t you?

Don’t ever ask a woman when she is due.

Don’t assume she’s expecting, even if you’re at “Babies-R-Us” and she’s wearing a baggy t-shirt printed with a big arrow pointing to her bellybutton that says “BABY.”

You know what they say about people who “assume,” don’t you? It makes an A*S out of U and ME. There is no fix for this faux pas: false assumptions can faze a friendship faster than you can say, “Forgive me.”

But you really do need to know about your customer. You need to know how much she can afford to spend. You need to know how it will be used. You need to know about her family.

How do you find out about her without making – or, worse yet, revealing – your assumptions?

You think you know what your customer wants, what she likes, what she hates, what makes her happy and what ticks her off. But how do you know what you know is true? Here’s how.

Charity begins at home.

Specifically, in your customer’s home. She gives her time, her talent and millions of her dollars to worthwhile causes at home and throughout the world. She cried, then sent cash to help the victims of September 11. She made cookies for a bake sale for tsunami relief. She collected cleaning supplies and bottles of water after Hurricane Katrina. She takes her children to serve at soup kitchens.

She wants to do business with businesses who care like she cares. Consider:

1. 92% of consumers consider it important for corporations to contribute to nonprofits.
   
2. 76% of American consumers surveyed have taken part in at least one cause-related marketing campaign.
   
3. 60% of consumers surveyed planned to buy a product during the 2004 holiday season through which a portion of the purchase price would be donated to a cause.
   
4. 77% of women and 64% of men expected to consider a company’s reputation for supporting causes when purchasing gifts during the 2003 holiday season.
   
5. 48% of American and British consumers surveyed reported that, in the past, they had been motivated by a cause-related marketing campaign to change brands, use a product more, try new products, or get information about new products.
   
6. When surveyed consumers were aware of a given company’s cause-related marketing efforts, they consistently rated the company more highly in the categories of trust, endorsement, bonding, and innovation.
   
7. Corporate citizenship practices are more important to consumer impressions than brand reputation or financial factors, according to an international survey of 25,000 people on consumer perceptions regarding corporate citizenship.
   

What causes does your company support? How about your vendors?

Does your customer know you care?

Or, perhaps the better question is – “DO you really care?”

Homeland Security. Security blanket. Social Security. Security system.

Security is our most basic human need. If we feel insecure we are unable to love, to work, to shop. Yes, to shop.

Certainly you remember the uncertain anxiety in the days following 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. As a country, our entire sense of security was forever altered. Then the phenomenon of “nesting” was defined and many of us benefited from a national desire to circle the wagons.

Are you ready for the next cataclysmic event? How will you weather the next weather disaster or whatever act of God or madman may befall us? How will you keep your family safe? Do you have an obligation to keep the families of your employees safe by making sure your business can function?

Do you have a plan?

“Choosy Moms choose ________.”

“When you care enough to send the very best.”

“Quality is Job 1.”

Feeling adrift in a sea of selection on the showroom floor, a recognized brand is like a life raft to your customer. It’s like seeing a familiar face across the room at a crowded cocktail party where you know no one.

She reasons: “If I’ve heard of it, it must be good… or, they’ll make it good. I’ll get a better product and better service from a bigger brand. When my parents bought this brand it lasted forever, so this one will, too. The fancy label will even impress my neighbors.”

Is your customer comforted by the brands you carry? How do you live up to the expectations these brands create?

Or, is there a customer who scorns alligator shirts and logo-ed luggage, who is more concerned with price and availability? Why should she care about the brands you boast of?