Just a quick additional post on the report that was circulated at the recent Business Forum event (next one is on Thursday).
This table particularly stood out. For me, it highlights one of the many reasons that large chain stores are beating local high-street shops:
I’ve only copied the very top of the table – there were lots of skills that were identified by only one or two shops, but they’re probably not as significant.
Local shops are clearly concious of the cost and difficulty of finding the right staff with the right skills – and of providing in-service training for the staff that they do have.
Supermarkets, on the other hand, have HR departments, training schemes and ways of identifying problems with their customer services.
If there’s one area that local businesses could get together to problem-solve, this may be it. I’d be interested to know if anyone has seen any effective websites that allow people to give on-the-hoof feedback to local shops about the quality of customer service or other customer issues (range of products, displays, marketing etc)? I’ve seen a few sites like this one and this one for finding tradespeople in other areas and giving feedback on them.
But not for local shops.
That same report does underline the view that local parking is easily the biggest issue. But this is important as well.
Does anyone have Mary Portas‘ direct number, by any chance?
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