The Shoe Salesman's Secret Motivation

One Saturday afternoon at a shopping mall during the busy Christmas season, a management consultant colleague of mine ventured into an athletic shoe store to buy some new running shoes. This particular consultant actually specialized in retail. He consulted both for retailers trying to improve their operations, as well as for manufacturers trying to sell their wares in to retailers and retail chains. So whenever he went out on his own to buy anything he was always an observant shopper.

He told me that the shoe store seemed to be especially busy that afternoon, so he took a place in line behind two other folks being helped by one of the sales clerks. And as he waited, he saw that the salesman offered the same off-brand to each of these customers – customers who looked like they would have been willing to pay full price for a better name. The first customer, he said, had been interested in a pair of Nike basketball shoes, but the salesman first brought out this off-brand, at about half the price of the Nikes, and the customer ended up buying them. The same sales process, with the same result, ensued with the next customer, a woman who originally had said she was interested in the Reebok cross-trainers. But the salesman again talked the customer into trying out the cross-trainers from this off-brand first, and she bought them.

After watching two sales snatched from the jaws of well-known national brands, the consultant’s curiosity was aroused. So when it was his turn to buy, he first asked the salesman why he had switched the two previous customers to this particular off-brand – a brand he'd never even heard of. After all, the consultant said, these customers seemed to have been willing to pony up higher prices for the name brands.

Oh, the salesman replied, it had nothing to do with margin or pricing, nothing at all. But he seemed a bit nervous at having been found out, and so my friend persisted. Was this off-brand paying some kind of bonus commission, then? Or was there some kind of contest or promotion going on? No, the salesman said. No, that wasn’t it.

Then the clerk gestured toward all the people crowded into the store on this very busy afternoon. Look around, he said. See how busy it is in here? I don’t even have time to slip away for a coffee or a bathroom break on a day like this, that's how crowded it is!.

But this particular off-brand? Whenever they ship their shoes to the store, the laces are already in them, so it saves the clerk a lot of time, not to have to lace up one of the other brands.

It seems to me that this little story is a perfect metaphor for illustrating the power of removing friction in your customer experience. That’s what this off-brand shoe was doing. Their customer was the shoe store, and they were removing friction in their customer experience by lacing their shoes up in advance.

No matter what your business is, do you try to ship your shoes with the laces already in? Could you?

• If you’re a retail bank, and your customer comes to you for a second mortgage, you could lace up the customer’s shoes simply by filling out all the information on the mortgage application that your bank already knows about the customer (starting with name, address and bank account number!).
• If you’re an airline and your customer’s flight gets canceled, you could lace up their shoes by re-booking them on the most likely flight immediately, and then texting or emailing them the information, rather than simply telling them the flight is cancelled and requiring them to call in to re-book themselves.
• If you’re a mobile phone company you could lace up a new customer’s shoes by printing out a sample bill, while they’re in your store or signing up for their service, so they can see what it’s likely to cost, including all those charges that you don’t like to mention.

Friction is the enemy of a good customer experience. Eliminate the friction and you're on your way to having a satisfied and loyal customer.