This weekend I experienced a truly awful and shortsighted customer experience strategy. I went with a friend to the Moncler store in NY. She wanted to buy a coat. When we got there, they told us that we had to wait before entering the store. Why? Well, they like to provide excellent customer service and with limited sales associates they can only handle so many customers in the store at a time.
I understand and respect the desire to provide excellent customer service. But this approach is simply awful.
So here’s a little advice for the good folks at Moncler:
First, don’t make your customers wait outside in the winter cold. Ever. Not for any reason. It’s bad humanity and its bad marketing. Bad humanity because…well that should be really obvious. And bad marketing because… well, because it’s bad humanity. Unless you’re the military or a physical trainer, don’t ever make your customers experience physical discomfort.
Next, think a bit more deeply about customer experience. Sure, you want to provide a great customer experience. That is laudable. But the experience doesn’t start when customers enter the store. It starts when they reach the door. (Actually way before that but we can talk about that another time.) If you tell people they have to wait outside in the cold, you’ve already delivered a poor experience.
Moncler: Let people in. Let them come in from the cold and warm up a bit. We all understand that you can’t actually engage every customer all at the same time. We know we have to wait. But making us wait outside in the cold is inhumane and it is certainly not the hallmark of excellent customer service.
