We’re fortunate in the village where I live. We’ve got four convenience stores and two of these anchor the High Street. They’re the local stores of two big nationals and come from the two extremes of the corporate spectrum: one’s a an example of expansionist capitalist success, the other has its roots in worker solidarity.
Today being Sunday I was off to collect my croissants for breakfast and my Sunday paper. I usually go to one, the nearer one, but sometimes it lets me down so I go to the other. Not a big deal they’re only 200m apart. Today they both failed me.
First stop no papers. Why not? Because they haven’t come. But why? Well maybe ‘they’ got their dates mixed up (the store is closing for a refit tomorrow).
Now given that picking up your Sunday papers is a ritual for many people and you’d like to make sure that they keep coming back to you you’d expect a rather more proactive response wouldn’t you? There are three full-sized versions of this convenience store within a 15 minute drive. Why couldn’t the store manager have covered his shortage with a little help from one of them?
So I’m off to the second one which has just had a refit. Actually I could see little difference after the refit except that the papers were no longer by the door but as far back as you could imagine. Whose convenience was that for? Certainly not the person who simply pops in for a paper.
At stop number two there were no croissants. When I asked an assistant went into the back and emerged with one. Will there be more? Don’t know. Not really terribly helpful. Now I don’t know what the incremental cost of a croissant is but I’d bet that it’s only pence compared with a selling price of 74p. If they’ve sold out by soon after 0800 you’d have thought an extra session in the bakery would be worthwhile
So It’s back to store number one for my croissants.
It’s hardly the end of the world but it does highlight these stores indifference to the minor inconveniences which they may cause you. It’s OK to not have newspapers because its our system which chose not to supply them and it’s OK to run out of croissants because we only decided to bake a limited number. The fact that local people ‘depend’ on the convenience of these stores to deliver and be dependable doesn’t seem to be a part of the equation. Surely such stores want their customers to keep coming back and not to have to go to the competitor down the street. In which case they must think more about their customers’ convenience and be a little more obsessive about (a) their dependability; and (b) the response they give when they fail.
So: convenience stores, whose convenience?
David – interesting thoughts as ever!! This seems like a classic case of small fish in a big pond…the “chains” are going to be largely focussed on shifting as much volume across all its locations at a competitive margin, and both you and the shop staff are simply small cogs in that process. Fundamentally you are not valued as a customer, simply as a means for generating revenue, and relatively insignificant revenue in their scale of operation. Conversely, with a genuinely local shop, the owners are utterly and totally dependent on you and the other local shoppers as they have no other shops to balance out their revenue. Consequently, they are (or should be!!) more proactive, more customer focussed and hungry for your business. The latter point is key to my mind and translates well in to any commercial relationship…if you deal with people, businesses, suppliers etc that are hungry for your services/products/custom then the relationship will generally be easier and happier – it’s usually related to size of operation…typically, if you have to deal with suppliers that are similar or smaller than you, they will be hungry. I tend to only deal with large suppliers where the products or services are totally commoditised and value is my primary goal for the relationship. It’s then easy to switch suppliers as and when I need. I guess this really comes down to how much your loyalty is valued…large suppliers not so much, small suppliers…ever so much!! Nick