How Much Customer Service Increases Customer Satisfaction

Back at the founding of American retail, led by 19th and early 20th century visionaries like John Wanamaker, Rowland Hussey Macy, Marshall Field, Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck, the big idea was finding and getting products for the American consumer. The much-needed service that retailers provided then was gathering products in one place and making them available to customers hungry to acquire consumer goods. Back in the day, retail was a product-first, product-led, product-centered business. Fast-forward to today, and finding and getting product is definitely not consumers’ problem – quite the contrary. The very product-centric foundation on which retail was based and grew so aggressively through the 20th century has changed completely. The retail paradigm has shifted from one of Product-Product-Product to People-People-People. Today’s retail visionaries understand that meeting the new needs, desires and aspirations for the people whom their enterprises are organized for – the customers – is the key to success. Those visionaries include Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Angela Ahrendts (Apple), Steven Lowy (Westfield Mall), Andy Dunn(Bonobos, now Walmart), Neil Blumenthal (Warby Parker’s) and Rachel Shechtman (STORY Store). Serving the needs of people, not selling product, is the real goal of retail and how the money is made. Read more at Forbes.