Bridal buyer

106

OVER VIEW

WWW.BRIDALBUYER.COM

visit 18 bridal shops’ ... Of course the Abi Neill

school of customer service would not promote

such forthright or sarcastic communication.

Instead pop in place a few measures that may

hopefully educate brides and ultimately reduce

your number of bridal no-shows. Here are a few

methods to consider...

No-Show Nonsense

P

ICTURE THE SCENE, WE’VE

ALL been there; it’s Saturday,

a day that often promises our

bridal tills so much... The week’s

takings so far have been less

than average and now what

you need is a successful day of

sales in order to turbo charge your end-of-

week results. We retailers are mainly booking

by appointment these days and are really

happy when diaries are bursting full; full of

prospects, full of sales opportunities. So we

begin our Saturday full of bridal optimism,

but sometimes it can take a rather frustrating

turn - so much so that half way through the

day we’re virtually ready to throw in the tiara!

It’s one thing not to have had ‘the one’ for a

bride and it’s another to have found that a bride,

come what may, just isn’t parting with her cash

until 2020. But it’s another thing altogether

when brides book appointments and

don’t bother to show up. This, my retailer

friends, is something we need to get on top

of. Indeed it is a worrying trend that brides

fi nd it necessary to visit umpteen boutiques

armed with a bridal shop Sat Nav system

and excel spreadsheet simply to manage their

appointment schedule – if you ask me, it is all

getting rather out of hand.

For the most part we all know that you have to

work hard to entice brides into your shop. That

means social networking, creating a fabulous

website and doing all that you can to ensure the

shopping experience is memorable and utterly

gorgeous. In short you basically have to make

them want to visit you and this is an essential

no-show combat strategy. Brides these days

want more than the best dresses, they want the

best shopping experience too and so, if your

shop is the kind that customers tell their friends

about and get excited about visiting, then no-

shows may not plague you. Having said that, I

like to think that my shop is all of the above and

yet we, too, have also inevitably suffered from no-

shows over the years.

So what to do? Well, it would be wonderfully

refreshing and a tad therapeutic to be able to

tell our brides upon booking that we will be

‘extremely peeved Madam if you decide not to

show up’ and ‘really Madam, I appreciate that

media encourages you to do so but you are not

Kim Kardashian, it is not necessary for you to

The number of brides not turning up for appointments is a growing

problem for bridal shops who are reliant on selling dresses to make a

living. Abi Neill offers some valuable pointers on how to reduce your

amount of no-shows.

appointment - it’s another opportunity to pre-

qualify your prospect.

REFUNDABLE BOOKING FEE

It’s one of a range of potential fees that you could

apply to your booking system... A customer

books her appointment and you politely explain

you operate a ‘refundable booking fee’ for your

appointments. Basically you charge £25 to their

card and it’s refunded the minute they arrive in

your shop for their appointment. You must do

this BEFORE your sales appointment because

psychologically you do not want a bride in the

mind-set that you owe them money.

P R E-AU TH O R I SATI O N FEE

Strict data protection laws prevent you from

holding customer card details but you can apply

to your terminal provider for a pre-authorisation

facility whereby the fee is not actually processed

although the card details are input into the

terminal. Then for a seven-day period, the

money is ‘pre authorised’ and should you need

to apply the charge in the case of a no-show

you can do so.

A CONSULTATION FEE

Some retailers are deciding that gone are the

days of providing styling advice and expertise

for free to brides who may just be collecting ideas.

Consider putting in place a bridal consultation

fee redeemable against a dress purchase. For

retailers whose reputation and collection precede

them this is an option, but be sure to point out

exactly what they are getting for their money

since there will be plenty of retailers who do

not want to charge for consultations and who

will then appear to be a cheaper more fl exible

experience.

Interestingly I’ve met bridal retailers over the

years whose wealthy husbands generously fund

their bridal shop ‘hobby’. For them growth and

profi t maximisation isn’t really on their list of

business priorities and so perhaps a no-show is

actually a welcome break from the daily grind.

But for self-starting ambitious business owners

who are turned on by results, profi ts and sales,

combatting no-shows within our industry is

an ever-increasing problem and yet another

business mission to accomplish ... We’ve been

working on ours, suggest you get working on

yours *winks*. BB

“It’s another thing

altogether when brides

book appointments and

don’t bother to show up.”

APPOINTMENT CONFIRMATIONS

Consider emailing or texting confi rmations

when appointments are booked. Effi cient

electronic diary management systems will do

this automatically for you, or simply do it yourself.

It’s professional, shows you’re organised and it

could be the difference between your being let

down at last minute.

APPOINTMENT REMINDERS

24/48 hours before the appointment dial

their digits and enthusiastically remind your

customer of the date and time you expect them.

Get them excited about their visit, ask if they’ve

had any more ideas since they booked their

106.BB.163.Abi Neill.indd 106 04/06/2014 15:52