ADDITIONAL SERVICES

Trial room service:
The best time to check for efficiency of a perfect trail room process is during week ends, and sale period. I am sure everybody must have come across this experience of waiting outside a trial room for your turn to come, and see people in front of you with one or two shopping baskets full of merchandise to be taken inside the trial room for trial purpose during a typical week end. You get more frustrated when it’s your turn and the customer ahead of you has six to eight merchandise to be tried on. Looking at this situation you either get irritated, or feel like not waiting there for another minute. Many customers end up leaving the garments after experiencing such a situation. Reason for all this is lack or absence of a proper trail room process.

Presence of trial rooms in a departmental store selling readymade garments is very essential as it is one of the service providers for customers. An efficient trial room should be able to give all the comfort and necessity required by the customer during a trial of the garment selected. The trial room also acts as a strong resource for customers to shop-lift merchandise and hence to curtail the same a strong process need to be implemented at the trail room for customers to try the garment.

Every trial room should have proper hooks, mirror and a stool and proper latch inside the trial room. The trial room should be spacious and comfortable enough for one person to try the garment without facing any inconvenience. Separate trial rooms need to be in place for ladies and men’s and should be placed at the respective section and very near to the concerned department. Outside every trial room there should be a signage mentioning the process and store policies related to trial of merchandise.

Mostly in lifestyle department stores the customers are allowed to carry only three garments at a time. The security guard manning the counter is expected to give token to the customer who is trying the garment inside the trial room. Once the customer comes out of the trial room the security guard should then politely ask for the token back from the customer. The token will have a number representing the number of garments taken in for trying. This will help the security guard to keep a track of merchandise movement from the floor to the trial room by customers. At the same time the customers are also aware of the process and feel comfortable to carry few garments at a time rather than carry the entire stuff. The security guard should then opt to collect the garments which are not required by the customer after the trial and offer a shopping basket to retain the garments which the customer wishes to buy.

During a trial process the security guard on duty should check that all tags are in place on the garments taken for trial by the customer before and after the trial. The guard should also check as to no merchandise is left inside the trial room by the customer at any given time. He should also check if any valuables like wallets and mobile phone is not left inside the trial room by the customer. If in case he finds any valuables he has to submit the same at the customer service desk.

The security guard posted at the trial room should be very vigilant and should be on duty all the time during the trading time of the store. At any time never a trial room should be unmanned.
The department manger should also see to it that one staff from the particular department is assigned at the trial room every day.

The department manager also should ensure that the trial room is kept neat and clean, mirrors are being cleaned by the housekeeping staff and free from litter. Outside every trail room a bin should be placed for customers to drop the merchandise which they intend not to purchase after the trial is done. Periodically the staffs from the respective department need to collect these merchandise from the bin and display the stocks back on the shop floor. At no given time should the trial room be used for storing of stocks, or used as a stock room.


Alteration service:

The development of malls and organized retailing has directly and indirectly benefited the consumers a lot. This development has witnessed the evolution of many tools linked to customer service, leading to a complete change in approach by all retailers, big or small. Providing alteration service is one of them.
I remember in the early eighties to early nineties we used to not buy readymade garments, but prefer stitching one, due to non-availability of the perfect size, and the absence of alteration service. Even the few which existed used to be an expensive act.

Since some few years around I have noticed a drastic change in the way the small retailers have responded to this new concept of alteration service provided by the big retailers at the malls. During all the festive seasons, especially during the Diwali (Festival of Light- celebrated in a huge scale in India) season every readymade garment shop will station a tailor just outside the shop just to take alteration orders from the customers. To compete with the big retailers they encourage all their customers to buy the garment of their choice, not to worry about sizes as they will be altered free of charge by their in-house tailor. (The one stationed outside the shop) Providing free alteration by most of the retailers to their customers has encouraged the shoppers to buy more goods.

This concept has also introduced customized garments wherein all gents’ trousers have open ended hems and ladies sleeveless kurtas (tops) will have a pair of sleeves attached as an option for the customer, in case she wants the sleeves to be stitched.

Most of the Retailers who are in the business of selling readymade garments have introduced this facility of providing alteration facility to their customers. The advantage to retailers is that they are able to convert more customers, and increase the sale. The customers find this service more convenient, as well as time and money saving factor.

Every service provided to a customer is fine as long as it is targeting a small size of business, but needs to be properly planned, a proper process implemented to run the service process if targeted to a bigger business house. Same goes to the alteration system.
Alteration service can go for a toss if a proper system is not put in place by the retailers.

I still remember an incident which I experienced along with one of my colleagues in one of the shops I was working with. We were standing near one of the cash tills at the men’s section. A customer in his late thirties approached us with a bill and told us that he had come to collect his goods given for alteration. The shop we were working in did not have a proper customer service desk. Hence any customer could approach the nearest sales executive and request for service. My colleague took the slip from the customer, went to one of the areas at the back office where all altered garments used to be kept. He came with one of the bags, and gave the customer. The customer thanked him and left from there.
In the evening the customer came back with the merchandise. A young gentleman had accompanied him now. He took out one of the garments from the bag, which somewhat looked like a Bermuda, and asked us whether it is the same trouser he had purchased for his son. His son was around five feet and seven inches in height, and the Bermuda-like trouser was obviously not his. He had purchased a similar material trouser and wanted its inner length to be reduced by 2 inches. The tailor had mistaken the measurement and reduced the length of the trouser by 2 ft. and made a Bermuda out of it. We had to apologize to the customer for such a drastic mistake, buy some more time from the customer, replace the trouser, alter it as per his requirement, and home deliver it.
The obvious reason for such a terrible incident to occur was absence of a proper alteration process and system within the shop.