My Grocery Store is out of Kraft Dinner & the Car Wash is out of Soap

Keep Loyal Customers Loyal by Being Dependable and Stocking Essential Items

From Flickr - avilon_music

Become dependable to your customers in the services and products you offer and you’ll go a long way to keep your customers loyal to your company.

Let me illustrate my point.

A few weeks ago I needed a car wash and drove to the local car wash I’ve gone to for years. I parked the truck, walked inside to purchase my car wash only to find out that they ran out of soap for the touchless car wash. Can you imagine? The entire car wash shut down, because they ran out of soap? As I walked out frustrated, I was thinking to myself; “How can you run out of soap at a car wash? If it was my car wash, I’d always make sure that I have at least a month’s supply at all times. Wow much can it cost to inventory soap, especially if you run a busy car wash?!”

I proceeded to find another car wash that had soap that evening. When I walked inside, they informed me that their system allowed you to pay by credit card, just as you entered into the car wash. “You mean I don’t even have to step outside my truck? I can just pull up, swipe my card and proceed into the car wash? That’s much more convenient than my usual spot.”

Since then, I’ve had two more car washes, and both times I was pleased to be able to drive up to my new spot, swipe my card and proceed through the car wash very quickly. The other operation lost my loyal business two weeks ago, simply because the car wash ran out of the one supply they should never run out of, soap.

I see retailers often running out of staple products or supplies when they try too hard to keep costs down and inventory levels lean. They think that customers will forgive them if they can’t serve them one day because they ran out of a staple item at the store.

I’m telling you this is simply not true.

Why do you think that some of the big box stores gain so much market share? A large part is because their systems are so efficient they have become even better than the smaller independent retailers at stocking staple products in their stores. Have you ever seen Wal-mart run out of Kraft Dinner? Or Canadian Tire run out of windshield wiper fluid? Never. They have become dependable and customers reward them with their purchases.

This is why it drives me absolutely crazy if my stores run out of a staple product. In my mind, there is no reason for it. I’d rather have three times too much of a staple product, than turn one customer away because we didn’t have it available. That makes us unreliable to our customers and I just will not tolerate that.

So please, don’t shoot yourself in the foot when trying to cut costs. Don’t give your customers a reason to go to your competition if you can help it.