NLP and Retail: How High-End Brands Get Let Down
Retail is retail and so is NLP. High-end retail brands spend a lot of money being at the top end of the market in order to justify the prices they charge. But they were tremendously disappointed at their core. How? The NLP trainer explains.
Inappropriate sales staff
They employ sales staff who are too young to underscore the integrity of these well-established brands. Many brands have a tradition of centuries. However, most of the sales staff are Millennials. While Millennials, now in their 20s and 30s, can earn good money, they are unlikely to patronize high-end brands for personal purchases. Most are challenged enough to manage living expenses and the cost of all the fun they want to have. Not to mention spending several thousand on a bag etc.
The clientele that has the economic predisposition to do so is mostly older. If we imagine a scenario where a couple in their sixties looking for a travel gift walk into a Dior boutique and an assistant in her early twenties who cannot speak the language fluently and probably knows less about Dior than the pair help them, we’ll imagine where the integrity of any high-end brand fails.
Does the young 20-something attendee support the integrity of the brand that markets its products primarily to an older clientele? One NLP view is that these brands would exude much more credibility if they employed staff of a similar age to their customers. With tradition comes age and with age comes experience. Older sales assistants would likely learn more about the brand and sell better to customers of a similar age to their own. And older sales assistants would exhibit much more elegant interpersonal skills and passion for the brand than most Millennials.
2. Language makes brands cheaper
Most brands employ staff whose language skills are underdeveloped for the high-end environment. Underdeveloped language skills do not match the high-end environment and thus undermine brand integrity. They also seriously cheapen the luxurious image of brands. There’s a lot to be said for equal opportunity, but retail is a detail. There is nothing more embarrassing than a CEO of a global company walking into a Dior boutique to buy his wife a gift only to be misunderstood by the assistant. Or not having the linguistic ability to converse clearly with him. If I were that CEO, I’d be insulted by the brand that wants to charge me thousands for a bag, but gives me an assistant who can’t communicate clearly. There goes luxury again, right?
3. Retail staff do not sell
Sales assistants do not sell brand services to customers. If a customer walks into a fashion boutique and is expected to pay thousands of dollars for something, the customer has a right to expect service. In fact, the service is included in the high price of the products. Attendees must actively sell all brand services as unique selling points. They should proactively educate customers about product repairs and maintenance, product customization, ordering and delivery options, and options to search for products in other boutiques. All this in synergy would increase the credibility of high-end brands in the eyes and hearts of customers who, being of legal age, know a few things about life and have expectations of what luxury should represent: a comprehensive service.
NLP and high-end retail
have a lot of synergy. As a retail coach, I can help you discover and use that synergy for the best benefit of your (brand).