Comment: Retailers can take valuable lessons from restaurateurs

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In New York last week, investment bank Financo’s 23rd successive Annual Forum was attended by 275 elite invitees, including the chief executives of some celebrated global brands.

The panel this year included the chief executives from brands Coach, Juicy Couture and the diverse portfolio of VF Corp as well as the equally celebrated Danny Meyer, whose Union Square group of restaurants operates across a gourmet paradigm ranging from $4.55 (£2.87) for a burger at Shake Shack to $98 (£62) for the prix fixe menu at the Gramercy Tavern.

For Meyer, retailers and restaurateurs are all in the same business; hospitality is not just the preserve of the food service sector. American retailers have long referred to their customers as guests, but welcoming shoppers to stores and making them feel at home is more vital than ever now that they could really be at home and shopping to their hearts’ content.

Product ranges and value for money are the eternal verities for any commercial operation, and out-of-stocks are just as irksome in dress sizes as they are on menus and wine lists. But it’s the quality of the customer experience, whether eating meals or buying goods, that can do most to encourage visitors to return and be turned from casual into serial purchasers.

Danny Meyer calls it “enlightened hospitality” and the aim for stores, as well as restaurants, to be more hospitable should not just be for the enlightened few.

But the reality is that many high street premises, if they’re not already vacant, are occupied by the same old cookie-cutter fascias and tedium has been allowed to set up shop.

This is all in the context of ever-improving customer service from pure-play operators (Amazon has just won the highest score ever achieved in the annual Foresee E-Retail Customer Satisfaction Index, a poll it has topped for eight consecutive years.) Why go out and have a dour shopping experience on the high street when you can have a fulfilling one at home?

If customers are guests then retailers must be hosts. Never has service been more important. It can be no coincidence that most of the successful retailers this Christmas are renowned for treating their customers well.

The John Lewis Partnership says it all.

Danny Meyer also referred to the upcoming opening of his first Shake Shack in London, so it’s timely to note that the lessons the best food service operators can offer to retailers are not just about hospitality.

Shake Shack’s mission is to “stand for something good”: a good team (“warm, fun, intelligent people who love to serve. Happy team = happy guests”), good food (no hormones or antibiotics), good materials (recycled and sustainable) and good neighbourliness (extending hospitality into local communities through cultural and educational initiatives).

And good technology too (the webcam outside the Madison Square Park Shake Shack shows the length of the real-time queue).

As more and more such eateries populate our shopping venues, stores must first and foremost make customers feel more than welcome too. Be my guest.