Tip #2 From The Furniture Training Company: How to Make Counting Customers Easy

Furniture World News Desk on 3/31/2017

We are frequently asked whether it’s important to count footfalls. It absolutely is important that you know how many customers enter your store each hour of every day. We believe it is the first and foundational data point every retailer must understand. An honest analysis of your hourly customer counts aids in making decisions about customer behaviors, promotional campaigns, and staffing efficiencies. Without an accurate count you can make expensive mistakes in future promotional campaigns. You can also make poor staffing decisions that lead to unhappy and frustrated customers who are underserved as well as unhappy salespeople who have either too many or too few customers to attend to. Accurate footfall is essential for making good decisions.

Some people argue that you should should be very deliberate when counting customers. They teach you to count buying groups rather than individuals and that you should not count unqualified customers like UPS drivers, customers who are paying bills, and children. However, requiring someone to make determinations as to who constitutes a buying group and who is, or is not a qualified buyer, is a costly exercise that is prone to inaccuracies.

The easiest way to track footfalls is to count everyone who enters your store. Everybody, everyday. should get counted. Applying this standard on a constant basis will ensure that you see important trends and patterns and allow you to see the impact your efforts make on store traffic.

Count your customers. Your method for counting is not nearly as important as your dedication to count in a consistent way each day and that you pay regular attention to the data your counting produces.

---

Mike Petersen, PhD, co-founder of The Furniture Training Company, has over 20 years of training experience and would love to help with your company’s training issues.
866-755-5996 or mikep@furnituretrainingcompany.com
http://www.furnituretrainingcompany.com/

Educational Tips From Furniture Training Company

Articles in Educational Tips From Furniture Training Company