IN-STORE EXPERIENCES: Serve it Special!

Serving hot or cold beverages to customers who walk into retail outlets to buy jewellery is an important step to break the ice, get to know the customers, and build a long-term relationship with them.

- Suneeta Kaul

It’s in the DNA of Indians to offer tea and coffee to anyone who steps into their home. The story is not very different when it comes to customers visiting retail stores to buy jewellery. Retailers swear by the importance of this seemingly small gesture, and hail it as an important marketing tool that helps them understand their customers better, and connect with them.

“Serving refreshments is an excellent way of building a long-term relationship with clients. A cup of tea or coffee helps make customers feel at home,” says Manideep Yechuri of Vega Sri Gold and Diamonds, Hyderabad. “We have a wide range of beverages and snacks on our menu to offer our customers, which includes sandwiches, upma, poha, tea, coffee, cold drinks, and so forth. It’s not just about sales for us, it’s about welcoming our patrons and making them comfortable,” he adds.

Retailers point out that Indians are, by nature, very hospitable, and making customers feel special is the secret to earning their goodwill. And their business. Says Neerav Challa of PMJ Gems and Jewellers, Hyderabad, “The customer is your God. At PMJ, we treat our clients like guests. If we have guests at home, we offer them refreshments, don’t we? So, we replicate that in our business, in our store, irrespective of whether those who walk in buy anything or not. We are not guided by commercial interests alone -- we are first about building a relationship with our clients. We have a number of items that we offer our customers – lemon tea, masala tea, green tea, etc. It has often happened with us that customers come to our store just to have our lemon tea. It connects them to us, our brand. Such small gestures go a long way, and bring in more clients. The word spreads, and we benefit from it. We don’t do any advertising; word of mouth does the trick for us.”