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In Retail, Profiling for Profit
Store manager Jenine Bryant explains how the Santa Rosa Best Buy has been redesigned to better serve soccer-mom-type shoppers.
(By Ariana Eunjung Cha -- The Washington Post)
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"She's very smart and affluent," said Best Buy employee Jenn Metzger.
"Jill is a decision maker. She is the CEO of the household," said Tony Sagastume, the general manager for the Santa Rosa Best Buy.
"Jill's children are the most important thing in her life," Bryant added.
According to the data Best Buy has collected, Jill shops a few times a year -- usually twice -- at an electronics store, but she usually spends a significant amount.
Since the redesign was rolled out in October, Jills have increased their spending at the Santa Rosa store by 30 percent, helping boost the store's revenue to what is expected to be $75 million to $80 million this year from around $50 million a year before the redesign and pushing its customer loyalty rating to among the top five in the country.
Nationwide, such "customer centricity" stores had an 8.4 percent increase in sales in the quarter ended May 28, compared with the same period a year ago, Best Buy executive John C. Walden said in June.
About 20 percent of the overhaul has to do with store merchandise, but the other 80 percent is more about the customer experience, said Susan Busch, a Best Buy spokeswoman. About a dozen of the Santa Rosa store's 210 employees are dedicated to what is known internally as the Jill segment team. To customers, this group is known as personal shopping associates, and its members wear pastels instead of the royal blue shirts that other salespeople in the store sport. They are stationed at an island smack in the center of the store decorated with fake purple flowers and stuffed animals.
"Is there anything special you're looking for today?" Bryant asked the blond woman.
"Oh, yes," she said, glancing down at the paper in her hand. "Playstation-2-Charlie-and-the-Chocolate-Factory?"
Bryant introduced the woman, Ann Facciano, 59, to another member of the Jill team, 18-year-old Jeremy Herman. Herman beamed at her and walked her over to the selection of games, pulled the appropriate box out of the stack, and then walked her back to the express checkout counter.
"Perfect!" Facciano exclaimed, admitting that she usually avoids Best Buys and asks her husband to come here whenever she needs something.
When Herman explained the store's new focus and handed her a card with his work e-mail address and a phone number for the specially trained Jill associates, Facciano squinted at the balloons and the new children's displays. "I guess I had better start coming in here more and figuring out what you have."
In the few minutes Herman had been helping Facciano, another woman in an almost identical crisp white shirt walked in, looking confused. Another Jill.
Bryant jumped in front of her. "Are you finding everything all right?"
"Uh, no," the woman said. "Uh, I have this Dell computer and . . . " Bryant smiled and nodded, and they were off.
