A simple question that all of us who have clients must ask ourselves at some point.
Soy de las pocas personas que aún compran el periódico en papel. No todos los días pero si varias veces a la semana y eso que leo el periódico en Internet con una subscripción on line de pago. Bueno debo decir que «compraba» el periódico en papel, porque desde que mi kiosquero Antonio se ha jubilado y cerrado el negocio ya no lo he vuelto a comprar.
Qué abosurdo ¿no?, pagaba por algo que no usaba. Bueno la disculpa era el sudoku y el crucigrama, pero en el fondo no era verdad; la razón para comprarlo era echar una «parrafada» con Antonio acerca de la actualidad o de la vida.
I bet many of Antonio's customers have stopped buying the paper since it closed, and yet less than 200 metres away we have another kiosk. I also noticed, just before it closed, that many of us were spending more than usual: collections of stuffed insects that ended up in the rubbish bin or philosophy books that won't be opened.
Antonio no tenía clientes fieles, tenía clientes «apóstoles»
¿Qué ocurría en el Kiosco de Antonio?. Pues que la gente compraba y se llevaba algo más que un diario o una revista: se podía llevar un resumen «flash» y certero de la actualidad, una píldora de «coaching» o una lección de cómo afrontar el día (proverbial y contagiosa eran su energía positiva los lunes a primera hora). Todo ello independiente de que te llevases el Abc, Marca, Hola, El País, Expansión, La Razón,.. cualquier «segmento» tenía su experiencia personalizada. Por cierto, no regalaba nada.
En mi caso además pude recibir «advice» profesional gratuito de alguien que lleva vendiendo cosas desde hace más de cuarenta años, «¿porqué y cómo compra la gente?» me gustaba preguntarle. También me brindaba sólidas teorías sobre categorías de producto poco estudiadas desde la consultoría «¿por qué se sigue comprando porno en los kioscos?…» (otro día compartiré aquí esas teorías).
En fin, que Antonio ha cerrado y todos sus clientes hemos reaccionado de una manera u otra: en los corrillos de estos días en el kiosco se oían comentarios tipo «al fin se acabó comprar el periódico en papel«, «por qué no te sigues pasando un rato por las mañanas para charlar?» «… y ahora dónde me quejo yo del gobierno?». Lo que está claro es que todos vamos a recordar este punto de venta y a compararlo con otros que conozcamos en el futuro.
What was so special about Antonio? My opinion is that he had two very specific things:
- He loved his work and enjoyed doing it: is there any job more thankless than that of a newsagent? (Sunday afternoons and a month in summer, the cold and the heat...). Well, he liked it. I think he saw himself as the final link in journalistic activity in the classic sense, like those old-fashioned newsagents who used to put all their passion into shouting out the news.
- He knew each and every one of his clients very well: What they needed and what they liked, as customers and as people, whatever colour they were. And he enjoyed giving added value in every purchase, always personalising, always grateful.
This story is related to a question that I think is good to ask from time to time.
If you had to close your kiosk today, what would your customers say, how would they react?
Will they just go to the nearest kiosk? Or maybe they think they have lost something really good that happened to them when they were buying things from you.
If what we are looking for is to give our customers a special experience, which will make them miss us if we are absent or to tell at a dinner with friends how good it was to shop in our shop, I suggest what I have seen professionals like Antonio do: fall in love with our work (or re-fall in love if necessary), know our customers and what they need very well and enjoy seeing them happy, both as customers and as people.
This is not a utopia, it can be done, and we all have examples of businesses, large and small, that practice it and generate a memorable experience for their customers, that manage to make a place for themselves in their habits, and thanks to this have good results, generate satisfaction and above all, recommendations.
To think that our customers will go to the kiosk on the corner if we close today, without any more history, we won't allow it, it's too hard.
