Before attempting to improve customer experience, it is vital for all members of the organization to share a clear definition of what customer experience means. By definition, customer experience is a qualitative value that sums each of the interactions that occur between a customer and a business throughout the lifespan of the relationship they share.

Improve Customer Experience with These Tips

The interactions that make-or-break customer experience does not occur exclusively in-store, however. Digital interactions like TV commercials, radio spots, print ads, email campaigns, and social media all make significant contributions to the overall customer experience. Businesses must be mindful of this when creating a customer experience enhancement program.

Make a Good First Impression

Making a good first impression sets a solid foundation for building a positive customer experience. In general, the goal should be to make the customer as comfortable as possible. In return, the customer can more easily be guided to an appropriate purchase that he or she will make with confidence. This can be accomplished through both in-store ambiance, as well as with well-trained customer service professionals.

• Use a color scheme that resonates with the goal of your business. If you are a travel agency, vibrant colors and earthy décor can aid in creating the “escape” experience that your customers desire. For banks and financial institutions, however, a cooler color scheme with blacks, deep blues, and graphite accents can promote feelings of safety and confidence.
• Maintain a professional appearance. Use floor mats, signs, and other safety products to promote a clean and professional appearance during business hours. During fall and winter months, offer customers an easy way to stow their wet umbrellas with wet umbrella bag stands.
• Focus on comprehensive employee training. list (clear protocol for handling specific types of customer interactions, ongoing training to improve service, training to learn about new products/ services, etc) To create an excellent customer experience, employees must be prepared to handle customer complaints—both the common and the rare.

Maintain a Safe Environment

Creating a safe and professional environment is just the starting point. Once created, management must devise practical strategies for maintaining a safe in-store environment.

• Regularly clean floor spaces along heavily trafficked areas, like entryways and elevator lobbies.
• Designate specific members of the maintenance team as responsible for reporting and responding to dangerous conditions, like puddles, faulty product displays, illegible warning signs, and other potentially hazardous elements within the retail space.
• When offering wet umbrella bags to customers on days of inclement weather, make sure dispenser stands are properly deployed and remind maintenance staffs to check them throughout peak hours, re-stocking with additional bags when necessary.

Focus on Touch Points to Enhance Customer Experience

As we’ve seen, enhancing customer experience in today’s digitally connected world requires businesses to identify and connect with customers in both real-world and virtual. While in-store promotions attract customers to physical storefronts, it’s digital channels like social media and email that often nurture customers until they are ready to make a purchase. By considering, business professionals can devise a comprehensive strategy for delivering a higher level of service that ultimately leads to a better experience, both in the store and online.

Visit Umbrella Bagger for additional information on wet umbrella bag dispensers, disposable bags, and other safety products. For order information and assistance, call toll free 1-855-328-8100.

For follow-up reading, visit this article on customer experience via Forrester, a global research and advisory board.

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This summer, a new product has emerged to keep facilities clean, dry, and safe. Aptly named Umbrella Baggers bag-and-stow wet umbrellas so visitors can carry them throughout the facility, without leaving a trail of dangerous rainwater.

Improving Safety Through Stowing Wet Umbrellas

Few regions present greater weather-related challenges to American business owners than Miami. Known as the “Gateway to the Americas,” Miami is a transportation hub for millions of people and billions of tons of cargo annually. And while scorching hot summer temperatures make warehousing and logistics operations a trying endeavor, the wind and rain of hurricane season imposes severe risk and danger on retail business owners and shoppers alike.

And while operations cannot cease under the threat of pending storms, business owners nevertheless turn their focus to improving visitor safety through proactive accident prevention. In doing so, floors become a focal point, leading facilities to invest in matting and other safety products that prevent slip and fall accidents.

Why Invest in Wet Umbrella Wrappers?

There are certain situations in which floor mats, handrails, signs, and adequate lighting can fall short in preventing accidents. In such situation is when a guest carries a wet umbrella into a facility, leaving a trail of rainwater that can cause puddles, slips, and falls.

Wet Umbrella Wrappers provide an effective solution to this problem. Our new line of Automatic Wet Umbrella Wrappers are a premium solution, giving guests the ability to bag and stow their umbrella in one simple motion. To learn more, visit this article on why wet umbrellas are a safety concern.

Thinking About Liability This Season

Slip and fall accidents might trigger liability claims, making it vital that businesses invest in safety products and employee education initiatives that prevent liability before it becomes a costly issue. Liability prevention becomes increasingly important in times of inclement weather, as heightened wind, rain, and other elements make business environments more dangerous.

For tips on how to prevent accidents and keep employees mindful of these issues, visit this article on liability prevention.

Download Press Release: To download the official press release, click here.

The post Miami Businesses Use Umbrella Wrappers to Promote Safety This Hurricane Season appeared first on Umbrella Bagger Blog.

Umbrellas, Rainwater, and Safety

Many businesses are hesitant to invest in new safety products that do not offer a direct and tangible benefit to the bottom line. In today’s economy, managers and risk management teams are often under immense pressure to focus on technological investments that yield large-scale efficiencies in major areas of business operations like manufacturing, marketing, and research and development.

Visitor safety and customer relationship management are essential focal points for businesses looking to increase revenues and efficiencies, however, particularly those involved in retail sales, property management, and the hospitality industry. For these businesses, wet umbrella bag stands provide numerous benefits at a low cost that is easy to manage.

To more easily make this cost-benefit analysis, it helps to assess the 4 main reasons why wet umbrellas are dangerous for business.

1. Entrance Mats Dry Shoes Only

Businesses that feel entrance matting and safety signs are adequate in preventing slip and fall accidents are wise to reconsider the reach of their safety initiatives. Rubber mats, carpet mats, and other flooring materials are highly effective in wiping the dirt and moisture from the soles of shoes. However, they do not prevent moisture and debris from being carried past the entryway by umbrellas. Moreover, guests who perform the “Shake and Splash” inevitably throw rainwater, snow, and ice well past entrance mats and on to lobby floors.

2. Guests Are Prone to the ‘Shake and Splash’

We’ve all seen it before: A guest quickly enters the building, taking refuge from the storm outside. They carefully wipe their shoes repeatedly, consciously trying to avoid a slip and fall. Then, they vigorously open and close their wet umbrella several times, shaking it dry so they may carry it more comfortably throughout the interior of the building.

The problem: The popular “Shake and Splash” move throws precipitation beyond the reach of entrance mats. Rainwater, snow, and/or ice are left to melt and form dangerous puddles on uncovered areas of lobby floors. Responsibility then falls on the shoulders of the maintenance staff to clean the mess before another guest accidentally slips and falls. And for commercial locations that experience a great deal of visitor inflow/outflow, or for those with limited maintenance resources, the risk of accident increases with each guest who arrives.

3. Slip and Fall Accidents Are a Costly Problem

Slip and fall accidents are a costly problem, and it’s estimated that American businesses lost approximately $12 billion to such insurance claims in 2010 alone. This figure is courtesy of the Liberty Mutual Research Institute, and it was published in the organization’s annual safety report titled 2012 Workplace Safety Index. The report also indicated that slip and fall accidents are 1 of the 10 most costly categories of workplace accidents that has actually increased in cost since 1998.

4. Property Owners May Face Liability

By law, property owners are required to take reasonable measures to keep premises safe for those who visit. Property owners owe the highest level of duty and care for invitees—those individuals who are invited on to the premises. It’s vital for business owners to understand that a vast number of jurisdictions consider customers to be invitees, as the opportunity to conduct business in the store/on location carries with it an unspoken invitation to enter.

And while lawmakers do not require business owners to give guests a disposable umbrella bag on rainy days, they do require property owners to take reasonable efforts to keep the premises safe. This includes covering slippery floors with floor mats that increase traction, as well as proactively cleaning liquid accumulation and dangerous puddles. In this way, wet umbrella bag dispensers keep businesses a step ahead, preventing rainwater accumulation and the liability that comes with it.

Learn More About Wet Umbrella Bag Dispensers

To learn more about our state of the art umbrella bag dispensers, visit our Automatic Wet Umbrella Wrappers online store. Readers are also invited to contact customer service at 855-328-8100.

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