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Malls seek to offer MOHR service

By Stanley H. Slom

Stanley H. Slom is a former retail reporter for The Wall Street Journal, and has worked as an editor at several business magazines.

For Herb Cohen, CEO of MOHR Retail Learning Systems Inc., smiling, being nice and polite, and thanking the customer by name are not training issues.

"Rather, these are issues to hire and fire someone," said Mr. Cohen, whose Ridgewood, N.J.-based company is providing customer service training for store staff in 50 of Chicago-based General Growth Properties' 122 malls this year.

"What we are talking about is a higher level of customer service, like taking personal responsibility," said Mr. Cohen. "Our objective here is to get the contact people -- the people who are facing the public -- and allow them to participate, to get involved in the customer's experience."

"To our knowledge, this is the first time a shopping center company has offered this type of customer satisfaction training to its retail tenants," said Mary Kiley, SCMD, senior vice president, marketing services, General Growth.

Taking responsibility for the customer's experience, according to Mr. Cohen, means anticipating her needs; sharing new ideas; and becoming the customer's advocate.

The agreement with General Growth is not a training session in which everyone comes in for a day or a half-day, explained Mr. Cohen. Rather, these are ongoing meetings.

Meeting No. 1 is conducted either by a meeting leader who is a natural leader -- say a store manager -- who will get his people together for about a half-hour a week on the subject of, for instance, taking personal responsibility. At the end of the meeting, the participants discuss how they might take responsibility before the next meeting.

Mr. Cohen argues that if the employee takes a little initiative, it will keep the customer coming back to the mall. The associate should anticipate the customer's needs, such as returning forms or gift certificates. Staff should offer ways to solve service problems and continue to improve service.

Another meeting might deal with using good judgment to protect and build a relationship. But that judgment must be used within the confines of company policy. What are the risks of breaking the rules?

As an example, Mr. Cohen often will tell participants of the time he was in a coffee shop, ordered a cup of coffee and suddenly had to leave the shop to fax something. He returned moments later, and the waitress recognized him when he ordered another cup of coffee. She asked whether it was a refill or a new cup of coffee. He asked the difference between the two; a refill was 25 cents and a new cup cost $1, he was told. Because he had thrown away the original cup, the waitress charged him $1 for a new cup of coffee. She was following the rules, but "What harm would it have been to embrace me as a customer?" he asked rhetorically.

Customer retention is the key to life in a retail environment, explained Mr. Cohen. Making the customer return even one or two more times a year can have a phenomenal impact on profitability.

"If the associates are spending all their time protecting the assets of the organization, it's a bit old-fashioned," he said. MOHR Retail Learning Systems is one of the largest providers of training programs to U.S. retail companies. Over the last 20 years, it has dealt with over 500 retail chains. General Growth is its first major mall manager client.

MOHR's other clients include The Limited and its divisions, The Gap, Wal-Mart, Crabtree & Evelyn, The Sports Authority, The Bombay Co., Brooks Brothers, Coach Leatherware, Dayton Hudson Corp., Walt Disney, J.C. Penney Co., Nordstrom, Reebok, Saks Fifth Avenue and Staples.

Malls have spent most of their efforts trying to attract customers through marketing, said Mr. Cohen, who spent more than 10 years in retailing before setting up his retail training and development business. Very little time has been spent increasing customer retention in the malls, he added.

"One of the ways is to create an environment where they're going to have an outstanding experience and tell their friends about it," Mr. Cohen said.

General Growth was a pioneer in offering training to retailers with its Power of Service and Training (POST) program, started in 1992. In its five-year history, General Growth's POST programs helped 11,000 store associates in improving their sales and management skills.

The MOHR modules take General Growth's training for retailers to the next level by focusing on improving customer satisfaction with an individual store in order to increase customer retention.

"Many studies we've been tracking show a direct correlation between increased customer satisfaction and rising sales," said Ms. Kiley.

"The results of one particular study showed that for every 3% rise in associate satisfaction, there was a corresponding 1% jump in customer satisfaction resulting in a 2.8% increase in sales. That's what we're aiming for by providing MOHR to our retailers."