"How Apple Store Seduces You With the Tilt of Its Laptops" (from Forbes Magazine, June 14, 2012): Apple Retail has found that tilting demonstration laptop computer screens at a specific angle encourages customers to adjust them to their ideal viewing angle – and by virtue of touching the computer, invite them to experience the product and its apps in a multi-sensory mode.
"A Store Without a Checkout Counter? JCPenney Presses on with Retail Revolution" (Time Magazine, July 20, 2012): In late July 2012, J.C. Penney (a large American department store chain) announced that by 2014, it will eliminate cash registers and checkout counters at their retail stores. This idea emulates Apple Computer's successful retail store format, also the brainchild of Ron Johnson who left Apple Retail this spring to become CEO of J.C. Penney (JCP). Key functions of the plan are to have store employees with remote scanners roam the store and record purchases and payments, as well as create an iPhone app that allows customers to check themselves out.
Readers who have shopped at an Apple Retail store know that you are surrounded by staff both eager to leave you alone to play with the devices, but instantly there should you have questions or wish to make a purchase. If you use a credit card, you can be immediately checked out right where you stand, and instantly receive your receipt by email. But can a clothing and general merchandise retailer imitate this successfully?
From a QFD perspective, let's examine JCP's decision to emulate Apple as a new solution to an existing problem or opportunity. At the start of a technology-driven QFD project (Apple may have been customer-driven, but benchmarking is usually technology- or solution-driven), we look at the the functions of the technology and what important customer problems does it address?
For example:
- Who are the target customers and how do they shop?
- Do they come in with a purchase already in mind or do they browse?
- Do they buy things from multiple departments and don't mind paying for different purchases in different departments?
- Do they pay with cash?
- Do they add additional items as they walk towards the checkout counter?
- How big a problem is checking out and purchasing at JCP today?
- Do customers abandon their purchases due to waiting in line?
- What other problems do customers face at JCP such as poor selection or size availability?
- How will floor staff handle lost sales when customers that cannot find what they want?
So, when benchmarking another business, be careful to understand the "spirit" and not just the "form." We talked about this in the QFDI Newsletter "Hoshin Kanri - Understanding the spirit behind the form"
What fits others may need alterations before it fits your business.
