 Know
Your Cookies -- And Your Customers
By
Christina Ng
Associate, Community Wealth Ventures
Despite
enormous competition for cookies these days, Girl Scouts’ cookie sales
have managed to remain successful year after year. How do they do it?
They stay in touch with their customers. Understanding customer
experience can empower venture leaders and provide insight into
strategies for offering desired products and services that not only
retain old customers but attract new ones as well.
The Girl Scouts of the USA has recognized the value of understanding and
adapting to customer feedback
– easily one of the reasons why its cookie
sale operation has not only lasted 90 years but has also flourished,
bringing in $700 million in sales annually. Although each Girl Scout
Council (there are more than 300 in the U.S.) is allowed to set its own
prices, choose which of two bakers to produce its cookies, and run its
operation independently of the others, they all use common tools to find
out what customers like and don't like and use that information to keep
their sales high.
Create a Reason for Feedback
When customers buy a quart of disappointing ice cream, they typically
don't return it to the grocery store
– they just will not buy it again.
Leaders of the Girl Scout cookie ventures, however, explain that their
customers use every means available
–
on the Girl Scouts' Web site, by
telephone, and in person
–
to share positive and negative comments and to
offer suggestions for new projects.
That is, in part, because of the one-on-one sales approach. “We teach
the girls to create rapport and make the connection to the customer
– to
tell the customer their name upfront, their sales goal and the reason
why they’re selling, such as to fund their troop’s camping trip, “
explains Danielle Russell, sales manager for the San Diego-Imperial
Council. That helps build a connection between the customer and the Girl
Scout, and makes the customer more likely to provide feedback.
Connect With Customers
Each Girl Scout Council offers for a variety of ways for its customers
to provide feedback, including the Web site and a toll-free number, both
of which are printed on stickers on the cookie boxes and in all press
materials.
The Scouts’ most effective tool for engaging customers, however, is
through the girls themselves. Direct access to the customer offers the
girls the chance to ask about their favorite cookie. Such conversations
also reveal ideas for product development, such as when Girl Scouts
across the country reported conversations with potential customers who
said they would love to buy the cookies, but could not eat sugar for
health reasons. Combined with a survey commissioned by one of the bakers,
the conversations led to the development of the recently introduced sugar-free Little
Brownies and Chocolate Chip Girl Scout cookies.
Translate Feedback to Action
Even when companies do collect data on customer satisfaction, many fail
to do anything about it. That is not true of the Girl Scout Councils. In
the case of the San Diego-Imperial Council, feedback from customers
(from disappointment over the discontinuation of the Lemon Chalet Crème
cookies to new product suggestions like dog biscuits) are shared during
weekly staff meetings and tracked for general trends. And all councils
issue to their girl scouts and leaders end-of-cookie season evaluations forms to
capture feedback received from
customers. Finally, the councils share what they've learned with their
bakers at the end of the year to ensure the findings inform product
development and translate into concrete solutions.
Above all, staying in touch with customers and making sure everyone is
part of a collaborative process, from the Scouts to the Council leaders to the bakers, keeps
Girl Scout cookies top sellers despite all the competition.
»
BACK TO FRONT PAGE |
