For Luxury, what price service?

Whither the sage of a shop assistant? At a time when we as consumers have access to all the information we could want about a brand and its products via our smartphones, of what use is it to have someone tell me something that I am unlikely to take at face value, working as they are for said brand? Why even bother being in the store at all when I can be buying my item at home? The luxury goods company PPR (owners of Gucci, Saint Laurent Paris, Balenciaga et al.) could be said to have recently adopted a similar mindset. A new joint venture with e-tailer Yoox is sure to shake things up. Honcho Francois-Henri Pinault said recently, “While the whole industry has been resisting e-commerce for the last 15 years it’s now realising it’s inescapable”.

Not everyone believes such a move is inevitable. Chanel is steadfastly refusing to sell its principle collections – from ready to wear to handbags – online for the foreseeable future, according to a recent interview with the CEO. While this might strike some as akin to sticking one’s head in the sand, the reasoning the company gives centres around the unique experience of going into a store to buy a product, rather than sitting at home in one’s pajamas. From a strategic point of view, the idea is sound. Reducing avenues of purchase encourages a scarcity factor that high-end fashion must rely on. It also ensures that the products are seen in the best light possible, incredibly important when justifying such a premium. It’s interesting to note that though the thinking may be sound, it is certainly not appropriate for every luxury brand to be resisting the lures of online shopping in such a dramatic way. Chanel is – and always will be, in multiple ways – a very special company, an exceptional brand, in the literal sense. Like Apple though, it’s practices are to be emulated with caution, as a great paper by McKinsey Quarterly highlights. “Outliers are exactly that…”, the report states.

But what is the state of stores, and how important is service in these places? For luxury, we can assume a high priority of the physical shopping experience is connected to the person assisting you. Recent experiences at two different luxury goods stores highlighted jarring differences, monumentally affecting the way Zetigeist felt about the brand. Last month in New York, Zeitgeist visited Tiffany & Co. to find a Christening present. Without turning this article into a rambling letter of complaint, the section Zeitgeist found itself in was woefully understaffed, and when help was available, information turned out to be incorrect and, most importantly, not dispensed as if it were important to them. Zeitgeist left without buying anything. The experience was deflating enough to mention to the manager en route to leaving the store. Returning at the weekend to try again, the experience had not much improved. The item needed to be engraved. Taking it into one of the London stores upon returning home meant being greeted with the same mediocre level of service. No passion, no interest. This would be perfectly acceptable for somewhere such as Ernest Jones, but Tiffany is a massively, massively powerful brand. For many it is incredibly evocative, and speaks to nostalgia and deep-seated emotions with very personal connections. There is a dream that is Tiffany, that is replicated extremely well in their above-the-line marketing. It is completely absent in its physical embodiment, the store. Cartier, by comparison, manage to present a fantastical vision of their brand, while also maintaining a consistently excellent level of service in-store that brings cohesion to the image it evinces.

Louis Vuitton could not have presented a starker contrast to Tiffany. The brand had one brief flirtation with TV ads about four years ago. While also a powerful brand, it perhaps could not be said to elicit such powerful emotions as Tiffany, purely on the basis that Tiffany purchases might often be assumed to be gifts. Purchasing what is surely one of the cheapest things in the store, Zeitgeist was delighted to be led through the purchase process by an exceedingly-well trained woman, who was happy to go over the minutiae of the purchase, and knew answers to arcane questions when asked. It made the experience extremely pleasurable. Remarkably, the store went a step further, sending Zeitgeist a random act of kindness and imploring to get in touch if further assistance was required.

That kind of experience simply cannot be replicated online. If Amazon were to start selling Prada clothing anytime soon, the dissonance would be powerful. So while the luxury industry, and many in the retail sector at large, struggle with the idea of the shopper journey online, moreover how and where that connects with the physical journey, we cannot forget basics. The importance of good training, especially for demanding customer who are expecting a premium experience, cannot be overstated. Though smartphones and tablets may hold the data, it must be remembered that the purchase of a luxury product is often an irrational experience. The service and assistance received during purchase consideration may be an irrational influence, but it is an immensely powerful one. If a brand talks the talk, it must walk the walk, or face the consequences of failing to live up to its own promises.