This is the first in a series of articles by Mónica Arias of Excellence Consulting, a luxury sales and marketing consulting firm based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. These articles will focus on ways that sales and marketing professional in the jewelry and luxury industry can improve their techniques.So much has been said about improving customer service during the past decades that, given the global exposure of firms on the Internet and the world economic turmoil, one could easily assume this issue does not exist anymore simply because in theory, companies should have learned enough from the tough lessons associated with a poor customer assistance in the past. Unfortunately, the problem not only persists but it has also become a real challenge to overcome, especially in the retail arena, and more specifically, in the luxury retail industry where excellence is non negotiable.Customers are Kings (and Queens!). These words should be repeated like a mantra every day, all day long, by anyone trying to do business nowadays. And, more importantly, they should be put into practice just for the sake of business survival. Whether small or large, a company that provides luxury services or products that does not excel in customer service, even through small details, is paving the road to hell.Let me give you an example: let´s imagine you may be inclined to get a lovely piece of jewelry for your beloved. The idea warmed up for a while in your head and the decision is finally made to visit a renowned jewelry store. You step in, confident that you will be received like a King—after all this is a shop you do not put your feet into everyday as it is the supermarket or any retail store you visit with certain frequency. Instead, you just get what I call “a scanning look” and someone with unforgettable body language clearly indicates you are not especially welcomed, even with a slight smile on their face. Believe me, you do not actually “see” this, but you clearly feel it.You may think this is unusual in the luxury industry. It is my duty to tell you it is not. Reality shows that many luxury companies judge their clients either by their aspects, their race, their origin, the way they speak or move, they way they are dressed, and the list is endless. Moreover, they “rely” so much on their brands, reputation, tradition and marketing campaigns that they generally forget self-criticism and/or periodic research to understand what kind of feedback they receive from clients, how are they being perceived and, most importantly, if their customers really like them.Prejudice, unwillingness, lack of enthusiasm, poor or inexistent customer oriented training, payment systems that do not work properly after the sale is done, salespeople who are not trained in the appropriate way to offer a service of excellence to customers, the lack of a system to build trust and loyalty is only part of the problem.Business owners and salespeople in the luxury segment have countless excuses not to address this lack of attention to their business core. Excuses come in all sizes and colors, and of course the matter of “budget” is one of the most common ones. However, excellence in customer service has more to do with small details, attitude and care than huge budgets. People need to feel the great experience of having purchased with you, and you need to acknowledge that the sales process has evolved, so you need to learn how to transcend your clients` expectations by providing the excellence service they deserve. Always.Mónica M. Arias is a luxury sales and marketing specialist and a Spanish and English translator. She has spent 15 years experience working in a variety of sales marketing positions for several multinational companies. She is skilled in advanced sales techniques and is a proven expert in person-to-person interaction—both commercial and personal. She can be reached at contacto@monicaarias.com.ar.
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| Michael Margolis |
You may remember in February a piece on Michael Margolis being named as U.S. president of Girard-Perregaux. Well I caught up with Margolis in June and we discussed what he's been doing along with his future plans for the luxury watch brand.
It’s been a busy time for Margolis. In that short time span, he was involved in updating the brand’s website, helped build a new advertising campaign, started a lifestyle blog and made a key personnel change at the Girard-Perregaux’s boutique in New York.
One of the major reasons for all of these changes is to attract the younger aspirational customer to the venerable Swiss luxury watch brand.
“I think our average customer today is probably 45 or 50 years old. We love our 45- and 50-year-old customers,” Margolis said. “But we also need the 25- and 30-year-old customer. We need the young guys who have their first big job and they’re going to reward themselves with a watch.… We need that aspirational G-P buyer. I want the 15-year-old kid who looks through a watch magazine and I want him cutting a picture of our watch out and posting it on his refrigerator and telling his parents: ‘Someday I’m going to own that watch.’”
There are probably few people in the Swiss watch industry who understand this perspective more than Margolis, who is an outsider in a largely inbred industry. His background is in the high-tech industry but has always been a passionate watch collector. Through his passion he became a forum moderator at timezone.com, a popular website for watch enthusiasts.
“I was a watch fanatic,” he said. “So I bring a little different perspective to the table. I bring a consumer’s perspective, a collector’s perspective. I see things a little differently I think because I’ve been to the other side of the counter. Most of the people were born in the industry.”
In 2005, Margolis was approached by Jean-Claude Biver, a very successful figure in the Swiss watch industry, who at the time was working for the Swatch Group. He told Margolis his plan to take over and rebuild a dormant watch brand. Biver wanted Margolis to manage a forum on Timezone about the brand. The brand was Hublot, which under Biver’s leadership, experienced spectacular growth to become one of the world’s best-known watch brands. During this time (2005 – 2012), Margolis’ role grew into communications director and eventually sales director of the brand.
Margolis is using his high-tech background, his communications and sales skills, his understanding of the passionate watch customer, and his newly acquired Swiss watch industry experience, to create ways to appeal to watch lovers in the modern world.
One of the most creative ways Margolis is attracting both the current Girard-Perregaux client and the aspiration person is by the creation of the Mechanics of Style blog. It is basically an online luxury lifestyle publication with articles from professional writers on a variety of topics, including food, travel, wine and spirits, sports, collectibles and just about anything that would be of interest to the timepiece connoisseur.
“We’re talking about all kinds of things that a person who buys a Girard-Perregaux or another watch might be interested in, such as custom shirts, fragrances, espresso machines, wine and cigars,” he said. “I won’t say it’s completely independent of Girard-Perregaux because it’s not. There’s some history and some facts and some fun things about GP as well. We have the World Timer watch that’s been an icon of GP for many years. We have a travel segment where we’re visiting all 24 of the cities that are on the World Timer’s bezel. It will be a 24-month campaign to visit all the cities on the dial.”
The website, which was not discussed during the interview, is a sleek, fast site that doesn’t use flash, which I consider groundbreaking. In the stodgy world of luxury Swiss watches and luxury in general, the industry has seemed incapable of letting go of the slow, cumbersome flash platform. Featured prominently on the new site is the company’s new advertising campaign. It focuses on a group of the band’s young watch makers, discussing their passion for the trade and their interests outside of work. The campaign includes an ongoing world tour where the young watchmakers give one-on-one workshops to watch connoisseurs and guests for insight on watchmaking and how complicated timepieces are built.
On the retail level, Margolis hired a new manager at its Madison Avenue boutique, the only brand-specific, brand-operated Girard-Perregaux boutique in the world: Chip Henderson, a veteran watch retailer.
“He’s not a guy who grew up in the industry,” Margolis said. “He’s a guy who has passion for the product and he’s exactly what we need for our Madison Avenue boutique.”
Margolis has big plans for the boutique.
“I want to turn the boutique into what I’m calling a Girard-Perregaux embassy. Yes of course it’s a retail space where a customer can come in and buy a watch and we don’t apologize for that. But I want it to be much more than that. I want it to be where the customer can come, he can be educated, he can buy just a strap for his watch, he can learn about the brand. We have a full-time watchmaker on staff. When you walk in the door he’s right in front of you. We take in a tremendous amount of repairs. We have repair facilities in the U.S. but it’s rare that brand boutiques on Madison have a watchmaker on staff so we’re very happy about that.”
Margolis said Girard-Perregaux has no plans to build more boutiques. Instead, it will continue to enhance its relationships with its retailers.
“My opinion as a watch guy is that we are manufacturers and distributors and wholesalers. It’s not our place to be retailers,” he said. “We have a number of boutiques in China but they’re all owned by retailers. The only boutique that we have in the world that’s not owned by a retailer is Madison Avenue and if you look at the rent structure for what a square-foot of space on Madison Avenue in the 60s costs, it’s nearly impossible for a retailer to make a business model that works. For us, the boutique becomes an advertising expense.”
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| Lorre White |
Lorre White lives and works in a special place in the world of luxury that she created for herself. To most people she is the “The Luxury Guru,” an international media personality who shares her expertise on the luxury lifestyle and luxury marketing.
However, White also works as a marketing consultant for companies who target Ultra High Net Worth consumers—the 2 percent of the population that controls half of the world’s wealth. Through her company, White Light Consulting, she provides a range of services that include branding, strategic planning and executive training.
It’s a combination that has worked for White for a number of years. As attitudes about luxury become more democratic and social media brings people closer to the brands, her formula for reaching UHNW individuals, luxury marketers and aspirational luxury consumers becomes even more powerful.
“My unique niche is reaching the world’s wealthiest demographic,” she says of her work as a luxury marketing consultant. “My clients are luxury brands that have products and services to sell that require a certain level of wealth to purchase them. Things like a $60 million yacht, or a $120 million private jet. In my consulting work it is not the buyer that I am working with; it is the companies that need to know how to reach and maintain this small and difficult demographic.”
This is also a changing demographic. White says that 92 percent of the world’s wealthiest individuals are self-made and 80 percent of them have had their substantial wealth only 10 years or less. “This means that the ones controlling most of the wealth globally are not brand aware,” she says.
This new reality requires a change in how companies market to these new wealthy consumers.
“Luxury brands that used to just be able to ride on their reputation must now aggressively educate these individuals about their brand,” she says. “These individual did not grow up with the old luxury brands.”
For companies that have an exceptional and valuable product or service, it’s a demographic that is worth pursuing.
“The combined Net Worth of the UHNW could pay off the United States deficit ($14 trillion) and still have Net Worth higher than the GDP of the U.S. and China combined and this amount is controlled by less than 200,000 people,” she said.
White’s interest in luxury marketing began more than 20 years ago at Simmons College in Boston when, on her own, she began studying the specific motivations of the wealthy. At the time it was an unknown field of study. She continued to pursue this market by first forming an events marketing and planning agency for wealthy clients that included the NFL and American Express.
White soon found even more success in the private aviation business, first with SeaGate Travel, helping it to become the 10th largest travel company in the U.S. with a private charter division. She followed this by becoming head of global marketing for private aviation partnership, NetJets/Marquis Jets BBJ program, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway. This is a short list of her experience and accomplishments.
As “The Luxury Guru,” she spreads the world of luxury to a much broader audience through broadcast media, online videos, a number of social media platforms, magazine columns and articles in publications throughout the world, and on her blog (www.LuxGuru.Typepad.com). Primarily through social media her popularity has grown organically from the U.S. to Europe to the U.A.E.
The way luxury is viewed has changed greatly over the past few years and White, in her dual roles, is able to benefit. The snobbish appeal has largely disappeared and White says that’s a good thing. “Snobbery by definition is not being luxurious.” In addition, digital media has redefined how consumers and luxury brands communicate with one another.
White knows that most low price point luxuries like fashion, perfumes, skin care, cosmetics and candles rely on 80 percent of their sales from aspirational consumers. So when presenting to general audiences, she often talks about these more affordable items.
“My information to the consumer is free. If people cannot afford a yacht, they can still watch a video or read an article I wrote on it,” she says. “It does not hurt anyone to share in the education, the advertisers and sponsors of low price-point luxuries like fashion…. I supply positive educational entertainment.”
For luxury professionals, she provides free research and tips for companies on attracting and marketing to luxury consumers.
“The articles I write and share for free help many small companies that cannot afford to hire an expert,” she says. “I get letters of gratitude all the time from small companies that say they turned their businesses around by following my advice and articles. I think it is great that I have been able to help so many.”
Finally, for those who have made it and are inexperienced at enjoying their wealth to the fullest, White's blog and other online activities provide a safe, secure source of inside information about luxury. Her followers are predominantly UHNW (private jet owning) individuals that sign up to get information from her blog daily. They include royals, billionaires and other very noteworthy names. White says there are very few media sources that have this reach. "This is why companies like Rolls-Royce had me do the very first personal (not about cars) interview with their global CEO. Because they want to reach my audience. This is something very rare."
She added, “I offer ego friendly ways to learn about the best luxury brands from private jets, to yachts, to watches, to fashion designers, to wines. Most UHNWs grew up in poor or middle class homes and are more likely to know mass brands like Nike than luxury brands like Brioni. This is a group of people that do not have to pick and choose what luxury they can partake in. They can do it all and they are thirsty for trustworthy information. Trust plays a very key role. This group does not respond to traditional advertising. The power of the personality (my brand) brings trust. There is accountability as to who is saying it.”
However, there is another reason she is so ubiquitous.
“I am a marketer. To ask me to not market is like asking me not to breath.” Please join me on the Jewelry News Network Facebook Page, on Twitter @JewelryNewsNet and on the Forbes Web site.
Royal Asscher has begun a strategic alliance in China and Macau with the Sparkle Roll Group Ltd., a distributor of top-tier luxury goods in China.
The alliance is for a period of 10 years, with an option to be renewed for another 10 years and will focus on the promotion and sales of several Royal Asscher diamonds and jewelry lines, most notably Royal Asscher Cut Diamonds the Stars of Africa Collection
“We have established a firm foothold in the Japanese market for 45 years where we supply 125 jewelers,” said Edward Asscher, President of Royal Asscher. “Next to the U.S. and European markets, the People Republic of China (PRC) is the fourth greatest market for our 159 year-old Asscher family company. We believe that Sparkle Roll's market leadership and extensive distribution network will help expand our reach across the broad spectrum of target audiences in the China and thus reinforce our presence in the market.”
Ivan Tong, chairman of Sparkle Roll added, “We began this exclusive distributorship in March 2011 and we are confident that Royal Asscher will be one of the most successful jewelry brands in the PRC.” Please join me on the Jewelry News Network Facebook Page, on Twitter @JewelryNewsNet and on the Forbes Web site.
