At Velvet, communication focuses on the customer and excellence
Fashion, luxury and glamour can give us good marketing lessons in interesting stories such as “Velvet”, the Spanish series on Antena 3, now in its fourth season. Taking a look at the way of seeing, feeling, understanding and living fashion at the Velvet Galleries, toward the end of the 1960s, invites us to recall guidelines that are perfectly applicable to our 2016 because, in the end, there are qualities that never change: the customer, exclusivity, added value, tailor-made solutions and innovation.
Entering the galleries means understanding communication as a two-way circuit in which, from the galleries’ heir, Alberto, to the last shop assistant, everyone knows the business very well, gets involved in it and seeks to satisfy all of its exclusive customers. He even adds his share of value by standing up to his father, Don Rafael, who has a conservative style and whom the young man seeks to change because he wants to expand his market by giving an air of modernity and sophistication to his customers. Something the Paris market already enjoys, and which they need to bring to Spain.
But what is it we love about Velvet? What makes us watch it again and again are those phrases and tips that remind us that without the customer nothing is possible and that everything is feasible if we are willing to give more. As one of its characters would say: “Let’s show the Oxford stores who we are”.
The customer as a symbol of happiness.
“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all”, said Michael LeBoeuf, and it is something the department store’s staff saw clearly. Its owner, Don Rafael Márquez, said that his only mission in life was to give happiness to his female customers, and that they always achieved it. Especially considering that the wealthier the customer, the more demanding her knowledge of fashion.
At Velvet, communication skills are a tool that sells itself. The shop assistants make eye contact with each customer, in a direct, pleasant way, listening attentively before recommending something tailored to them. Their professional language mixes the words glamour, class and money, something a rich person loves to hear again and again. This makes the customer arrive curious and leave more than happy, with expectations exceeded after a shopping experience that invites them to return again and again.
One occasion, a thousand opportunities.
The launch of each fashion collection becomes an opportunity to gather the most select of the aristocracy and generate networking. Every special date, such as Christmas, is also an opportunity to combine layout and design in a unique, trend-setting way. Velvet’s window displays and counters, under the direction of the daring and elegant designer Raúl de la Riva, come to life and adjust to his every wish, because he is willing to pour all his talent into the galleries and become, together with them, a symbol of new distinction.
Today’s marketing permanently monitors and detects opportunities to put brands in the shop window, from activations with the participation of a specific segment, product launches or the creation of an informational context to attract the media’s attention in exchange for information that offers value to their readers. The opportunity to stand out may be right under our noses, and all that is missing is developing the observer we carry inside. The way to find it is easy: think about your customer and ask yourself: What are they looking for, or how are they looking for it? Refine the answer and look for the most creative way to meet that need to score a point in your favor.
Quality and warmth to win people over.
““Here we don’t sell clothes. We sell haute couture, exclusivity, quality, class, and our customers don’t come here only for that, but for the treatment we are going to give them”. It is the phrase with which the head of staff, Don Emilio, the business’s oldest employee, opens the galleries’ doors while instructing his staff. And although all businesses aim to sell a good or service, showing it just as it is, without tone or flair, can turn cold, boring and routine.
When a person buys insurance, they are not buying “money for dying”; they are buying “peace of mind in a difficult moment, in which their family will be protected even when the most important person, you, is gone”.
The same thing happens there. We know it is clothing, dresses or suits, but the added value lies in the quality that the designers and seamstresses put into each garment, perfect, sophisticated, beautiful, leaving locals and strangers alike open-mouthed; and it doesn’t matter if a wedding dress is lost, they are able to design an even more superb and beautiful one in one night working as a team, all to win over its customers.
Innovate and grow to transcend.
If you think the customer has become more demanding than 1, 10 or 20 years ago, I am afraid to tell you that you are mistaken. The customer has always been demanding, and more so when accustomed to quality and good service. They will always want to know what more you can give them or what other options they can enjoy.
Like any prosperous company, Velvet went through a complicated financial crisis, which forced it to analyze new business opportunities: break with the founder’s traditional, rigid fashion to make way for a De La Riva collection for a daring, modern woman, which did not have the expected success but was no less a step on the road to success. Or the decision to dress the flight attendants of Airsa, an airline that wanted the biggest store of the era to surprise them with an elegant design that provided comfort to its users. Designing the new line, presenting it fabulously within a few minutes and weathering many more ordeals was no obstacle to meeting the goal.
The same goes for that customer who often asks us for “something different” or “something that has never been seen in our country”, but who challenges us to break molds, to innovate with quality and professionalism because it is the only way to stand out from the rest, the only way to transcend.
As De La Riva would say: “We are artists, we don’t make mistakes, we just change our minds”, a fun way of showing us that we can improve our customer care and service. And remembering that sometimes a mistake can lead us to create the best business opportunities.
