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. A review of the way of seeing, feeling, understanding and living fashion in the Velvet Galleries, toward the end of the 1960s, invites us to remember guidelines that are perfectly applicable to our 2016 because, ultimately, there are qualities that never change: the customer, exclusivity, added value, tailor-made solutions and innovation.
Entering the galleries is to understand communication as a two-way circuit in which, from the heir to the galleries, Alberto, to the last shop assistant, everyone knows the business very well, gets involved in it and seeks to satisfy all its exclusive customers. He even adds his share of value by confronting 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 imprinting an air of modernity and sophistication for his customers. Something that the market in Paris already enjoys, and that needs to be brought to Spain.
But what is it that 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 employees saw clearly. Its owner, Don Rafael Márquez, said his only mission in life was to bring 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, the communication skills are a tool that sells by itself. The sales assistants make direct, pleasant eye contact with each customer, and listen attentively before recommending something tailored to her. Their professional language mixes the words glamour, class and money, something a rich person loves to hear again and again. They manage for the customer to arrive curious and leave more than happy, exceeding her expectations after a shopping experience that invites her to return again and again.
One occasion, a thousand opportunities.
The launch of each fashion collection becomes an opportunity to bring together 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 way and set trends. The Velvet display windows and counters, under the direction of the daring and elegant designer Raúl de la Riva, come to life and adjust to his every whim, 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 showcase brands, from activations involving a specific segment, product launches or the creation of an informational context to attract media attention in exchange for information that provides value to their readers. The opportunity to stand out may be right under our noses, and all that is needed is to develop the observer we carry inside. The way to discover 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 do not come here just 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 longest-serving employee, opens the doors of the galleries while instructing his staff. And although all businesses pursue selling a good or service, showing it as it is, without tone or grace, 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 missing.”
The same happens there. We know it is clothes, dresses or suits, but the added value lies in the quality that the designers and seamstresses imprint on each garment, perfect, sophisticated, precious, which leaves locals and strangers open-mouthed; and it doesn’t matter if a wedding dress is lost, they are able to design a more superb and beautiful one in one night working as a team, all in order to win over their customers.
Innovate and grow to transcend.
If you think the customer has become more demanding than 1, 10 or 20 years ago, I’m 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 else you can give them or what other options they can enjoy.
Like every thriving company, Velvet went through a complicated financial crisis, which forced it to analyze new business opportunities: breaking with the founder’s traditional, boxed-in fashion to make way for a De La Riva collection for a daring, modern woman, which did not have the expected success, but was nonetheless 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 time to surprise them with an elegant design that offers comfort to its users. Designing the new line, presenting it fabulously in a few minutes and overcoming many more trials was no obstacle to achieving the goal.
The same goes for that customer who often asks us for “something different” or “something never 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 service and care. And of remembering that sometimes a mistake can lead us to create the best business opportunities.
