Alex Monroe have taken the world of fashion by storm with their handmade, quirky jewelry; sold on their own website, in their London-based flagship boutique and within various retail outlets around the world such as Liberty, John Lewis and Harper’s Emporium.
Since launching Alex’s first collection in 1987, his love for the natural world has been the inspiration behind every piece that is designed and handmade by Alex and his team in England. And their retail success has continued to grow, seeing Alex Monroe working with a diverse selection of partners, including the very prestigious clientele of Buckingham Palace, Kew Gardens and The Victoria and Albert Museum.
Throughout the years, Alex Monroe have won several awards including: ‘Designer of the Year’ at the UK Jewellery Awards in 2008, ‘UKFT Accessories Award Winner’ at the 2014 UK and Fashion Textiles Awards; and have now been shortlisted to win the ‘25th Retail Jeweller Awards’ in 2017 within the ‘Bridal Collection of the Year’ category.
With the team at Alex Monroe designing, making and selling high quality jewelry in large volumes in-house and grasping their hands on so much success; how do they keep on top of it all? What’s their secret of omnichannel retail success?
We were lucky enough to be able to put these questions, along with many more, to Alex Monroe’s head of ecommerce, Tom Graham for a webinar where he shared top tips and insight from Alex Monroe’s journey to commercial success.
We’ve compiled some of Tom’s top tips below, or you can watch the full recording now:
Creating a unique in-store experience
Everything in our store is designed and portrayed to be very unique to us and Alex, we felt it was important to create a space which really represented our brand and our approach to jewelry making. We’ve worked really hard to make the store a place which provides a great experience for the customer - wherever you look there is always something fun and quirky to see.
The importance of keeping up with technology
The never-ending progress of technology means customer expectations have changed. People can now sit on a bus and buy products online and it’s vital to make sure your business can keep up with that. Larger retailers set the bar so high that it becomes the expected standard for smaller retailers, so it’s vital to keep abreast of technology and understand how it could relate or work for your business and your customers.
Selling multichannel
We have three sales channels: wholesale, in-store and online. Over the past year we have moved from these three channels working in parallel and not integrating, to a seamless multichannel sales company where all our sales channels integrate and work together seamlessly. This has allowed us to manage our stock better and become more efficient by eliminating the use of time consuming spreadsheets.
Keeping customers happy
Customer service is key. We always make sure we are accessible to the customer, you can call us and you’ll get through to a person. We are very open as a company customer service wise - there is a good chance someone phoning may end up speaking to Alex himself. We really go out of our way to provide a good experience for our customers.
Read on for ten more top tips for excellent customer service.
Want to hear more? Watch the webinar now to hear more great insight from Tom Graham at Alex Monroe. If you have any questions please use the comments section below. Happy retailing!
