Capstone c/o 2017

There were many times when I had to use critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration during the Capstone project. When it came to helping Jospeh design the floor sets I had to use critical thinking because I had to think things through carefully in order to make sure that clothes could be noticed by the customers. I had to make sure that all the floor would also be in accordance to the regulations they had to be set as. This very important because clothing conversion is effected even through the setup of where clothes are placed. It is up to the store manager to complete these tasks. I had to reassure that customers would be satisfied by granting them the best items. Also, most importantly the setup has to make promotions noticeable because it is those same promotions that carry customers to buy clothes. Again, it was a job left for me to do under the advisory of my mentor.  For the first rooms I had to bring out new clothes that came from the transfers. This is ...

Being a store manager can be very difficult because they are the ones that hold full responsibility of the store and the associates. Well to speak about the general positives of a retail store is that it can be a fun job. Also, you get to be more opened to people who helping them out. On the good note for managers, they already have all these qualities and are proficient at what they do. There are good managers, but there are also bad ones. Good managers drive the store to good business and keep the store under good control. Bad managers tend to get carried away and let associates do as they please. In a good atmosphere all managers and associates ay attention to work and customers. And managers are always there to help customers if they need anything. If customers are not pleased with something, then it's up to the manager to fix those errors.

For yesterday's task I had to help the manager create the new schedule for the following week. Once again I was introduce to the new part of the Link that I've never seen before. like as mentioned before, it was so that it gives us access to the documents of associates as well. The part that is taken in interest is vowing their time availability. The manager was teaching me how she personally creates the schedule. In the Link, we were able to see how many hours each person could work for and what days they are available. On a piece of scratch binder paper my manager explained to me that we are given a limited amount of budgeted hours, so therefore we had to chose who can work for those hours. I examined the availabilities and she told me that the people who got to work a lot this week would be scheduled for two days next week. And the people who worked a small amount of hours would be scheduled more, so that it could be fair. When it comes to scheduling also, people need to hav...

For the last time I went to do my hours I went to Serramonte to learn more about the floor sets of a regular retail store. So I learned that a regular store is very different in comparison to an outlet for many reasons. Right when I walked in I noticed that it was squeaky clean and in pretty good conditions. I made my way back into the stock room to meet the managers over at that store. Again,  it was physically different because the stock room is 3x bigger than that of an outlet store. Every item is placed with its department, rather than by reduced prices like it is done at the outlet. I also took notice that there were a lot more of associates at work. The reason why there is more workers this week is because the season does take a lot of matter in this case. My mentor explained to me that there needs to be extra sets of hands to entirely change the whole store. In a regular store there's not much thinking to do because there are planned floor sets that the company sends to the ...

Spring season has been making its way through the business industry of retail. What does that mean? Well of course the sets of clothes have to be changed. Although, that doesn't really matter for the store at The Shops at Tanforan because it is an outlet store. So basically all the clothes we're getting are all transfers from regular full-priced stores. For the most part we're primarily getting winter clothes that didn't get sold. For this task I have to help the store manager and assistance managers bring out clothes that we know will sell right away. We had to plan out a floor set that makes sure that things will be noticed and will catch customers' eyes. I made some suggestions, and my mentor believed for some to be good because they were going to be noticed. One of a really good idea I suggested was to put all the extra 30% shirts and jackets on the same floor set of the cash register. This way when customers are about to check out, they would notice these produ...

For today's task I had to help my mentor organize a plan in which we were trying to figure out how to bring up the low percentiles of customer service to 70% or above. The areas we lacked of good customer service was in organization of both the regular priced jeans and clearance jeans. We also lacked a lot in fitting room experience, as well as clean-up of clothes that had to go back in their place. Some customers also suggested on the survey plan that associates should smile more and present themselves when helping them. Also, customers don't find it very helpful that there is no indication of who are the employees of the store. They said that there should be an indication such as name tags or a an employee badge that says Hollister Associate. The first part of all this that I took in interest in was being present during five minute meetings between the store manger and associates once they clocked in to help them understand what needs to change. My mentor let me participate i...

Voice of customer and customer surveys are two major components to making present and future sells better for both the consumer and the company. As before I explained what the GIFT approach is, well I forgot to mention that it is our primarily source of voice of customer. The VOC is always to be improved. If it's already good, then it has to be made greater. It always needs to be something that is passed on to the new associates that are hired, and must be one of the first things they learn. The voice of customer reflects upon customer service experiences. Those experiences can be seen by the manager, hence they try to have their associates stay in place in the good areas, and also try to improve on poor areas. According to the chart of the store's surveys, it is noticed that the little things do matter. What I mean by this is that the survey asks a series of questions from employee interaction to experience in the fitting rooms. There are percentiles that define the circumstan...

The task my mentor had me do today was imply the GIFT approach among all associates. The GIFT approach is an acronym that stands up for greeting, initiate, follow up and offer solutions, and thanking the customer. My mentor wanted to assure that the associates used these methods for the customers that they happen to bump into. To make sure I was doing my part of the job, I made rounds through the whole floor set and observe wether the associates were doing their job. Most of the associates were very initiative with customers  and they were completing their jobs at the same time. I noticed that some of the associates weren't using these methods though. So I went to my mentor and asked for help on what I should do. What he told me is that I needed to be firm and tell associates to use the GIFT method because he wants to make sure that we offer the best customer service that can be offered. Again, I was a bit scared to tell my associates what to do, but it is part of me learning on ho...

Today on my day off I decided to make a visit at Hollister. I was wondering if I could get more insight about the store's sales and learn more it. Most of all I want to learn about the seasonal sales we just had going on these past months. First off, my mentor showed me the charts where the sales tracker was on. He explained to me that not only do the seasonal sales of this year matter, but the ones from last year also matter a lot. Those sales are called LY's and those are the primary sources that are looked upon to set a goal for future sales. The goal of course is to improve sales. Sales from this years compared to last year increased by about 30%. My manager explained to me that the reason  for being so was mainly because the right people were put to do the right tasks. Many of the associates had many customers feel welcomed and were there whenever they needed them. As far as tasks go, what he meant by that was that associates enjoyed the tasks that they were given, therefo...