Customer Experience: The Associate That Matters Most

By Matt Pillar, chief editor

I’m generally not one to publicly opine on my personal retail customer experiences. When I do, something went either exceptionally well or terribly wrong.

I prefer to share when things go well. Last week I went to Jared. My wife wasn’t the only one happy that I stopped.

Jared is a 250+ store brand under the Signet banner. Signet is crushing it right now. Q4 2015 comp store sales were up nearly 5%. Its 2016 earnings per share growth is projected at between 20 and 25 percent. They’re winning.

Analysts have chalked the company’s winning ways up to the outstanding 2015 holiday performance of its romantic “Forever Us” line of diamond jewelry.

Of course, like everyone else in any of the 39 states Jared operates, I’ve seen their cheesy commercials. But my firsthand experience last week left me thinking there’s more to the story of Signet’s success than marketing and a single line of diamond jewelry.

I had never shopped at Jared before. Though I stopped on a whim (it wasn’t an anniversary or a holiday, just an impulse to surprise my wife with something shiny on a cold and gloomy April day), I didn’t choose randomly. It was a logical choice. It was on my way home. I had no affinity; I didn’t plan on staying long or spending much.