MANILA, Philippines - The air is filled with so much energy, electricity, and excitement, enough to suck me right into this new store at Greenbelt 4, Makati. I know I couldn’t be just a curious bystander. And to think that just a month ago — or was it two or three? — I was leisurely passing by this place and it was all boarded up. This balmy Friday afternoon, the whole place just came alive and everybody seems to be headed in the general direction of the store. Hello! Welcome the new Globe Store in the busy, bustling GB 4.
So, what’s so new about this Globe Store? I just had to step right in to find out. Right at the entrance, I see a gaggle of office people happily toying with the cell phones on display. To my sheer delight, I discover they’re not just plastic dummy phones, they’re live gadgets! And the latest BlackBerry models on the market today! You can actually find out more about these models with a touch of the screen right beside them. How Berry helpful, especially for those whose search for the perfect BlackBerry has not been quite fruitful. Past this area are a lot more of the Store’s features that phone users — like you and me, among 23. 9 million mobile and 841,000 broadband subscribers of Globe — will heartily agree are God-sent.
Ring In The New, Ring Out The Old
There’s definitely — and infinitely — so much more to this new Globe Store than paying your phone bills. “The old store format is more transactional in nature. It is not a destination place, where customers can experience what the digital lifestyle is all about,” says the dynamic Maridol Ylanan, Globe head of Stores. “Painfully in the past, people would refer to us as simply a payment center. The challenge was to transform from an after-sales and transactional center to a new retail experience. The customer is our inspiration. We must build the store around the customer’s needs and aspirations.”
And Now, A One-Stop Shop
Maridol elaborates, “In the past, our stores were either a Globe Business Center, catering to mobile or wireless customers, or a Payment Services Center catering to broadband and landline customers. Customers get confused and find it inconvenient having to transact business in two different stores. Now, the new store model is a one-stop telecommunications shop. A customer can go to our new store to pay his bill, apply for a postpaid line — and oh, by the way, because I’m already here, I might as well look around if I want to apply for broadband in my house or buy accessories to complement my phone. Thus, the first flagship store of Globe was born. The concept is embracing the digital lifestyle, whether you are at home (home life), on the go (mobile life), or at work (business life). It is a complete change and not just in the aesthetics or the looks of it.”
A Store Is Born
Maridol traces the store’s birth pangs, “How and where did we begin? First, we had to have a firm understanding of the retail business before we could proceed with our ambition. We benchmarked with international telecom companies and their retail stores to understand the logic of the business and the critical factors that must be in place for success to happen. Of course, we still had to anchor our plan on what the Filipino customer really wants. With all the exciting ideas and insights that we derived overseas, we also knew that we had to bring these home to the tastes and preferences of the Filipino consumer.”
The flagship store is built on this customer journey to make every visit to the Globe Store an exciting and interactive experience. “We want our customers to feel a sense of playfulness and discovery when they come to our store,” Maridol asserts. “Our retail environment has been designed in ways that are easy and relevant for our subscribers. What we desire is for our customers to find the products and services they need all within the convenience of a one-stop shop.”
This new model will be the future look of all Globe Stores. “Our work does not stop here,” says this feisty lady. “I’m looking out for the success of the stores’ business — all 133 of them. I have 132 stores under the old model. We look forward to full roll-out of the new retail model of the Globe Store. Our target is to finish at least five more stores within the year using this model, most likely in GMA, Central Visayas, South Mindanao, and Central Luzon.”
A First In The Telecom Industry
Like an ecstatic mom who has just given birth to a baby, Maridol gushes, “We’re very, very excited about this. We’re proud to say that no Philippine telecom company has done this. It was painstaking. And it was not just the work of people at Globe — we’ve had to hire consultants for the design, the backroom infrastructure, which to a large part is the soul of the store. What’s the point of making it exciting if the lines are long? What we have done is design and configure the store in such a way that customers can transact when they want as expediently as possible and have time to browse and shop around.”
The exciting store design was done in partnership with Public Design Group, an independent retail design consultancy in Sydney, Australia and world specialists in service retail. They also did work for Globe affiliates, SingTel in Singapore and Optus in Australia.
So, what else can you do at the new Globe Store?
Maridol walks us through the store: “Its circular design features an inner core, which is the shop zone, while the outer core is the service zone, each with a different feel and environment. In the shop zone, we offer a wide range of live demos that our customers can feel, touch, and test. We said goodbye to flyers and tarpaulins and introduced digital and interactive merchandising. We have the Great Deals catalogue to guide our customers on what’s new, best buys or the hottest deals. We encourage you to speak to our store specialists — if you don’t know what to buy, they’re trained to recommend what suits your lifestyle. In the service zone, we have the Self Help area for customers who want immediate answers or for simply printing a copy of their bill. Should you wish to speak to a customer service representative in our hotline, just lift the phone and there will be somebody who will speak to you on the other end of the line. In the Express Service area, you can modify your account information, add or remove services on your phone or plan, get assist to set up your new phone or simply transfer data from an old SIM to a new one. The faster transactions are done here. In the Customer Service area, we handle more complex transactions and opening of new accounts. We also have a small private room exclusively for Platinum members.”
More Firsts
Maridol adds, “Another first for us is we sell accessories to complement your mobile phone, laptop or netbook. And the accessories are of well-known reliable brands. We will also launch the Globe Life magazine (in-store lifestyle magazine) found in the service zone for customers to browse while waiting to be assisted. We are also encouraging our customers to let us know through feedback via SMS what their experience was in the Store.”
Paperless, Too
In terms of being environmentally conscious, the Globe Store introduces paperless application and digital scanning of support documents. “We really want to make it easy for the customers to get a Globe product or service. IDs can be scanned instead of being photocopied, and this gets stored in our data bank,” Maridol informs us. As a final touch, the Globe shopping bag will also be replaced by one that is environment-friendly.
Say hello to the new Globe Store!