It’s Summertime: Get In Touch With Your Customers!
Summertime, as the song says, is the right season to bring together customers and employees and showcase your ready-to-eat offerings by setting up a creative outdoor activity.
Convenience store owners are always free to organize outdoor activities with their clients, whether it is entertainment, promotions, samplings or other. But unless it’s a very simple activity or done in partnership with a charitable group that take care of everything, most of them usually stick to BBQ-type draws.
Of course, not everybody is motivated to invest time, money and energy in activities that require a good deal of logistics.
But since it’s summer and we like to share best practices, we found it inspiring and useful to present a concrete and recent case, The Family Fiesta recently held at the Boni-Soir St-Augustin in Mirabel.
Mirabel is a charming town located 40 km from Montreal. It attracts a large number of young families and with this in mind, Cynthia Lecavalier and her team launched a first edition of The Family Fiesta in early June when the weather is usually warm and sunny.
Daughter of Daniel Lecavalier, a well-known convenience store operator who manages 25 Boni-Soir depanneurs in the Montréal, Laurentides and Lanaudière regions, Cynthia organizes events for her father’s convenience stores and provides overall marketing support.
“We found that there was not a lot of activity in the area for young families and children and we thought we could surely help fill a void”, says she.
In addition, as the convenience store also operates the neighboring business which happens to be a Délices en Vrac franchise, the two joined forces in the activity.
Cynthia and her team did everything they could to ensure the event’s success. They prepared an eye-catching visual concept, printed a leaflet and distributed it in the local publisac. They also announced the event on their facebook page, distributed flyers in the convenience store and generated some buzz with customers.
On Saturday and Sunday, June 10-11, from 10 am to 5 pm, the convenience store was ready to welcome the public with tables in the parking lot protected from the rain, should there be any, while music was playing on outdoor speakers. There were free hot dogs and slush as well as food samplings throughout the day and make-up for the kids. Nothing was neglected for the event to be a great success.
According to Ms. Lecavalier, about 200 people, including a good proportion of children but also people of all ages, came forward and took advantage of the activity.
“We have taken the opportunity to offer products samples like sandwiches and salads and showcase our ready-to-eat offering,” said Ms. Lecavalier.
The employees who participated in the event loved their experience. Several photos added on the facebook page testify to the success of the event and its general appreciation.
According to Ms. Lecavalier, the initiative brought employees and customers closer together.
“This is not an investment that necessarily yields in the short term, but the benefits are real: we exchange with customers in a pleasant environment and employees are happy and motivated,” she said. “The resulting visibility is excellent and directly reaches the store’s customers. This is a great opportunity to get to know better our store and products and for us, to say thank you to the community. “
It was also an opportunity to promote the new Facebook page of the convenience store launched only a week prior to the event.
In conclusion, the activity required some planning, work and investment in products and also additional staff, but the reward was obvious considering the vast amount of smiles collected.
Being at the heart of the community is the true definition of a convenience store. Congratulations to the St-Augustin Boni-Soir for giving the best of themselves to their community and do not hesitate to imitate them: it pays!
Photo credit: Dépanneur Boni-Soir St-Augustin facebook page (with their permission)
