A regular customer steps into your store to get a particular brand of organic cereal that she’s been buying for the past year. Failing to locate the cereal at the usual shelf and anywhere else along the aisle, she scans the store for someone to help her. It’s noon – peak period for just about any retail outlet – yet there aren’t any store assistants around. She leaves in disappointment and heads to a competitor store down the block.

Guess what – a single moment of customer frustration could cost you billions of dollars.

One bad experience is all it takes to break a customer’s loyalty. Take a quick look at your store management. Do your customers get a consistently pleasant in-store experience, or do they have to go through inconveniences such as long lines at the cash register?

Your customers, current and potential, have spoken: A majority of them stop buying after a bad customer service interaction. That’s not all. 48% of customers who have had negative experiences went on to tell more than 10 people about it.

More than ever now, excellent customer service is a must. It’s the new currency for any retailer that seeks sustainable success. Lose focus and your business suffers. Not just in sales, but the reputation that you’ve built over the years takes a huge hit as well.

So what can you do to achieve and maintain excellent customer service? You already know it’s important to have highly-trained employees, great product selection and a well-organized store layout.

But what you may not know is that having the right number of store employees at the right place and time is just as important.

If you can accurately forecast the hours and number of employees that each store needs, great things happen. Your customers will get prompt sales assistance, shelves will be replenished efficiently, check-outs will be smoother and employees will be neither underutilized nor overworked.

One major supermarket retailer understood this and took action to improve its workforce demand planning with DELMIA Quintiq – which resulted in great, attentive service across its hundreds of stores. Check out the full story here and be inspired to bring your brand’s customer experience to a whole new level.