In today's episode we talk to Jo Mulcahy who is the founder of the Boutique Owners Network and a Director of Kings Road Fashions Boutiques.  The boutiques are part of a family business that has been serving market town communities in the UK with boutique fashion for over 30 years.  The business was built around retail stores with no online presence.  With lockdown the stores stopped trading overnight.  Armed with an email list of local customers Jo and the team set about reaching out to people to let them know that they were open in a virtual setting.  This was followed buy videos modelling the clothes and providing rich descriptions of the fabric, the feel and drape of the cloth.  Online consultations and fitting followed as well as a YouTube channel, online ordering, Facebook groups and lots of activity on Instagram.  Customers say they love the personal attention.  

This back to basic and 1:1 customer engagement is something quite unique to boutiques.  The process of buying clothes in this environment is typically a considered process.  When the boutique team understand the customer intimately from a shape, fit and colour scheme point of view they can easily out-perform even the most sophisticated AI product selector that Amazon can muster.  Somehow I can't see technology rivalling this level of personal care in choosing something that you know makes you feel great and look great and you have a relationship that can span a fashion lifetime.  Jo is pioneering a digital revolution in how she and the team build a meaningful engaging relationship with the customers around her.  The direct exposure to the brand through the videos and consultations is increasing the face time that clients have and this is the key to building trust for any brand.  Jo also leads a lot of the customer interactions herself and she can make very quick decisions to respond to what they need.  

When Kings Road Fashions Boutiques do open again,  customers will be able to reserve a time to visit , secure that they will have parking and will be able to shop in a safe and personalised environment.  

Enabled by digital, a new model is emerging and the owners of these boutique businesses are hyper innovating the retail model. Customers like it and there is a chance that some of this will become a permanent part of how they do business.  Jo has taken some significant steps to connect with a local customer base and the technology opens up the opportunity for international trade.  I am interested to see how this might evolve.

The opportunity for the small independent fashion is enormous as they can pivot and evolve in new ways.  Jo explains that the leader and team can work together to very quickly make changes.  In just a few weeks,  Jo has activated her email list, enabled bookable appointments, free delivery within 10 km’s, launched Personal Online Consultations and played a role in connecting her community providing the very experience that we invented fashion for in the first place and that is to make people feel great by looking great.

At a time when retailers are imploding all around us, this is an inspiring story at the bleeding edge .....intersecting customer relationships, fashion, the retail experience and digital.  Jo helps a network of Boutique Fashion owners and they carefully share strategies that work.  We look forward to seeing how far they go with this new level of customer engagement.

Contact Jo on LinkedIn here

Find the Kings Road Fashions Website here

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