Why Locations of the Same Chain Can Feel So Different [Where Atmosphere Takes Shape, Part 2]

A continuation of the previous article.

This series began as a set of research notes prompted by a question: Why does the atmosphere vary so much from one store to another—mainly supermarkets, other retailers, and restaurants?

In the previous article, I started with the question, “Why can the atmosphere feel so different from one store to another?” and looked into the flow of people connected to a store and how the store responds to what happens there.

That investigation got me thinking about chain stores. The signs, product selection, prices, and even the in-store announcements are the same, yet somehow the atmosphere still feels different from one location to another.

I had imagined that a chain’s head office would provide the same manuals and standardize its facilities and customer service down to the last detail. Even so, differences emerge. Apparently, this is because there is a gap between creating a system and putting that system into practice.

Research Note 1: Stable Stores Respond

Stores with a stable atmosphere do not have some special secret equipment.

A small piece of trash is not left lying around for long. Someone speaks to a customer who seems to need help. If people gather near the entrance, a staff member does not go so far as to chase them away, but does make a point of walking over in that direction.

Each action is minor on its own. But when something happens and draws a small response, it tells us that this is a place someone is paying attention to.

There is a concept known as the servicescape.^[1] It treats a store’s lighting, sounds, layout, signs, and the presence of employees as an environment that affects the behavior of both customers and staff. Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design^[2] likewise emphasizes factors such as whether people can naturally see the surrounding area, whether boundaries and responsibility for the space are clear, and whether the space is properly maintained.

By “a place someone is paying attention to,” I do not mean a place surrounded by surveillance cameras. I mean the sense that our connection to other people has not yet been severed—that someone will probably help if we are in trouble, and quickly notice if we do something strange.

In a stable store, customers can understand to some extent how the space is meant to be used without every rule having to be written down. It does not overexplain, but it responds when necessary. Perhaps this balance is what keeps the space calm.

Other stores, meanwhile, simply keep adding more and more warning notices. Occasionally I see a store with signs scattered everywhere like paper charms warding off evil. Once I start imagining them as the accumulated remains of a sad history in which dealing with troublesome customers crowded out everything else, I cannot help feeling a little sorry for the place.

The warning-sign issue became too long for this article, so I revisited it in Part 2.5.

Research Note 2: The First Information We Receive at the Entrance

The moment we enter a store, we take in more information than we consciously realize.

Is the entrance bright? Can we see the registers and staff? Where do the aisles lead? Are there many blind spots farther inside? Is the space overflowing with things? Is it easy to find what we need?

This information alone does not determine how we behave afterward. But it does provide clues for deciding whether this is a place to shop quickly, whether we can take our time looking at products, and what to do if we need help.

Elements of the retail environment such as music, scent, and color affect shoppers’ emotions, evaluations, and behavior, but their effects are not uniform.^[3] There is no universally correct way to design a store; there are many possible combinations of a store’s purpose and the people who use it.

An apparel store where the staff rush straight over and a drugstore with numerous surveillance cameras hanging from the ceiling are both communicating how the store wants us to behave.

I find both excessive, but some people interpret them as attentive service or a source of reassurance. When customers choose a store, perhaps they are choosing not only its products, but also this initial sense of distance.

Research Note 3: How the Shopping Experience Is Shaped

Aisle width, product placement, lighting, sound, and the availability of seating all change how people spend their time inside a store.

A store where it is easy to find what we need and naturally make our way to the exit when we are done is convenient for the purpose of shopping. A store with seating areas or broad shared spaces, on the other hand, accepts to some extent that people may stay for reasons other than shopping.

Making the flow of shopping easy to understand and removing every place to sit or pause so that people will not linger may look similar, but they are not the same. Guidance suited to the store’s purpose is necessary, but if anyone who stays is treated as a problem from the outset, the store also becomes harder to use for older people who need to rest and people waiting for a companion.

Improving signs and wayfinding can also reduce perceived crowding and improve how people move through a space.^[4] When people can tell where to go without having to ask, the flow naturally becomes more orderly.

For a while, convenience stores and drugstores seemed to be adding rest areas everywhere. Now I often see those spaces treated as if they had never existed. The reasons probably vary from store to store: infection-control measures, Japan’s reduced consumption-tax rules, the burden of maintaining them, or a reassessment of sales-floor space.

Once the chairs and tables are gone, it is no longer clear what the space is for. Put a few chairs there, however, and it signals that the store allows people to spend time there.

Research Note 4: Regulars Change a Place, for Better or Worse

Stores with a pleasant atmosphere sometimes have familiar, well-mannered customers who appear at the same time each day: someone who buys coffee every morning, someone who joins the same checkout line at the same time, or someone who exchanges a quick greeting with the staff without becoming more deeply involved.

I wondered whether regulars like these might help maintain order in a store, but I could not find enough evidence to generalize. When I think about it, of course, having many regulars does not necessarily create a good atmosphere. If the relationships among them become too close-knit, newcomers may find the store difficult to enter.

A place where some of the faces look vaguely familiar feels a little different from one where everyone is completely anonymous.

No one is keeping watch. There is simply a sense that people use this place as part of their daily lives. Perhaps that presence stops the store from becoming somewhere people use for the moment and then leave without caring what happens afterward.

Regulars are not security guards protecting the store. But when a loose connection exists between staff and customers, changes may be easier to notice when a problem arises. Perhaps this is what I had perceived as a silent buffer.

Research Note 5: The Same System Does Not Produce Identical Stores

By using the same signs, products, facilities, and operating procedures, chain stores aim to provide a consistent level of service at every location. That consistency is part of their appeal.

But even when the procedures are the same, the conditions under which they are carried out—staffing, busy hours, store size, customers, and the sharing of experience—cannot be made identical.

A Japanese study of twenty stores belonging to the same supermarket chain found that customers tended to rate service quality more highly at locations where employees felt that customer service was valued in their workplace. The strongest relationship involved systems for gathering customer feedback and returning it to staff on the shop floor.^[5] Research on hotels and restaurants has also indicated a chain of relationships in which organizational support and employees’ positive engagement with their work contribute to a strong service climate, which in turn is associated with employee performance as perceived by customers and ultimately with customer loyalty.^[6]

Here, “service climate” does not simply mean having friendly employees. It refers to how employees perceive the systems that support service: whether the information needed to serve customers is shared, whether good work is recognized, whether people can ask for advice when problems arise, and whether they can request help during busy periods.

Even if head office provides a manual, staff cannot make use of it unless they have time to read, try, and understand it. Even if a reporting system exists, small problems will be put off if reporting them only creates more work. Even with identical facilities, the condition of a store will gradually deteriorate if no budget or authority is available to repair them when they break.

Those lower down in the organization may want to shout, “But the trouble is happening on the shop floor!” Yet simply handing all decision-making power to head office is not the answer either. Staff on the ground identify what is happening and pass that information upward. Head office creates the breathing room that allows local staff to act. A system includes that entire cycle, and building it is the responsibility of the organization as a whole. ...Even as I say that, it does sound suspiciously like empty rhetoric.

Managers Have a Major Influence, But...

What a manager prioritizes affects the atmosphere of a store.

Do they address small irregularities right away, or prioritize tasks directly tied to sales? Do they say nothing because they fear complaints, or speak to someone without provoking them? Do they scold people emotionally, or align the standards that staff use to make decisions?

If we simply sort managers into “good” and “bad” based on the results we see and attribute those results to differences in ability, we overlook something important.

If a manager is understaffed and covering absences while also handling orders, complaints, and training for new employees, they have less capacity to keep a close eye on the entire store. Conversely, if experienced staff are present, advice is available when a decision is difficult, and there are systems that make it easy to repair equipment or bring in additional people, the very same manager may produce dramatically different results.

Troublesome customers, a staff made up almost entirely of newcomers, and a manager constantly filling gaps in the schedule—the thought alone is enough to upset my stomach. Veterans do not solve everything, but having someone who understands the job reasonably well should at least bring some stability...probably.

Some of what looks like a “manager lottery” may have less to do with the manager and more to do with the hand they have been dealt.

What Is Lost When People Leave

Staff turnover also affects the condition of a store.

One study of several customer-service units found an association between higher voluntary turnover and lower customer ratings of service quality. The relationship was stronger when newcomers made up a larger share of the unit.^[7]

That does not mean a store full of newcomers necessarily has a bad atmosphere. New employees can be considerate, and long-serving employees are not automatically good at everything. There is always the possibility that some veteran who has stayed too long has become the resident tyrant ruling over the place.

But when people change frequently, it becomes harder to pass on subtle knowledge that is too minor to put in a manual: “It is better to restock this at this time,” “At this time of year, we should lower the blinds a little earlier,” or “Handling that customer this way helps prevent trouble.”

The small judgments born from someone’s experience also help sustain a store’s atmosphere.

What I Have Learned So Far—or Rather, Some Personal Thoughts

Stores with a stable atmosphere are not doing anything extraordinary. Someone responds when something happens. Customers can move through the store without getting lost. Staff have enough breathing room to make decisions. Experience is passed from one person to another.

The different atmospheres of locations in the same chain do not come down to the simple question of whether each store happens to have capable people. Different people operate the same shared system every day under different conditions. Those small differences accumulate into the atmosphere customers feel.

I had assumed that chains controlled these details more systematically. But trying to standardize every small judgment that contributes to an atmosphere would make work on the shop floor even more restrictive—and probably make the standards impossible to maintain.

And anyway, why are “customers” such a pain to deal with? If only human beings could be a little more systematic, this would all be much simpler...

Next Time

Looking into store managers has left me feeling a little sad, but I cannot stop here.

It seems possible to design a store’s atmosphere to some extent, but how far can that really go? If first impressions can have such a large effect on what follows, surely head offices and business owners have considered them.

But unless the business can clearly narrow down its target audience, the idea of “designing an atmosphere” is difficult to picture. Does narrowing down the customers you want indirectly create an atmosphere? What actually happens when you design one in the first place?

Next time, I will look at what happens when you “design” a store’s atmosphere and overall feel.

I ended up with far more to say about warning signs than expected, so I split that material off into Part 2.5.
▶ Why Do Stores with Too Many Warning Signs Feel So Disorderly?

In This Series

#01 | Where Does a Store's Atmosphere Come From?

#02 | Why Locations of the Same Chain Can Feel So Different ← You are here

#02.5 | Why Do Stores with Too Many Warning Signs Feel So Disorderly?

#03 | How Much of a Store's Atmosphere Can Be Designed?

#04 | Society Assumes People Can “Read the Room”

#05 | Choosing to Keep Your Distance

#06 | How Quiet People Survive

Notes