During the event, about 60 retail jewelers from around the country discussed best practices in areas such as marketing, operations and training. In addition, 31 couture-level retailers were recognized as the first class of America’s Best Jewelers.

America’s Best Jewelers is a program launched by NJN this past spring. The program includes an online survey that asks retailers about their best practices in customer service, financial management, marketing, operations and staffing/human resources.

Shaker Heights, Ohio-based MPI Group conducts and analyzes the survey to determine whose business practices are the best and, thereby, a winner of the America’s Best Jewelers designation.

A total of 264 jewelers completed the survey, 93 percent of which are independent retailers.

In addition to the survey and America’s Best Jewelers designation, the program also contains a conference component, which brings these jewelers together with their peers to share best-practice tips.

Areas covered during Saturday’s conference included customer service, financial metrics, marketing, operations and staffing/human resources.

Some of the tips shared included:

—Write a weekly column or appear on a regularly broadcast radio show to get your store’s name out in the community.

—Use a mobile billboard or strategically place your billboard near a business where people are more likely to spend longer amounts of time, such as a car wash.

—Hire a firm to conduct “video mystery shopping” in your store to see how your salespeople stack up.

—Conduct some form of employee training on a daily basis.

—Add a handwriting-analysis segment to your hiring process.

For a complete list of the couture-level retailers chosen as America’s Best Jewelers, and for more information about the program, visit its Web site, NationalJewelerNetwork.com/NJN/Resources/ABJ.jsp.

Play.com and Amazon beat high street rivals according to the survey by the National Consumer Satisfaction Index.

Out of 6,000 shoppers questioned, Play.com came top with a rating of 87 out of 100. Waitrose was the favourite bricks and mortar retailer with a score of 82.

The worst-scoring retailers included electricals chain Currys and Somerfield, which came bottom with a score of 61.

Chief executive of consultancy CFI Group Sheri Teodoru said:  “As the economy slows, the big challenge for retailers of all types will be how to compete to retain shoppers who are becoming increasingly conservative with their spending.

“Here customer satisfaction is key: companies that provide the most satisfying experience stand the best chance not only to survive, but to thrive financially in a down economy.”

With over 42 factories world-wide and 4.6 billion products
manufactured in 2008, L’Oréal has dominated the beauty market for the past century and become the world-wide leader in the cosmetic industry. Always seeking innovation and excellence, L’Oréal employs the best technologies to achieve both its performance objectives and ensure customer service excellence.

As a result of its good past experience of the Zetes voice solution, L’Oréal has re-engaged Zetes to update and extend its existing installation. This new solution rolled out is a multimodal
application: voice is combined with barcoding and weighing to check the orders. This combination of solutions has been integrated with SAP, which steers the management of the L’Oréal warehouse.

Mrs Wendy Doucet, Preparation/Dispatch Manager at L’Oréal explains: “To improve our performance and facilitate the work of our employees, we had decided in 2006, to implement a solution based on voice technology that can also be combined with other data entry and audit systems.” Zetes was chosen due to its experience in this field and its expertise in the SAP environment. “The results were visible as soon as the solution was up and running,” points out Wendy Doucet. “We recorded a sharp reduction in the number of errors in the preparation of orders and thus improved the satisfaction of our customers.”

Thanks to 3iV Crystal, 20 warehouse clerks from the General Public Products Division France (DPGPF), in Marly and 17 warehouse clerks from Gemey Maybelline Garnier (GMG), in Ormes now work hands and eyes-free to prepare the orders.

Additionally in Portugal, L’Oréal has put its confidence in the Zetes voice solution to improve its warehouse business processes. In this country, 12 warehouse clerks from the Alverca distribution centre are benefiting from the advantages of voice.

Alain Wirtz, CEO of Zetes, comments : “We are very honoured that L’Oréal has renewed its confidence in the competences of our teams and hope to have the opportunity to continue cooperating on new projects. The combination of voice with other technologies, such as barcoding or RFID, opens up new possibilities to improve the business processes in warehouses but also in other types of environment, for example in the back of store area for retailers.”