Still Waters run deep
Ballinasloe natives, brothers Eamon and Padraic Waters, have excelled in customer service since they took over the reins at Londis Athenry back in April 2007.
Print19 November 2010
A key question within the retailing industry: What qualities deliver a truly exceptional member of staff? One lady who may well have the answer is Marian Hynes, who works at Eamon and Padraic Waters’ 2,500 sq ft Londis store in Athenry. Marian recently scooped the impressive title of Staff Member of the Year 2010 at the Londis Retailing Awards held in Galway’s Gresham Hotel.
On the topic of staff, retailer Eamon Waters appears very fortunate overall. “Marian would say the same thing, it could have been any of our staff out there because they’ll do anything,” he says, adding: “They are so good and conscientious; they are so rare. I suppose because it’s a family run business, they give the personal touch and look after customers, and go out of their way to help customers.”
Speaking about Marian specifically, he notes she knows all her customers by name, and often goes above and beyond the call of duty to give them superb customer service; delivering newspapers to elderly customers in the mornings and regularly posting letters for locals on her way home in the evenings.
As well as having friendly, approachable staff, Waters also benefits from having an innovative mindset whereby he’s willing to try new ideas – even if some prove more successful than others.
Adding interest
“You always have to be trying to add something or do something to keep the interest of the customers.” He notes his next major move is to install a full off-licence within the store, which he believes will prove a hit, considering the current strong performance of the existing wine range. For this, he intends doubling the current 3m long wines bay to 6m, and adding a 12 ft department for beers as well as several metres for spirits.
Other successful endeavours at his Londis shop, include introducing the Lotto and Billpay service last year, which have led to a noticeable increase in footfall according to Waters. And a good quality coffee offering hasn’t just perked up his customers’ moods either. The retailer has installed the Beans To Cup coffee machine which uses freshly ground beans to create a stirring cup of Java. “If I’m not mistaken I think I’m the only one in Athenry with that. I know that a few of the machines in town use the Kenco cartridges, but people will travel for a good cup of coffee, and that makes a big difference to trade.” In saying this, Waters notes “in the times we’re in,” it’s still important to “add cautiously; we don’t want to go overboard.” For example, smoothies are a concept the store has tried in the past that didn’t work as well. “We’ve tried them and we found they were hit and miss. Some days they’d maybe go and there were some days they didn’t. We had a butcher here who opened a butchery department as well. He tried that for about a year; it wasn’t going very well for him, so he left.” Summing up, he says: “We’re all the time trying to go on to different things and introduce new things and if they fail, they fail, and if they work it’s a bonus.”
Early openings
A tried and tested facet of the business he is less willing to experiment on however is the store’s opening hours. The shop is open from 6.15am – 9pm Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 8pm/9pm on Saturday and Sunday. Explaining the reasoning behind the store’s early weekday opening, he says: “shopping can be a habit,” and he’s reluctant to break his loyal customers’ routines.
In any case, he notes that some mornings between 6.30am and 7am the store can still be “extremely busy” because factory workers commuting from Athenry to Galway, will call in to get a coffee or cigarettes before their shift starts at 7am or 8am. Likewise, he says of the evenings: “Every evening at 9pm as well, it’s amazing the amount of times I’d be out in the car ready to drive away and a car would pull in behind and they’d say I need to get this or that. I’d always come back to let them in because you don’t want to let them down.”
Although the deli is still trading relatively well, Waters has now started closing it after 2.30pm or 3pm “because after that there’s no trade, whereas before there was a trade there up until about 5pm in the evening.” However, he has a pre-prepared sandwich and coleslaw range as well as Kerryfresh ready-to-go microwavable dinners, selling for €4.99 with traditional options such as turkey ham and beef, for those searching for a later offering.
Waters Londis wine selection
A true one-stop shop
In a bid to establish itself as a truly one-stop shop, Eamon and Padraic have also introduced an in-store dry-cleaning service. Customers can drop laundry into the shop, and a contracted company collects and cleans it. The store will then call the customer to let them know their items are ready. As Waters says: “It saves people having to go into town or into Galway for a dry cleaners. “The store can also offer some home deliveries for shopping, for which there’s no charge.”
As well as offering these extra advantages, Waters hasn’t forgotten credit-crunched customers’ key concern and is therefore intent on ensuring he can deliver a strong value proposition. “We currently have the Price Beaters range from Heritage, which is a big plus,” says the retailer adding: “Londis have been very pro-active in addressing pricing when we got into the crunch. Londis spoke to Nisa-Today and they started to bring in the Heritage line, and they are doing brilliantly. You’ve got a 60% saving on your branded products which is huge, and a lot of the products are a similar quality.”
Local specialities
Supporting local producers is another important concern for the Waters brothers, with the store stocking baked goods from Foods of Athenry, potatoes from Athenry and Galway Water. And on the topic of local specialities, Waters says the store currently has 20 or 30 customers who speak fluent Irish. His own parents come from Connemara and so he too has the cúpla focal.
“Just by using basic Irish it means so much,” he says, because it “reminds people of home.” The shopfloor also uses signs in Irish and this focus on the Irish language has led to the business diversifying into a new venture. The principal of a local Gaeilgeoir school recently asked Waters if he would open a canteen there at lunchtime as he would be able to talk to the children ‘as Gaeilge,’ and the shop also provides catering for events such as birthdays and christenings.
It is not just the local Gaeilgeoirs who appreciate a homely touch though. The store also has a number of Brazilians and Polish living within the local community who it caters for in its product ranges with regional favourites such as Pinto beans.
“We did have a lot more Polish here when construction was thriving, but now a lot of them are going back to Poland so we’ve cut back. There’s still a lot of Brazilians around though, and it’s amazing if you learn a few words of Portugese like hello and thank you it makes a big difference to them.”
A decade of learning
Considering Waters’ background in retail, it is not surprising he knows the essentials of good service. Before taking over the reins of the Londis Athenry store in April 2007 from its former retailers the Lawless family, Eamon Waters worked for Dunnes Stores for 10 years which he describes as “like going on to a third level education because you get to learn the trade inside out.” He started off in his time at Dunnes as security staff, progressing on to security management and health and safety management.
His brother Padraic also started his retail career in Dunnes, later managing a SuperValu store. “Padraic came on board with me here with a view to getting another place ourselves where he would be based,” explains Waters. “But then we hit the crash so we decided to mind what we have, although we are still looking to branch out and when a place comes up we will.”
While the Waters’ ambitions subsequently remain firmly intact, business is nevertheless going well at their current store, which is surrounded by some 900 houses and with ample parking, is more convenient than tackling traffic to go shopping in the centre of Athenry town. In fact, the shop has managed to secure Londis’ Gold Retailing in Excellence Award each of the four years it has been in trading. No easy feat considering that to gain this accolade a store has to score an average over 95% in unannounced extensive inspections. Value has also successfully driven volume sales, and Waters says that compared to at the height of the Celtic Tiger, his business is now only down approximately 3% or 4%. An impressive result on all fronts.
Related Articles
M&S co-chief executive officer Katie Bickerstaffe to step down →
Bank of Ireland appoints Alan Durcan as director of Distribution Channels →
Lindsay Brady appointed president of Ornua Foods North America →
Fans 0
Followers