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Temperature control is an important factor in retail all year round, but it’s especially vital to pay attention to it in the Christmas rush, when shops are more crowded and busy than ever. It’s easy for retail owners to underestimate how pivotal it can be on the productivity of staff, but it also safeguards the health of your customers – and affects how much they buy from you!
We thought we’d start with the most important one! It’s straightforward enough when you think about it. If you’re too hot or too cold in any given space, the chances are that you won’t want to hang around it for long. When you apply that to retail, the best case scenario is that your customers come in for what they needed, buy it quickly and leave as soon as they can. That means they’re unlikely to browse for anything else while they’re in there, which means you could be losing out on additional sales. And if they’re not coming in for anything specific or they’ve never visited your shop before, they’re likely to leave without having bought anything at all. You can see why that’s not exactly desirable!
On the other hand, the nice thing about Christmas rushes is that if you get the temperature control just right on your premises, you can turn the chilly weather outside to your own advantage. If your premises are particularly warm and comfortable, you might find that customers come in just to shelter from the cold outside, which then leads to purchases. For that reason alone, it’s worth paying careful attention to the temperature!
We’ve mentioned time and again how temperature affects productivity in the workplace. It’s as true at Christmas as it ever was! With your staff likely dealing with busier periods than at any other time in the year, it’s more important than ever to make sure they’re comfortable and happy. If they’re too cold, this will sap their energy (not to mention their will) to work, which means a lower customer turnover, and a tangible impact on profits for your business. Equally, going too far the other way and turning the heat up too much can make them feel sluggish and drowsy, which equally isn’t ideal. Rather than setting the temperature by guesswork, it’s worth consulting your staff on whether they’re warm enough. (Plus, if we’re being cynical, that gets you bonus points as a caring employer, too.) Just be aware that even after you hold that consultation, you’re probably not going to be able to please all of the people all of the time!
Being too cold can easily make you irritable. It’s true for us, which means it’s almost certainly true for your customers! And amongst major retail events like the recent Black Friday event and the upcoming Christmas and January sales, it can encourage a certain natural competitiveness amongst customers. If they’re already feeling aggravated because they’re too hot or cold, minor clashes can easily boil over into major confrontations over even the smallest of things. (Let’s be blunt for a second – the Christmas and January sales are one of the few times you can find grown adults physically fighting over tiny things like children’s socks.)
Now, obviously we’re not saying that physical fights can be solely blamed on environmental aspects like the room temperature, but at the same time it’s worth doing everything you can to make sure that tempers stay in check. You can be sure that the biggest retail chains do it, so it’s certainly worth it if you’re a small or independent shop owner!
One of the major aspects of the Christmas rushes is that it often leads to a lot of people being packed into very small spaces (sometimes far more than these areas have been designed to hold!). In these situations, vulnerable people, older persons or children can overheat very quickly, especially if the temperature control is poor. This can lead to sickness or even fainting right there on the shop floor. It can be incredibly dangerous, and even in the best case scenario it’s certainly not good for business. Good temperature control can mitigate this situation – and as long as your customers are in your shop, you’ve got a responsibility to protect them!
On a similar note, it’s also worth getting a quick health check of your system to make sure no mould or bacteria is hiding in there. If you switch on your system while this is still present, this bacteria can be circulated round your premises. At the very least this can result in unpleasant smells – limiting the time customers spend on your shop floor – and might even (again) result in them becoming ill. Don’t take the risk!
The easiest, most efficient way to get your system up to speed
Why, choose Askews, of course! If you’ve got concerns about the ability of your own systems to handle the Christmas rush – especially if they’ve already struggled in the recent Black Friday sales – then here at Askews, we’re here to help. Each of our HVAC engineers has years of collective experience behind them, making them the ideal people to make sure your air conditioning system is in perfect working order, ready to handle the Christmas crowds.
At the very least, we’d recommend booking in a routine service and maintenance. Even if you think your system’s working fine, this can give you complete peace of mind, as well as being a useful measure to catch any developing issues early, before they become serious problems. This can save you a lot of time, hassle and expense later on down the line! You can click here to get a free quote, or simply give us a call on 01282 863 825, and we’ll be happy to see what we can do.