Making Scared People Feel Respected

I was at a conference recently and the speaker that I learned the most from, was one that I planned to skip. He is the head of a shopping mall in a small town - Nellore in India.
When they opened the mall, it was the first one in the town, so they had to figure lots out for themselves. There is not much of a peer group - less than 10% of India’s malls with more than 40 retailers are in small towns - so it can be hard to find bestpractice.

A mall in a big city gets 60-65% of visitors from a 12km catchment area (this varies a bit wit the size of the mall… bigger mall = bigger catchment). A mall in a small city or town gets only 30-35% of visitors from the same 12km radius. In a big city, 12km is a couple of suburbs. In a small town, 12km can be most of the town.

So a smaller town mall needs to attract most of its visitors from long distances. They are not stopping in for quick shopping, they are coming for an entire experience.

The management had to focus on events, activities and in-mall promotions. This year will have 145 event days!!! In order to keep bringing people back the events and setups need variety, so they recruited in-house event and decor teams.

They also had to train the staff on how to be especially welcoming to the many visitors who had never been to a mall before. Which meant that they had never used an escalator before. There are 'helpers' at each escalator to guide visitors on how to get on and off. Making scared people feel respected is a powerful way to build an emotional connection.

You have customers that are at least a bit scared. Scared of making a mistake, or looking stupid, or later regretting the decision to buy from you. How are you making them feel respected?