The anti-snobs of Adora

Something is bothering Emmanuel Pineda. “Why do shoppers look down on sales clerks?” asks the young general manager of Adora. “Why is being on the sales floor considered a demotion?”

Pinoy shoppers seem primed to expect terrible service; it’s as if our main pleasure in going shopping is finding things to complain about. Faced with a sales clerk, the nicest person can turn into a snobbish contravida straight out of a telenovela.

Granted, we shoppers often have reason to complain. Many sales clerks don’t seem to realize that service is their job description. They’re not even trying, they’re just killing time on the sales floor. If they do acknowledge your existence, the first words that come out of their mouths is “Out of stock.”

This issue is a kind of obsession to Pineda — Eman — who regularly takes to the floor and serves the customers. They have no idea that the mild-mannered young person helping them select perfumes, flowers, or shoes is the boss himself. He likes it that way.

“It’s a profession,” he says of sales clerking, “just like being an airline flight attendant or working at a hotel. Our salespeople are our front-liners.” People are the main resource of any company, not disposable instruments but assets to be developed. To understand the business, one must deal with the customer on the most basic personal level. It’s a principle Adora takes very seriously: all executives are required to work on the shop floor at least 10 hours a month.

This month, Adora will have its formal launch, nearly two years after it opened its doors to the public. “We’ve been developing our service,” Eman says, “and now we’re confident that everything is in place.”

“You can’t teach service overnight. You learn it by making mistakes. And then it’s not enough to learn good service, it has to be consistent.” Eman absorbed the principles of selling not just at school but firsthand, as the founder of the very successful Tyler stores. When they opened their first space, he recalls, it was 30 square meters — smaller than Adora’s elegant washroom. Today Tyler has three stores and a devoted following: many clients pop in twice a week to see what’s new. The insights gleaned from the ongoing Tyler experience form the basis of Adora’s philosophy.

“Adora is something that’s been looming in the mind for years,” Eman says. “The idea came from the customers themselves.” He’d observed that his customers were in the habit of mixing pieces from Tyler with both luxury items from the famous fashion houses and funky, inexpensive finds from all over. His conclusion: Manila needs a store that bridges high- and low-end shopping.

Adora was meant to fill that vacuum: a department store that behaves like a boutique. “It’s a place where you can try on things without being pressured to buy something. You can come in for retail therapy, or to grab some linens or a pair of sunglasses.

“We think of Adora as complementing the existing retail landscape rather than competing with it.”

The name Adora itself was chosen for its aesthetics: the symmetry of the A’s book-ending the word, the O at the center. It sounds like “J’adore” — I love — and it sounds the same no matter the nationality of the person saying it. “We wanted the store to be timeless and classic,” Eman explains, “something that will work 50, 100 years in the future.” Hence the stone walls, columns, and cornices in 16th-century patterns, mixed in with 21st-century wit: very “old school” chandeliers done in chrome.

Granted, Adora’s imposing interiors tend to intimidate customers. It takes a certain amount of confidence to walk into a place which seems to announce, “We’re expensive.”

“But it’s who we are,” Eman laughs. “We wanted to create something classic and iconic. And when customers come in, examine the merchandise, and check out the prices, they will find them to be accessible.”

He agrees that Adora’s “intimidating” ambience is a sales challenge.

“Until the customers feel the warmth, they’re not buying. That’s why it’s important to have a staff that is sincere and knowledgeable. Our sales clerks will gladly help you to try on 20 items, and they’ll be just as glad if you buy one.”

From the day the store opened in early 2008, Eman and his team have been monitoring reactions to their customer service and poring over incident reports. Sales clerks have to learn to “read” the customers, a skill which, unless they are psychic, takes time. They have to be able to tell at a glance which shoppers would like to be attended to, and which ones would prefer to shop by themselves.

It’s a delicate dilemma that would challenge a forensic psychologist.

There is the customer who wants the sales clerk to be her girlfriend — someone to make suggestions (but never ever say outright that the item is two sizes too small for her), pay the appropriate compliments, and brighten her day. After all, shopping is one of our most reliable triggers of cheerful endorphins.

But there is also the customer (points to self) who gets paranoid when she is shadowed by an overzealous sales clerk. Paranoia turns to claustrophobia, resulting in flight.

How can the sales persons tell which category the customer belongs to? How many times have you walked into a store and wasted 10 minutes trying to get the attention of the indifferent salesladies? Then there are those occasions when you enter a shop just to browse, and get swarmed by overeager sales staff like a cow in pool of piranha. Not to mention hearing those three little words, “Out of stock,” which sound suspiciously like, “We don’t care.”

At Adora, the craft of reading the customer is acquired by regular training — every sales person undergoes 25 training modules on sales principles with Eman — and experience on the floor. “We’re building a professional sales culture,” Eman declares. “We observe strict rules. We will do everything we can to find the item for you: at our store it’s a sin to say ‘out of stock.’”

The sales staff are given opportunities for career advancement. With enhanced skills and experience come a sense of pride in their work. They have a stake in the success of the business. This translates into a higher quality of service for Adora’s customers.

Along with developing their service, Eman and his team are finding the balance for their merchandise mix. “We want to keep Adora ever-evolving, ever-enticing.”

He adds: “Everything in the store has a compelling reason to be here. When we take on a product we ask, ‘Is it Adora?’ We have 2,500 square meters, but it’s still small — editing and curating the merchandise mix is crucial.”

He gives a quick illustration of this mix. “The items we carry are available only at Adora, but we make exceptions for products we love. For instance, the local cosmetics brand VMV makes sunblock that has no smell.” It’s a brilliant product: SPF 30 protection, and odorless.

Then he leads the way to the perfume section.

There are only five “noses” in the world, he notes, the greatest experts on scent. Two of them produce their own perfumes: Jean-Claude Ellena has A Different Company, and Francis Kurkdjian has Maison Francis Kurkdjian. Both lines are available at Adora. “Try this,” Eman says, “it’s Vetiver by Jean-Claude Ellena. It smells like you took a swim in the ocean and let it dry on your skin.” Within the confines of your office, you can smell blue seas on a sunny day.

To sense the world in a drop of scent — that’s an 18th-century Romantic idea. To turn the shopping experience into a kind of modern romance — that’s a 21st-century Adora idea.