Ruby Tuesday Changed…How Do We?

So I know the title of this blog sounds kind of funny…and your probably wondering how the heck does this relate to jewelry…well here it is—but first a little background info.

My husband loves to eat at what I call crappy restaurants—Friday’s, Ruby Tuesdays, Applebee’s and Chili’s. First off—there are a zillion kids running around—and I am not a huge fan of kids (at least not yet). Second of all they are loud. And third but not least (I won’t go on and mention my huge list of why I hate these types of restaurants) the food isn’t that great (in my opinion of course). I think they have a mix of foods and nothing is real good. His reason—is they’re easy, you can eat quickly, for cheap, and it’s not fast food…to him of course. So…I have agreed to go to one of these places at least every six months—being the good wife I am; I mentioned it this time—and he selected Ruby Tuesdays. He said it was cleaner than the other places and that would make me feel better about it. I looked at him and under my breath said, “Sure.”

Long story short—the new Ruby Tuesday’s by our house has done it. It starts with the outside of the restaurant—black awnings, black framing around the windows—not brass like most plazas have. They have totally changed their image—little things like the plates aren’t round but this modern square look (all the plates, the salad bar ones too—make them look clean and modern). They have lamps with decorative shades—ones with circles and nice colors. The booths aren’t ugly green and all the chairs have the fake leather and wood. The tables have nice table cloths and the lighting looks totally different. I really wish I had pictures because it was shocking. The walls didn’t have all this crap on them like when he takes me to Chili’s—weird stuff just to fill up space. They actually had some cool looking art (cheap but modern and cool).

So—how this relates to jewelry—I read this appalling article from National Jeweler, “How can jewelers coax in more shoppers?” The article gave these shocking statistics:

1. About 30 percent of consumers who visited a specific jewelry store said they would never go back to that same store, a very high turnoff rate.
2. About 80 percent of women said they would prefer to shop at a clothing or book store instead of a jewelry store.
3. Only 7 percent of those surveyed found jewelry stores fun, just 4 percent found them innovative and only 1 percent found them welcoming.

How has your store changed its image? How can we all change the image of jewelry stores? Any ideas of how to make our stores more relaxing—not the usual excellent customer service answer (please)—because we all think each of our stores has the best customer service. Something else—something that makes us look different as soon as they walk in the door like how I felt when I saw how Ruby Tuesdays had changed from the outside and inside.