2 - Job Description

Aritzia Style Advisor 

 

Many Canadian girls dream of working at Aritzia, a Vancouver fashion brand, because of the generous 40% employee discount. After all, who doesn’t want to make money from talking about fashion and cute outfits all day? If that’s what you enjoy, you might want to become an Aritzia Style Advisor. 

 

Aritzia is a fashion retailer that targets women in the age range of 16 to 35 who seek chic professional or upscale casual clothing. An Aritzia Style Advisor is a person who offers purchase advice, executes sales transactions, and performs various after-sales customer services through phone calls, live chats, and emails. The company assesses a Style Advisor’s performance using metrics like the number of customers assisted, amount of sales executed in dollar value, and customer satisfaction rating. Style Advisors typically work 7-hour shifts per day at the Aritzia’s Concierge office in downtown Vancouver, sitting in front of their desk that comes with two computer monitors and a pair of headsets. 

 

During those 7 hours, you will have to perform job functions comparable to the following three roles: 

1.     The Big Sister

2.     The Therapist 

3.     The Judge 

If you know how to fulfill the above roles, you will be a successful Style Advisor. 

 

The Big Sister

The function of a big sister occurs in the following ways: 

1.     Offering reliable fashion advice in a friendly way 

2.     Showing support and boosting customers’ confidence

Ultimately, a good Style Advisor is like a salesperson who convinces hesitant customers to hand over their credit card numbers. However, to achieve this, a Style Advisor needs to act as a cool yet friendly big sister that the customer enjoys speaking with. Customers often cannot make up their minds on what to purchase, so they will reach out to Style Advisors to seek credible fashion advice on their item, sizing, and color choices. For instance, if a customer is unsure about purchasing a vegan leather jacket, I will tell them that I bought a leather jacket from Aritzia myself and it has become a closet staple for me ever since, wearing it during shopping, dinner, a night out with my girlfriends, and many other occasions. Sometimes, customers might struggle with confidence in their body image, discouraging them from purchasing dresses that contour one’s bodies. In moments like this, a Style Advisor will try to cheer the customer up to make them feel better about the way they look and support the customer in exploring different fashion styles. At the end of the day, the customers just need a little extra push from a friendly, trustworthy voice to make a purchase. 

 

The Therapist

A Style Advisor’s job is like a therapist’s job in these ways:

1.     Curiously listen to the customer explain their situation

2.     Empathize with the customer’s negative emotions 

3.     Actively look for the root problem 

A therapist is a person who is a patient listener, which is exactly what a Style Advisor must be when interacting with upset customers. For example, a customer might have already had a bad day at work. When they finally arrived home and opened their Aritzia package, they discovered that the company delivered the wrong color. In cases like this, I will let the customer explain their situation thoroughly while asking inquisitive, guiding questions. I will ensure them that I understand where their frustration is coming from, instead of shutting down their negative emotions with formal Aritzia policy or procedures. I never know what stories to expect from customers. Sometimes, I get to hear the day about a mom who has had enough of her children and husband; sometimes, I get to hear the day about a grandmother who is trying to buy the perfect Christmas gift for her granddaughter. Regardless of the situation, a Style Advisor will aim to comfort a customer’s emotions before negotiating with them to resolve the problem at hand, such as package delays, lack of inventories, or product defects. When a customer feels heard, they are a lot more cooperative and likely to accept compromises. 

 

The Judge

The role of a Style Advisor is much like the role of a judge. Each customer’s situation is treated on a case-by-case basis, which requires the Style Advisor to perform the following tasks: 

1.     Gather all information from the customers 

2.     Verify the validity of a customer’s claim through internal data and records 

3.     Reference company policy and precedence to come up with a solution 

Style Advisors are authorized by the company to independently offer remedies to dissatisfied customers: discounts, free shipping, and product replacements. We must use our judgements on when to authorize these remedies by weighing the information available to us. For example, a customer shrunk their sweater by putting it in the dryer without reading the product label which says, “hand wash only.” The customer called the company asking for a product replacement. The sweater was an expensive purchase for them, and they wanted to wear it for the upcoming holiday season. By company policy, it is the customer’s responsibility to read the labels and maintain the apparel. However, by precedence, Style Advisors in the past have issued product replacement as a one-time exception to other customers in similar situations. Therefore, I will look up that customer’s profile in our internal data system. If the customer has never received an exception before, I will grant them the product replacement. Otherwise, I will not authorize the product replacement and encourage them to be more careful with their clothes in the future. Most importantly, a Style Advisor must create an optimal solution that benefits the company in the long term, which might require them to give up the short-term profitability of a sale to make a customer happy and return in the future. 

Readability

Passive Sentences: 0

Flesch Reading Ease: 44.1

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.8