When your business requires customers to attend physical premises, you need this space to make the right impact. This is an impact that has to be balanced very carefully with efficiency and productivity, especially if you also have employees who are using this same space to work, as in the case of hospitality areas.

It’s a lot to ask. However, by focusing your attention on specific areas, you can begin to make an actionable plan for how you’re going to achieve it. You can start with the areas that you feel are most easily achievable so that the progress you make is immediately apparent.

Clean and Professional Appearances

First of all, you might just focus on simple maintenance. It’s easy to feel as though the only way this space is going to improve to the level you want it to be at is through intensive changes that transform it into something new, but you might be neglecting the positive things that are already there.

In order to effectively start building on what you already have, you need to keep your site clean and well maintained. This has the dual effect of your premises having a more professional appearance that can appeal to audiences both new and old, as well as helping to provide you with a foundation to build upon.

Cleaning, in some regards, might just mean developing a regular system where everything is routinely kept in order. This might be easier to implement than more intensive maintenance, which you might have to go into when it comes to issues with your site.

For instance, if the asphalt outside has become damaged, you might have to do some work to prevent this from making a bad impression on new audiences. Researching commercial parking lot paving Kansas City can get you started, and might even help you to overhaul your outside space to be a more effective and attractive entrance to your place of business.

Comfort and Aesthetic Appeal

However, after making sure that you’ve established the basics, you can turn your attention to improvements. You might first think about the aesthetic of your site and how you might better incorporate your branding.

For example, every Apple store you see has the same distinct iconography with the sparse and minimalist interior design—this is something that people associate with its brand. How you decorate your commercial space is going to be tied to what you need to use it for, but it’s something worth thinking about.

Again, if you’re in hospitality, this might translate to a certain theme, such as how some establishments use a diner aesthetic to tie together their physical venues. However, it’s important to consistently keep functionality and comfort in mind, as you don’t want an ambitious aesthetic design to take complete priority.

A Reason to Visit

It might be that your physical site isn’t the only way that customers can enjoy your brand. If you’re in clothing for example, you might find that you also have an online store that allows your customers to browse your offerings more conveniently. If this is the case, then why should they visit your store?

There will always be a certain audience that simply prefers to shop this way, since it’s a different experience to online shopping, one that can take up a whole day activity instead of simply being done so easily, making it have its own appeal. However, your physical store could also have some sort of central appeal that makes it worthwhile to visit, even if it’s not the most convenient route, such as special offers or the direct customer service.

Signage

Your store should also be clearly telegraphed. In a busy street, this might mean that the sign is above the door, so it’s able to draw enough attention to those passing by that it doesn’t get lost in the flurry of shops surrounding it.

However, you might have something that’s more off the beaten path, and this might mean that your sign could be disconnected from the shop itself instead and be something informative that helps to guide people toward it.

While you might think of this as just being a sign, so you don’t need to put too much thought into it, there’s a lot behind designing an effective sign, and you might be surprised at how much of a first impression audiences will get from this alone.

Effective Working Environment

As mentioned before, you’re likely going to need your employees to be able to work here as well. Therefore, as much as you might be concerned about the customer experience and how the space can support that, you also need to provide your employees with their own space.

Using hospitality as an example, you might need a kitchen that’s at least partially partitioned off from the seating area (unless you make this part of the unique environment your brand promotes), with a route through the seats so that food can be delivered, and orders can be taken.

You might be working with limited space, which can make these considerations more difficult, but placing small barriers, like a desk at the front which encourages people to wait before being seated can stop the space from getting overcrowded too easily.

Provide The Help Customers Need

Your business isn’t always going to be in retail or hospitality, though, sometimes you might be something more akin to a bank, where your physical environment is one that’s open to customers but used primarily for assistance. In these cases, it will primarily function as a working space, but it needs to be able to support visitors and offer them comfort when they do arrive.

Above all else, though, they need to be able to get the help that they’ve come for. Qualified, knowledgeable, and experienced staff members should be able to effectively provide solutions to their problems and give clear answers to their questions. Customer service is important throughout business, but you might find this to especially be the case in a face-to-face situation.