The pain of retail turnover and recruitment: keeping staff motivated and engaged with your customers on the long term

Make no mistake: being a retail executive or boutique director has to be one of the most challenging jobs in the world. I’m speaking from experience; as someone who has done no shortage of challenging jobs throughout my life, when it comes to spending a full day in one of our boutiques on a busy weekend helping out my team, you really discover just how hard working in retail can be. It’s not just the physical demand of being on your feet all day long, but the amount of energy and emotional engagement required means it’s not for the faint-hearted.

Never sitting down, constantly pacing throughout the store with little steps, back and forth… no wonder all of us working at Maison 21G boutiques have such fantastic legs!

Of course, there’s also the level of attention to detail that makes being a boutique director such hard work. Your shop windows need to look perfectly enticing, the stock must be organised, our workshops need to be prepared, blotters must be ordered, the UV printer needs to be checked, and everything must be filled, well-aligned, and kept in tip-top condition.

On top of that? All of your remaining energy must be reserved to give love and attention to anyone and everybody who walks through your shop doors. You must listen carefully, provide an aura of conviction and enthusiasm, and be as authentic as your products. Customers, after all, can spot a fake from a kilometre away.

Maison 21G boutiques are strategically located in the most cosmopolitan areas, and as such, switching languages and exercising fluency is just as important. From Singaporean to Malay, Thai, Cantonese, French, German, Italian… We greet people from all corners of the globe, and our Scent Designers must be quick to adapt and confident in their communication.

Once that communication starts flowing, our staff are experts at transmitting their knowledge and insights, providing well-paced care, patience, and attention. Every question must be answered, and every customer must be captivated by knowledge and passion. When the time comes for collecting payments, the whole process must be as elegant and seamless as can be. Every now and then, a little bargaining and bartering may come your way - it must be received with good humour, even if this is a luxury brand. It is, at the end of the day, all part of being a growing brand in Asia!

The customer journey ends with you bringing your customer - as if they were a guest in your house - to the door, leaving them feeling unique, empowered, and as though they’ve just enjoyed a rare and exclusive experience. Then, of course, it’s time for the next one, greeted with a new smile, and received with renewed warmth and attention. The best part? Working in Maison 21G may be quite demanding, but it’s never, ever boring. Every encounter is an opportunity for joy, and your customers will give back more than you could imagine.

 Take, for example, our Global retail director, Nanako , and her  best scent designer executives: they are bonafide stars of Maison 21G, and we always listen to them and respect them, as well as give them the training to realise even greater potential. They are brand ambassadors in the best possible sense, and always provide fascinating marketing ideas to our branding team, as well as suggestions for visual merchandising and PR events. If we ever need insight into how our products are doing in the boutiques, they’re always the first people we call!

As with every member of our valued team, we celebrate our successes with them, and we dance and sing together after work to relieve our stress, and reinvigorate ourselves and our motivation for the day ahead. In Asia, as you know, the working week is 10am to 10pm, seven days out of seven. Easy? Absolutely not. Rewarding? Without a shadow of a doubt.

So, with all that in mind, do you dare to join Maison 21G as a scent designer, and experience being valued by your team in a whole new way? Our boutique colleagues are the essence of our brand wherever in the world they may be. We aim to build a truly amazing network of scent designers with the opportunity to work in different countries, and share their knowledge with a family of colleagues across world capitals.

Dare to embrace the scent revolution! Maison 21G is on a mission to make the world of personalised perfumery accessible to all, with haute couture and sustainable ingredients at its heart and with each perfume guided by passionate scent designers. We celebrate our unique position as the first collaborative perfumery house for the luxury-lifestyle generation, looking to stand out from the every day, the uninspiring, and the off-the-shelf perfumes of yesterday. At Maison, customers seek us out to learn, design, and elevate each moment. We don’t merely sell products, we sell an experience and a change of perspective… and that’s why over 16,000 people have already unleashed their perfume potential with a bespoke signature scent.

Unleash your inner scent designer and join us whatever your background; from PR, event agencies, hospitality, retail, customer service, airlines, and beyond! Simply put, if you love to learn and you care for people, have a good eye for details and a great sense of customer service, Maison is the right place for you. Now’s your time to shine in your career, and to have an impact in what you do. Send your candidature to nanako@maison21g.com or Johanna@maison21g.com.

We can’t wait to meet you!