Our Philosophy

Our Philosophy:
What sets us apart from other retailers

The keys to both our success and very high customer satisfaction rating are:

Fit

The Athlete's Foot offers a clear, unambiguous and consistent proposition to the consumer: the proposition of Fit.

Everything The Athlete's Foot does in its marketing, store design and layout, customer service, use of technology, staff training and product selection is designed to ensure that customers leave the store with a pair of shoes best suited to their anatomy, and are fit for the intended purpose.

No other national retailer in the athletic or footwear space in Australia offers and delivers 'Fit' like The Athlete's Foot.

 

Use of Fit Technology: Fitprint

One of the cornerstones of The Athlete's Foot success over the last 10 years has been the adoption of a foot scanning technology called Fitprint.

It is a non-negotiable component of our service that every customer be offered a Fitprint scan and this, combined with its usefulness as an aid to Fit, has made the technology synonymous with our brand.

 

Outstanding customer service and satisfaction  

The Athlete's Foot prides itself on its customer service and customer satisfaction outcomes, which it has long believed are second to none. 

There is now hard evidence in support of this with the publication in December 2010 of a report entitled “Customer Satisfaction – non-food retailers in Australia” by Roy Morgan Research.  Based on a detailed survey of nearly 19,000 customers across Australia, this report is believed to be the biggest and most comprehensive of its kind in Australia.  The study found that The Athlete's Foot had the highest customer satisfaction rank of any non-food retailer in Australia!

 

A retail brand, not a shop full of stuff

As a result of its commitment to the concept of Fit, The Athlete's Foot has developed a retail brand that stands out from, and in front of, the footwear brands that it sells. This is no mean feat in a sector dominated by some of the world most recognisable and aggressive brands.

An almost religious focus on store consistency and staff training, reinforced with a clear and consistent marketing message over a number of years has resulted in The Athlete's Foot becoming a nationally recognised brand and a household name, known for what 'The Athlete's Foot' does, not just for the products that it happens to sell.

 

Our franchisees

The Athlete's Foot business could not be as successful as it is without the highly motivated, engaged and competent franchisees that own and operate almost all of its stores. There would be few, if any, franchise networks in Australia that have more successful, harder working or more cohesive franchisees than The Athlete's Foot.

 

Staff training

There are few, if any, speciality retailers that place more emphasis or spend more time and effort on staff training than we do. Training is embedded into The Athlete's Foot culture and all employees must undergo formal training and pass a series of tests before they are able to work on the floor of a The Athlete's Foot store.

We have several levels of qualification and have a non-negotiable standard of training quality in our stores. As a result The Athlete's Foot trained staff have selling and customer service skills that are recognised as gold-standard.  This translates into exceptionally high customer satisfaction rates.

 

Network size

The Athlete’s Foot physical reach and network size is also a key differentiator. Our Australian stores are distributed through every state and territory making The Athlete's Foot one of Westfield’s 10 biggest tenants, measured by store numbers.

The February 2011 edition of Inside Retailing contains a list of Australia’s 60 biggest franchisees by store number. The Athlete's Foot ranks 36th overall and inside the top 10 if the food, alcohol and convenience store operators are removed. The size of the network and its reach sets The Athlete's Foot apart from most other retailers in its sector.

 

Consistency of experience

Despite the size and geographical spread of the The Athlete's Foot network, The Athlete's Foot delivers a highly consistent experience to its customers.

The Athlete's Foot Mystery Shoppers visit each store every month to ensure that the high standards of quality are being met across the group. If the mystery shop score in any store drops below a certain level for two months in a row, immediate remedial action is taken to address the deficiency.

Our in-store experience, marketing message, store layout, use of technology and other initiatives within the business are clear and highly consistent, allowing us to deliver The Athlete's Foot value promise, and providing a distinct differentiator.