Sephora is a global company that includes more than 1300 stores in
27 countries. With all of these stores, it’s obvious that Sephora dominates the
beauty market, so having an effective crisis communications strategy for its
employees, investors, government bodies and various communities is of utmost
importance.
Thousands of employees across the globe work for Sephora whether it
is at their headquarters in San Francisco or one of their retail stores. By
keeping their employees happy and well informed, their internal communication
remains strong. Sephora uses a typical corporate structure with benefits for
their employees such as retirement and 401k. Since Sephora is a privately held
company owned by the French company LVMH (Louis Vuitton and Moet Hennessey),
they do not have investors or such information for the public to view. After
reading many employee reviews about working for Sephora, almost all reviews are
positive. Overall, management keeps employees well informed on all company
aspects and provides detailed training programs. Management and peers teach
others from experience, and employees are compensated much higher than other
retail stores.
Sephora appeals to a wide demographic of women, men, and teens of
all ages, but they generally target their main market segment of women ages
20-30 and 30-40. By selling quality products, having exceptional customer
service in stores and online, they stand apart from the crowd in the beauty
market. The Sephora experience brings their customer back time and time again,
just with service alone. Aside from their in store and online presence, they
reach out to surrounding communities and demonstrate a strong corporate social
responsibility. GoodGuide ratings have noted Sephora as being 34% more socially
responsible than its competitors, rating them a 6.7 scientific rating, 7.4 core
company environmental performance, and a 6 for social performance. These
ratings are above average and in the green zone, representing their high
corporate social responsibility.
Sephora does not currently have an employee or celebrity spokesperson
for their company. Since Sephora carries over 250 different beauty brands, most
of their advertisements are incorporated with other brands and their
spokesperson. For example, all around their fragrance department, they have
signage for all the latest fragrances such as Lady Gaga’s new scent, Fame.
Displays like this is what differentiates other brands from one another, but
the Sephora brand is represented by all the other brands as a whole. I do not
believe having a spokesperson would help their business revenue, but having an
identifiable model like Chanel Iman or Karlie Kloss for their website for
how-to videos might capture their audiences attention.
If Sephora was to undergo a company crisis, their strong
communication skills would be the most important strategy to come into play.
For example, if one of their products caused a rash on someone’s skin, they
need to act fast before something like this was found out by the public and put
them in a negative light. This is where important crisis communications and
public relations skills are put to the test. Having a strong team of employees
that are properly trained on how to react and handle customer complaints will
help maintain their image. By properly training employees in the beginning with
all proper procedures, employees will know how handle most situations, whether
it is in the store or something larger.
When
faced with a crisis, being able to communicate with both insiders and the
public is the most important thing. Before certain information is released to
the public, employees should be well informed on the issue at hand. Secondly,
the company should then be open and honest to the public about how they will go
about fixing the problem and what specific changes the public will be expected
to see. As many details as possible given in the beginning will only help the
public understand the situation, rather than find out hidden details at the
end.
