Abbotsford’s Gerri Charles jokingly describes her line of business as “Cinderella stuff”, but the success of her Champagne & Lace Bridal Centre is no fairy tale; it’s come through two decades of hard work and a commitment to superior service that has won loyal customers from as far away as northern BC and Washington State.
“We have people who take two ferry rides to get to us,” she marvels. Not only that, she is thrilled by the fact some of her very first customers are starting to turn up again, only now they’re looking for prom dresses for their children. “It’s such an honour for them to allow us to be part of that family history,” she says.
Born and raised in the Fraser Valley community (though she did spend some time elsewhere), Charles was 27 and on the road selling for a wholesale food company from Coquitlam to Hope “when somebody said, you should have a bridal shop”. The idea wasn’t completely out of left field. During several years in retail with Eaton’s, she had been involved in fashion shows and events and she had also worked with private clubs organising tournaments, special events and even weddings. Nevertheless, she knew there would be a price for success. “I think more than anything I recognised right from the very beginning that it’s an enormous commitment, so there are some concessions you have to make with regards to having a life when you own a small service intensive business.”
At first she wasn’t sure she wanted to make that commitment. But her younger sister Susie had set an example with a successful flower shop, there was space available in the location and, at the time, there was no bridal shop in Abbotsford. With business in her blood (“our Dad is in business and I’ve been around business all my life”) the more she thought about it, the more enthusiastic she became. Finally, about five months later, in January, 1986, she opened her doors. It was fortuitous timing. Five years earlier, a billion people around the world had been entranced by the pomp and splendour of the Charles and Di wedding. Then, seven months after she opened, Andrew and Fergie tied the knot in an equally lavish and well-publicised style. Young women were mesmerised by the gowns – magnificent, ethereal creations made from yards of silk, satin and lace – and their men bemused by the sartorial elegance of formal wear.
Romance and glamour were back in fashion and today they’re bigger than ever. “Women, especially young women,” says Charles, “are very susceptible and very taken by the glamour of Hollywood and the red carpet. Since there isn’t anything you can’t see on television, we take a lot of our styling from there. We have girls coming in and saying ‘I want the J-Lo dress’, or Paris Hilton’s latest hot little number.”
However, it takes more than a wide selection of gowns, dresses, tuxedos (she stresses the garments are not custom made, but chosen to size and then altered to fit by her staff) and accessories to make a successful bridal centre. “Bridal and prom – and we do both very well – are destination shopping events,” says Charles. Her customers recognise “they're going to make a day of it … try on some dresses … go for lunch” and, more often than not, they are very well prepared. Before they come in “they’re either on the Internet for hours or they’re scouring the bridal magazines, choosing different styles” and they’re quite willing to take the time and get it right.
A wedding is a major event in anybody’s life and when it comes to Champagne & Lace’s involvement, Charles believes only the very highest standard of service will do. “There's no passing the buck in our industry,” she says. If something goes wrong – say the perfect pair of shoes that were ordered don’t arrive in time or a bow tie is inadvertently left out of a client’s ensemble - “we can’t simply say to a customer ‘we’re sorry it didn’t work out’. It’s not like buying blue jeans, we don’t get another chance. We have to say ‘how can we fix this’. It may not be our fault, but I always know who has to solve it.” And if fixing it requires the boss to spend hours in a border line-up to personally pick up the shoes, or the only way to get the bow-tie there on time is for one of the staff to drive 100 kms to deliver it (both recent occurrences), then that’s what happens.
The “extra mile” attitude is the bedrock of her business, whether it involves arranging an entire wedding for a client who lives in Japan and will arrive in Vancouver just two weeks before the big day, or fitting a dress and arranging a hair appointment just four hours before the ceremony. (Really – Charles recalls a young woman coming into the store around 2pm one day, explaining she had originally planned an informal wedding in her parents’ back yard, but that she had changed her mind and wanted a nice gown. When she said the ceremony would happen at 6pm that day, her team pulled out all the stops and less than three hours later, she not only drove off in a beautiful gown, but also had a new hair do and photographs of the process as well.)
Charles says working in such an atmosphere requires a special kind of person with a higher than average customer-service orientation and she has always understood that the real key to her success has been getting good staff and keeping them. Almost half of her 18 full-time employees (25 during the spring busy season), ranging in age from 16 to 62, have been with her more than five years. One, Robynn MacFarlane, started 19 years ago while another, Agi Imre, has worked at Champagne & Lace for nine. How does she achieve such staff stability?
She readily admits it’s not the money. Even though she does pay slightly better than average, she knows any of her people (who she unhesitatingly labels “pretty amazing”) could work in a restaurant and, through tips, “make three times as much”. But there are other ways to measure job satisfaction and one of them is the workplace atmosphere.
“Our staff is like a family,” she says, “and we look after each other.” Birthdays, anniversaries, births (and, yes, even weddings), personal troubles and triumphs are all shared, as in any family. She encourages them to look out for each other (after late night closing nobody leaves alone or without somebody at least keeping an eye out until they’re safely in their car, for example) and just like any other proud matriarch, she helps out whenever she can. “Over the years I’ve bought a bed, a dishwasher, and helped with childcare. There’s more than one way for everybody to get what they need, and that’s what families do,” she says.
She also says thank-you in other ways. Every year, around Valentine’s Day, when “you’re guaranteed to have a yucky, dirty car because we have that wet, mucky stuff all over the roads”, everybody’s car is fully detailed at her expense. And, when someone has been with her for five years, they receive a diamond ring. Small things, maybe, but she knows it’s the little things that often count the most.
“The staff spoil me too, it goes both ways! We also have a business coach, InFocus, and they help me monthly to keep my focus, and challenge some of our decisions to ensure we’re the best we can be,’ she says.
For Charles, involvement extends beyond the door of her store. She believes it’s absolutely necessary for any business person to be active in business, industry and community organisations. “It’s vital to be involved with your Chamber (of Commerce). It’s usually such a good deal, anyway, you can’t afford not to. That doesn’t mean you have to sit on the committees, but at least you’re linked to their network,” she says.
She believes industry organisations such as National Bridal Service and Shelfspace (whom Charles has been a member of for 20 years) offer small business people invaluable resources, whether it’s in comparing costs for store insurance or year end accounting (both of which she has done through Shelfspace with a single phone call, saving her hours of time) or taking advantage of educational opportunities.
“Education and training are essential. You can’t getter better educational value than through the association, and everybody needs it. Shelfspace has had some fantastic speakers at their conferences that I would never have been able to afford to bring in for my staff.”
But it’s not only conferences. She points out the seminars and workshops Shelfspace regularly offers provide staff training opportunities few small businesses could afford on their own “and often times they bring their training right into my community, so I don’t even have travel costs. Now there’s value!” she enthuses. Charles, for many years a Shelfspace board member (when it was called the Retail Merchants Association of BC) and active in her local Chamber, has shifted her focus these days to the wider community because, she believes “we all need to be more connected” and also because “I want to be involved with the larger issues”. Champagne & Lace supports the Abbotsford Hospice Society and she herself is a founding member of the Crystal Gala, an annual (this year’s event on November 18, is the eighth) fundraiser for Regional Cancer Centre, at the new Abbotsford Hospital, opening in 2008. “It’s a fun gala ball … that's very well attended and supported by the community. I think we’ve raised almost a million dollars over the past seven years,” she says proudly.
These days much of her community service time is taken up by her role as one of four provincial appointees to the five-member Abbotsford Police Board. She was “thrilled and honoured” when first asked her to serve three years ago, and still feels that way. “It’s a way for me to feel connected to the world. I love the gown business, but you need the balance, you need to be connected with what is really going on,” she says.
The past three years have been something of an eye-opener for her. The community she feels such a deep attachment to is no longer the quiet, bucolic, mostly farming town she grew up in. Today, it’s one of the fastest growing communities in the country and as the city has grown, so, too, have problems of homelessness, drug addiction and crime that just didn’t exist even a decade ago.
Her involvement, particularly opportunities to join officers on patrol (on what she calls “ride-alongs”) has given her a much deeper appreciation of the problems police face – and not just from criminals. She is particularly incensed about the huge number of frivolous 9-1-1 calls that waste police time. “When a dog’s barking, call the city and talk to a by-law officer. If you smell sulphur and think there’s a gas leak, phone BC Hydro.”
An ideal solution to the problem, she says, would be a 3-1-1 non-emergency service. However, such systems are expensive so, for now, she says it will have to remain on her wish list while police and politicians concentrate continuing efforts on educating the public about when to call, and not to call, 9-1-1. Charles believes education is an integral part of life, with lessons to be learned every day. She says being in business has taught her much, not the least of which is “utmost respect and admiration for people who create and sustain businesses, and those who patronize us and contribute to our success”.
She points out “there is a fine line between success and failure” and amid the every day challenges of business, “the mantra, ‘handle with care’ should be remembered whether it is our business, our vendors, our employees or our customers we are thinking of.”
