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Purple Tick Guidelines

Purple Tick provides guidelines to businesses who want to give good service to women, build lasting customer relationships and generate new business.

Purple Tick registered businesses agree that they will:

  1. Provide physical shopping conditions that are clean, safe and comfortable for women to shop.  This includes: well-lit, safe, pram accessible parking; shops accessible for prams and wheelchairs; safe and comfortable for children; clean easily accessible toilets; adequate seating in service area; good sign posting
  2. Exhibit a strong focus on good customer service including: rewarding staff that provide good service; effective complaint handling.
  3. Ensure good communication skills including: culturally appropriate eye contact; personalised service to address women's needs; friendliness; politeness; volunteering knowledge of the business's offerings; thinking outside the square to provide service solutions.
  4. Deliver excellent phone service including: responding to phone calls within 3 rings; passing on useful phone messages and ensuring return phone calls are made; researching and responding to inquiries.
  5. Treat women with respect including: being polite and courteous at all times; acknowledging that women have purchasing power and that they intend to purchase products.
  6. Demonstrate patience at all times when dealing with women including: being patient when women don't always understand the technical detail; taking time to explain things so that women have the information they need to make decisions; using plain English and avoiding jargon to help women understand the technical detail; giving women the time they need to make the right decision; authorising staff to refer business when they can't provide the right solution.
  7. Reward honesty and provide information to suit women's needs.
  8. Give attention to women's needs including: acknowledging when they arrive at the business premises; having sufficient staff on in busy periods to deliver good service; giving good eye contact so that women understand the staff has their attention.
  9. Be approachable: staff make themselves available to be asked questions by women.
  10. Provide information when required including: asking the right questions so that customers can give staff the right information to be able to help them; explain things properly - including the options for different products so that she can choose which is the most appropriate; volunteering useful information when not asked for.
  11. Offer different methods to deliver information women need to make purchasing decisions.  For example: website, brochures, writing it down, answering or making phone calls.
  12. Supply information that is up to date, correct, accurate, and helpful.
  13. Train staff well to be able to deliver good service including: ensuring staff are qualified sufficiently knowledgeable to answer women's' questions with authority; inducting new staff - particularly including awareness of issues relating to service to women.
  14. Provide service via the web that is equivalent to personal service including: responding in person to queries; focusing on product benefits on websites - rather than technical specifications; easy website navigation with good links to useful information; not using jargon; being aware of and using search terms that women would use.