The Customer is Always Bright

Customer service - do sales folk know much about it? We’d all argue that it’s long been a problem but now it is getting harder for them to fake being smart, as the customers are getting better informed.

There seems to be a rule that the knowledgeability of staff is directly inverse to the size of the store. i.e. the bigger the store, the dumber the staff. Although this is a generalization, it is a reasonable one and yes I acknowledge there are many exceptional sales assistants out there in larger stores. But I contend that they are the exception.

The other day I over heard the following conversation in one of our largest electrical goods chain stores down here in Australia.

Customer: “Hi. Do you have the new iPods?”

Salesman #1: pauses… “The nano?”

Customer: “No, the big one.”

Salesman #1: “Ah, the 20GB one. No not at the moment, we’ve been trying to get them in.”

Customer: “They come in 30GB and 60GB now. The video enabled one.”

Salesman #1: “Oh ok, didn’t know. We’ve got them on backorder.”

Hmmm. What have we learnt so far? Customer is informed, salesman is not.

Enter salesman #2 who bounds down from the other end of the store, like a T-Rex pouncing on it’s prey, strong on bite, but weak on brain power.

Salesman #2: “You don’t want to get an iPod. What you should get is a Toshiba Gigabeat”. (I also believe the salesman may have also slipped in some derogatory generalization about the iPod’s reliability)

Customer: “Oh, ok then… tell me more…”

Salesman #2 is clearly not as bright as the customer, not spotting the trap the customer is laying and starts to ramble on about how the Gigabeat matches up with the iPod.

Customer having lead the T-Rex to the precipice, goes for the kill and starts asking about accessories.

Salesman #2: “Well, yes, the iPod has heaps more accessories, but the Gigabeat does have one too…” (I didn’t catch what it was but it was clear he was clutching at straws.)

Now, we’re not here to argue the merits of the Gigabeat - which is an acceptable player - versus the iPod, what we’re on about is sales staff with their own agenda who are treating the customer with contempt.

Thus, in the meantime I was seeing red and wanted to walk over and deck the salesman with a few choice lines of my own like:

“Did you ever THINK to ask WHY the customer wants an iPod?”
or
“You get much better commissions on the Gigabeat don’t you?”
or
“I run a website that collates reviews of portable entertainment players from around the web… what lies are you telling them about the iPod?”

But instead I left as I didn’t know if I could talk rationally I was so mad.

As I crossed the road I looked back and saw the customer leave the store - empty handed of course which is never a good sign for a salesman - and probably going home to look up Toshiba Gigabeat on the internet.

And therein lies the moral of the story. Customers are better informed than in the past because they are using the internet to research the products they’re interested in and then going in forearmed. If you’re a sales assistant in a shop selling anything that can be researched on the internet, you’ve got to lift your game. No longer can you treat the customer as dumb, with trite answers made up on the spot or expect to weasel them towards the product with the better commissions.

The internet is educating people. It is a fantastic research tool - especially for buyers. Consequently, it’s more likely now, that the customer is always bright.