Customer Service
Odds are, I will use this title again sometime in the life of this blog but I had this post on my mind all morning and now I have a public forum to blah-g about it! For the last two weeks, I have been on a search for the uber-popular wii game MarioKart. I had been to several well known, national retail chains looking for it. I accepted everyone being sold out of this game the week after Christmas since the weather had been lousy and it is an extremely popular game. However, earlier this week after work, I visited five retailers in search of MarioKart. I got home that night with a large dose of cynicism but no MarioKart. At 3 of the “big box” stores I went to, I stood in front of the videogame area for between 10-15 minutes, and had zero interaction with an employee of the store. Typically, if a customer is staring at a locked display that houses video games, it is prudent to ask them if they need any help, since they are unable to help themselves without the use of a crowbar or Louisville slugger. Anyways, I didn’t see any of the game I was looking for in the case at any of the “big 3″ I visited, but had high hopes of an associate finding one for me in the “back room”. I left without any interaction with a salesperson. Plenty walked passed me and none asked to assist. If the employees of a store are too lazy or poorly trained to open a case for a customer, I buy from someone else.
Right now you’re probably thinking why didn’t I stop being a whiny moron and just order it online? And you’d be correct. The only thing I buy online are clothes that are on sale, and music from Itunes. As far as clothes are concerned, the internet always has my size and itunes offers me the instant gratification that physically having a product in hand immediately after purchasing offers. Otherwise, I prefer to support the local economy.
So my next stop was at a small video game boutique. I strolled in, with the frustration of horrible service still on my mind and the salesperson greeted me and asked if he could help me find anything. I responded with “I’m looking for MarioKart for wii”. He responded by laughing at my request. I then inquired as to when they would be restocked. He said “whenever they get here”.
Congratulations on earning all 7$ that hour pal. And I mean that in the least demeaning way possible. All through high school, college, and immediately following college, I worked at various outdoor sporting goods retailers and would have lost my job if I had ever interacted with a customer like that.
So what’s the point of this post?
For one, it changed my attitude towards online shopping. Why deal with a-hole salespeople when I could just as easily gotten the same item shipped to my house at the same price?
And for 2, it got me thinking on what that final salesperson could have done differently.
1. Written down my phone number and called me when the item was back in stock.
2. Gotten my email address so his company could alert me to sales/special events.
3. Checked his store’s online warehouse and had a copy of the game shipped to his store for me.
If local retailers want to ever compete and stay relevant and stay in business, they need to focus less on restocking and concentrate more on actually training their employees how to interact with their customers.
What did this have to do with insurance or construction? Nothing, but I hope it made you think about some ways you could interact with your customers in a more positive way at every juncture.
