Have you ever been so put off by bad selling that you simply walked, even when you were really, really ready to buy?
My wife and I did just that yesterday – stunned that the retail establishment drove us do this in the midst of the worst recession most of us have ever seen. But the really sad thing to me is that management wasted all its marketing, branding and PoS advertising investments by cutting investments in its people.
We’ve been looking for a particular big ticket item for quite some time, investing time in both online and in-store research. Yesterday we thought we had found, if not the perfect item, at least one that would do quite nicely, at an attractive price. We knew the brand well and had bought from the store before, and had been very pleased with both the professionalism of the sales staff and the follow-up service: it was clear the store had aligned personnel selection, training and rewards to deliver on its brand promise. So, when we saw a holiday sale ad, we planned a visit – the store location is not particularly convenient to us.
Our fond memories were dashed soon after entering the store. While the salesperson who greeted us clearly read us as ‘ready-to-buy,’ she was also clearly ready to ’sell’ rather than helping us buy. Unlike our prior visits, it became pretty obvious to us we weren’t going to get much help, so we thanked her for her interest, and began looking.
Spiraling downward
Then it started to get mildly creepy – ever feel like you were being stalked? As we moved through the show room, she followed, hovering never more than a few feet away, quickly moving in if we neared another sales person – I sensed that these folks were ready to ’steal’ buyers from each other at the drop of a pin. And, if we glanced at an item for more that a second, she approached asking “are you interested in that?” with paperwork magically now at the ready. Knowing something about the relationship between rewards and behavior, it was clear to me the incentives had changed.
We finally found the item we wanted, a floor model on markdown which had a couple of flaws (typical of floor models). We asked about the flaws, indicating we were ready to buy this item. Our sales person said these were easy to fix, clearly implying the store would do this.
However, the way she said it left a bit of doubt, so I asked specifically. The response was that because of the price, we’d have to fix the flaws ourselves – not unreasonable – and described how this would be ‘easy’ for us to do. By now, however, our suspicions were on very high alert and my wife asked her to actually demonstrate – also not unreasonable – how this could be done. She explained again, and my wife again asked for a demo.
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
She explained again how to do it, very slowly, as if talking to children – I began to wonder how she had been selected, and if she had received any training at all. My wife responded that we did, in fact, understand what she was saying, but because once the item left the store, we would have no recourse, and wanted to actually see how to do it. Here is when she started to lose the sale, starting to repeat again… I said we understood her pretty clearly the first two times, then asked for her manager. She started to protest, and I made it very clear that she was not being helpful and we either saw the manager, or we walked. When he leisurely appeared, he put another nail in the coffin, just with his tone – his “you wanted to speak to me” was more a defiant statement than an empathetic question (not much emotional intelligence here!), to which we repeated our request for a demonstration. He must have also sensed that we were ready to buy, and so told the salesperson to find someone who could demonstrate this for us, and requested we wait.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
And then some more.
Finally, my wife looked at me and said, “you know, I really don’t want to buy this any more.”
As we walked out of the store, we saw our sales person, paperwork still at the ready, not, as you might expect, trying to get someone to help us, but positioning herself for the next prey that wandered in range. She seemed shocked that we were leaving, and started to protest.
We kept walking.
4 comments
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May 26, 2009 at 9:40 am
Ford Harding
David:
You might think that professionals would do better than the retail clerks in your story. They do, after all, have the benefits of advanced degrees. It is their business to deal with human problems. But they can commit gaffs that are just as bad.
Years ago, I visited a lawyer to talk about revising my will. He started off well enough, asking about my concerns. Then he began to speculate. “What will you do in the event of a wipeout?” he asked. “A wipeout?” I responded. “Yes, what if you, your wife in your son are all killed at once? It’s unlikely, but wipeouts do happen.” He went on talking about wipe out — this and wipe out — that, as I contemplated a mental image of my young son and wife after a car wreck.
“Of course, in many ways a severe disability is worse,” the lawyer added. “You get to sit there and watch while you’re condition drags your whole family down and you can’t do anything about.”
By the time the meeting was done, I was convinced that the lawyer knew the issues that need to be addressed in a will. I also knew that I want to work with someone who might be a caring helper to my wife and son in the event of my death. This was not the man.
Ford Harding
May 26, 2009 at 2:59 pm
Judy M.
I think this is a sign of the times. The good sales people have been promoted to management positions and sit behind desks. We consumers are left with newbies and the what-to-bies who couldn’t get a job anywhere else. They have not been taught customer service, they only know one thing, here’s my next commission. They are order takers not sales professionals.
At least the sales woman you encoutnered didn’t outright lie to you to make a sale. Have you tried buying a car lately? We actually had a car salesman show up at our door wanting us to make a deposit on a car we weren’t sure we were going to buy. He called it a holding fee while we made up our mind. I had no qualms about calling the dealership management.
May 26, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Steve Bailey
David -
A very interesting, if not sad, story. One would think in this economy sales people would be trained within an inch of their lives, but no.
I have asked a similar question for 20 years. How do we, as well-compensated retail executives, develop strategies, write plans, and deliver executable orders into the hands of people who make $8 per hour? They have no “ownership” of these plans, plus we’ve cut their hours and benefits and then we wonder why they simply don’t care. Training is usually the first budget cut followed closely by advertising which brings in customers in the first place. So we, in our ivory towers, dump all this into the hands of Ms. or Mr. $8perhour and then wonder why it doesn’t work.
Am I anti-retail? ABSOLUTELY NOT. I love this business as do most people who have made it a career. But this is a complex situation with complicated answers – most of which I do not have.
But, one scenario I have seen work very well is to take all (and I mean ALL) the executives and their direct reports and their admins and put them in the store for a week at least once every year. They must dress as store employees, work as store employees, and be treated as “newbies” without fear of reprisal. This must be done during a busy holiday shopping time – Saturdays too! – not when its convenient for the execs. And not at the expense of hours for the real employees.
I guarantee this will be an eye-opening experience for all. We may have worked a floor when we were teenagers but, in my case anyway, that was a while ago. Hopefully we’ll think twice before writing the next business plan because we’ll remember when we tried to sell the damaged piece off the floor but couldn’t find anyone with an answer to a simple customer question.
Is this a new idea? No, but it’s amazing how many execs refuse because – well, I can’t think of a good reason. Saves on the training budget that was just cut, promotes communication through the ranks, and reduces the amount of unexecutable plans that come down. Makes sense to me and I’ve personally seen it work.
May 27, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Ann Marie
I have a horror story too: I went alone to buy my second car when I was about 24 years old, and the salesman who came over to “help” me was a complete pig. I told him I had narrowed my choice of cars down to two models (one there and one elsewhere), so he should have known I was serious. He asked me why my husband wasn’t there, and what his job was, and then when I told him it was my car for work, he assumed I must be a teacher. He wouldn’t even let me try out the mid-range car I wanted; he made me test drive the budget model first, even though I said I wasn’t interested in it. He insisted on sitting in the back seat while I drove the cars, and told me where to turn, taking me on a short loop that didn’t go on the interstate, which was less than a mile away. I was so insulted, I left and bought the other car, and I don’t think I would ever consider that brand of car again.