Customer Service or Customer Disservice – Apathy or Pounce?
Based on some recent personal experiences, I’m convinced that for the majority of retailers, customer service is a lost art. Quite often, clerks know little or nothing about the products that they are selling, and are woefully underwhelmed by all aspects of the job they were hired to do. While this also seems to get worse during the holiday session, it’s easily a year round thing.
A recent example:
With the recent heavy Northwest rains, it became quickly evident that a favorite outer-wear jacket needed to be re-waterproofed. While at large chain sporting goods store, being unable to find a previously purchased solution in any previous or logical places, I wandered around for ten minutes trying to find this specific waterproofing solution. During this time frame, there were very few people in the store, and most of the clerks were gathered around the main register, gossiping, and playing with their smart phones.
Finally, I made it back to the front register and asked the clerks where to find the said item. Two of the clerks said that they didn’t carry it, and a third told me the they had it and pointed me to a place in the store where it was not located.
After much additional searching, I finally located the item, but found two similar renditions of the same products, with sightly different names, however, there was nothing to indicate how there were similar or dissimilar. After asking the clerks about the differences between the same bottles, it was evident that the staff knew absolutely nothing about the product, nor did they appear to care.
So between the lack of product knowledge and indifference to customers, it’s a wonder that this location had any sales at all…
I suspect that these clerks had little or no training, managerial supervision, or any (or remedial) product knowledge education…
And while we are on the same subject…
The opposite of the above is the over aggressive clerk that jumps on you the minute that you walk in the door (before you have had a chance to look at anything) and says "Can I help you?" – To which most people respond simply with a "No!", or "Just Looking" response. Personally, I don’t like to be "pounced" on in the first few seconds of entering any establishment, and my reaction is almost always going to be negative when approached this way.
A better approach to the "pounce" is to train your staff to wait, giving your customers some space, watch and listen to what they do and say BEFORE approaching them, and then try some variation of the following kinds of open-ended or alternate-of-choice approaches…
"I noticed that you were eyeing that particular Jacket style… were you trying to find a specific size or color?"
"Those are great boots!"… Were you looking for a gift or something for yourself?"
"That color would look great on you!… I’ve notice that those run a bit large… are you trying to find the right size?"
"That jacket would look really good with the jeans that you are wearing… do you need other color combinations?"
"Did you notice that it has a hide-able hood?
"The blue and gold one of my favorites… Which one do you like best?"
I’d be willing to bet money, that any clerk that tried similar tactics to the above, has a much higher sales volume that anyone else in the organization.
Happy holiday shopping!
– John