By
Bob Phibbs
Updated November 21, 2024
Matt, a friend of mine, heard about a big electronics store closing from one of his friends. He and his wife wanted to finally get themselves a large flat-screen TV but were nervous about spending too much. The allure of a fire sale was intriguing. Matt told his wife, and she agreed to jump in the car with their two small kids and drive about an hour north with him to Albany.
When they arrived, everything was pretty much picked clean."It was a depressing sight; they were selling shelving units, cash registers, and TVs with shattered screens." Even his three-year-old commented from atop his shoulders that 'everything is broken.'
So they left there empty-handed and went to Best Buy. "The salesman was very good and seemed knowledgeable - but the hardest thing was finding one to help me," Matt recounted.
He continued, "After several minutes of waiting in front of the big screens and eavesdropping on conversations with customers lucky enough to have a blue shirt with them, I grabbed a guy, 'Do you have time?' He answered, 'No, not really, but I'll be back, I promise.' He seemed sincere, but that didn’t help me.
Frustrated, I finally approached the main counter, 'Look, I'm on borrowed time. I’ve got two small kids that are about to melt down. I'm looking for a 50-inch TV. I want to bring it home today - can you help me?'"
That seemed to do the trick. Within a few minutes, Matt had a young associate dedicated to helping him get what he requested.
"But if the guy said it once, he said it 50 times as he tried to upsell me, 'I'm not on commission,' like that meant he should be trusted, or that made him more honest."
Matt told me that, overall, he thought the salesman did a good job of finally getting him what he wanted. Of course, Matt pretty much told the guy what he wanted; the salesman didn't ask many questions to make sure it would do what he hoped.
When he got home, he told his friend what he had done and was told, "You should have researched on the web before you bought."
Matt's response? "I just wanted it."
Here are the three frustrations illustrated in this story...
1. Respect for customer time
- Often, customers have already shopped around and are frustrated, so respect them for driving to your store at that moment to buy.
2. Scheduling too few employees to handle a rush.
- You lose all the sales you don't make. Staff for the rush, not the day.
3. Trying to gain trust by saying you aren't on commission.
- This reinforces the idea that some stores' commission programs make their employees deceptive and make customers skeptical of yours.
This story reminds me of the old American Express Card holiday radio ads, where the characters couldn't wait to be waited on until the wife told her husband to pull out his American Express card, which did the trick. But it shouldn't take that level of frustration to have someone wait on you.
Think of the MILLIONS of dollars brands pay every day, every hour, to get that customer at that moment in the store to buy their product. And then they are met with frustration! No wonder many customers say they'd just as soon stay home and shop online.
No one wants to feel worse from their experience in a brick-and-mortar retail store.
Look, customers are currently looking for your products and services. They aren't all chronically unemployed. They haven't all snapped their wallets shut. They may go out for the bargain but are ready to buy. While Apple has good enough products to sell themselves, many don't. That's why even the basics of merchandising and sales training are still valuable to move conversions.
Are you ready to meet customers who want to buy with barriers, frustration, or survivor's guilt from your employees? Or are you looking right now at how to calm frustrations and romance the sale?
Because if you aren't, I can guarantee you a competitor is...
