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Lucem808
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Name: Vince
Gender: Male
Interests: Creation is the Meaning of Life. I collect rare and unique people, those with the capacity to evolve society. I give great respect to deep thinkers who expand on other's thoughts, and equal respect to those that create by turning their dreams into reality.
Expertise: Evolution. Light. You can say I've studied Psychology for over a decade, and I've absorbed over a thousand different personalities, so I can see a lot of different perspectives on things. I have a high level of empathy, if only to let me understand things more clearly.
Occupation: Artist
Industry: Other
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
AIM:  Lucem808
Member Since:
11/24/2003
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| Today, I had a customer come to the register with a pile of panties. I tell her a sale started this morning, which she’s utterly happy about. We get along just fine, until I scan all of her panties. There are promotions: buy 'X of full-priced panties' for Y dollars (3 for $25, 4 for $30, etc.), and she only needed one more for that promotional price. I tell her this.
“But they’re all on the same table,” she states.
“Oh, I guess we marked some on sale, but they didn’t remove the sale from the table. Did you want to get one more of the full-priced panties to get the discount?”
“But they’re on the same table, it says I get them for that price! They’re all on sale, right?”
I’m looking at the sale panties which are cheaper than the promotional price. I push the button on my walkie-talkie headset, and I speak into it, “Can the person in the panty section make sure to remove the sale items from the promotional table immediately?”
“I don’t know why there are sale panties on that table.”
“Don’t worry miss, I just told them to remove the sale panties, it’s all being handled. Do you want to get one more of the regular priced panties for the discount?”
She agrees and heads back there. I tell the person back there to help to woman with the panties. Sadly, this was only partly effective considering my coworker didn’t hear me, nor understood what was going on. I only hear a faint, “What did you say?” on the walkie-talkie.
So the woman returns with another pair of sale panties, which doesn’t activate the promotion. (You need four panties for promotion, or the register won’t accept it.)
“Oh, you grabbed another sale panty, I’m sorry–”
“What? What are you talking about? She said they are all on sale! You aren’t making any sense at all!”
And my coworker from the panty section says, “No, these are on sale,” she points first at the sale panties, then at the regular priced panties, “But these are full-priced, but also on sale.”
I gasp inside my head, because now I’m trapped between a confused customer, and a co-worker that is just as confusing. I try to tell the woman she’s picked several sale panties, and a few full-priced panties. For the discount, she needs one more full-priced panty.
She starts to yell, saying I’m not making any sense.
Another cashier comes up to me saying, “What’s going on here?!?”
I’m already over it, and I say, “Okay. Fine. I will give them all for the discount price.”
And the customer says, “Good.”
“So I’ll mark them all up to the discount price, because the sale panties are cheaper. Okay?”
That seemed clearer than anything else I said, because the woman suddenly didn’t want me to give her the discount, nor was I willing to bend at this point since I don’t like being yelled at.
“Wait, these sale panties are cheaper than the promotion price? Oh! So you’re saying I just need one more full-priced panty and those will be cheaper?”
“Yes.” I think to myself, “It says four for X dollars.”
“Oh, I get it now.”
I ask her if she just wants one more black, since those colors don’t generally go on sale. I decide to run and get the full-priced panty myself. The woman leaves happily saying she’s sorry about the confusion and wishes me happy holidays. Epilogue: So another cashier comes up to me after the transaction and says, “So when you were talking on the walkie-talkie saying you’re handling the problem, I didn’t hear anything. You weren’t even pressing the button.”
I smirk a little.
“That’s a veteran move,” he says.
I nod, and quickly run to take all the sale panties away from the promotional panties. Customer Type: Agreeing to Disagree, Big Baby, The Deaf | | |
| A woman comes to the cash register with eight tops in different sizes, colors and styles, and piles them up.
“Would you like gift receipts with these?”
“Yes.”
I wait, since people usually say if they want it for certain items, or in groups, or all separately. She just stands there and looks at me.
“Do you want them all separate, one gift receipt for each item?”
“No.”
“Hmm, okay, do you want them in groups?”
“Yes.”
Again I wait, but once more, she just looks at me. I get a little tired of this weird game, so I randomly arrange the items into four piles: one item by itself, two piles of two, and a third pile with three tops.
“So like this?”
She nods, and says, “Yes.”
So I continue the transaction. After printing gift receipts, placing them with each stack, I ask if she’d like four boxes.
“No, I want five boxes. Two for these, and one for this, and this, and this.”
Hmm, good luck giving four gift receipts to five people. Customer Types: The Dumb, Guessing Game -----
This is an add-on for my co-worker who was standing next to me:
At the same time I had my gift receipt customer, I hear a loud, rude customer next to me speaking to one of my more sassy coworkers. I hear the woman ask for socks, and my coworker points toward the sock wall we have for woman.
"No, I want tube socks!"
"Tube socks?"
"Tube socks! Those aren't tube socks. You don't know what tube socks are?" The woman turns toward her friend and says with way too much cocky attitude, "Tube socks, those are the thick ones, right? Tube socks, the ones that are long and go up your leg, right? Tube socks. That's what tube socks are!"
I'm utterly surprised my coworker didn't snap back, nor point out the fact tube socks like that are of the manlier variety and I'm sure men's socks would have been perfect for her womanly virtues. I laugh, and say, "I think we have those kind of socks in the back." Since, we do have winter socks, which are thick, but not tube socks, but it would be good enough for this customer. Otherwise, I'd point at the men's socks, because they're 'thick' and 'go up your leg'. Some people are just too much, like when guys ask for the jeans with elastic, or woman ask for 'mom jeans'. I know what they are, not everyone knows, but that doesn't mean we or anyone else carries it for the plethora of customers that come asking. Supply and demand usually means buying a lot of what you like before it becomes extinct. Customer types: Lowered Expectations | | |
| (This is an excerpt from my blog about rude customers)
Today was special. Suffice it to say, though some call me stereotyper, the most insulting and degrading ways of getting attention lay always with the Chinese customers. Today was special. I was doing a stock check for a customer, and the cashier asks me to back-up. The line isn't long, just one couple with a scarf. I go to the register and the man begins by yelling at me, "You take forever! Why you take so long? You take too long! What's wrong with you?" All the while he is literally knocking, KNOCKING on the counter, glaring at me,spittle flying. While he continues to yell at me, knocking on the counter, I just look at him and say, "You can lecture me, but I don't care." You see, when the company stops making the jeans you love the most--don't blame me, I didn't make the decision, so stop saying, "You stopped making my favorite jeans," because I didn't make that choice.
When a co-worker forgets to take a tag off your clothes, don't yell at me saying, "You always forget to take off my tags," because I didn't do it.
When the cashiers don't ask for back-up when they should, don't yell at me. If I make a mistake with your transaction, I take responsibility. When I make a bad marketing decision, I take responsibility. But don't you dare blame me, yell at me, or lecture me about something that I have no control over. That is one major wrong in a capitalist industry where money is seen as something holier-than-thou, where you think you have the right to do what you want because you're buying a scarf. If we took one step outside the doors of that business, you would not dare act the same way. So I quickly finished the transaction and left. Of course, the rude man who expected me to bow down and cower before his $30 purchase, wanted some form of pleasure, so within a minute I hear the manager looking for me. Which I am told that I made him wait a long time (did I really?), that I was rude (really? I thought we do onto others...), and I didn't thank him... For what? Thank you for knocking on the counter, lecturing me because I decided to not make you wait any longer? I'm sure not going to thank you and hope you come back to buy another scarf next year. Customer Type: Complainer, Don't Kill the Messenger, (I feel the urge to make a subgroup for Chinese, since I was also clapped at like a dog in addition to this 'knocking thing), Modern Slave-Owner. | | |
| The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test
(My girl got Level 6. Haha. Non-believer!!!!)
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| Real Selling
Pi Sigma Epsilon- Sales, Marketing, and Sales Management. They say you get from something exactly what you put into it. I learned to be a marketer in PSE, I learned to be a salesperson. I learned to sit casually with bank presidents, CEOs, and entrepreneurs. Every single member of PSE that came after me learned what I believe selling is--by selling their most prized possessions. You sell something like it means something to you, you sell something so it means something to someone else. When you buy my most prized possession, its because you want it.
I learned what it was to be a real salesperson. I took that with me, against the advice of my friends and family, when I entered retail. When my method and my style was so strong, managers asked me what my secret was, what I can teach my coworkers, and I told them to treat everything as it if were your more prized possession. My style of real selling has faded away as the years have gone by.
Salespeople
When I first started retail, selling was important--making money was important. I don't know where or how the company I work for has lost it's way, but money isn't the most important thing anymore, and it shows. In the past, selling an outfit, you'd be recognized, awarded, rewarded--you were acknowledged and thanked. Making sales, you were acknowledged and thanked. Credit Cards (CCs) were just add-ons, they were just an accessory to a fabulous outfit. They wanted you to be a real salesperson.
As time went on, they focused less and less on selling and more and more on CCs. You don't get acknowledged for making something beautiful, for doing a great job, for helping customers find everything they were looking for. But you get someone to sign up for a CC? You are acknowledged and thanked by the whole staff.
Where does money come from? Selling.
What does the company acknowledge? Credit cards.
What are coworkers encouraged to push? Credit cards.
What is left behind? Selling.
Car Salesmen
You see, before I entered Retail, I had a division between two types of sellers--car salesmen and a real seller. I can be a telemarketer, I can push something on you, I can give you a good deal, I can get you to sign up for a credit card--that doesn't make me a salesperson, that doesn't mean I have sales skills.
Look at the Japanese style of selling, business etiquette. I get to know you. I learn what is important to you. I find what you want, what you are looking for. I do not treat you as a sale, I treat you as a friend, as a customer. After I know you, after you trust me, then we make a sale. We do not do the 'American style' of selling, by pressure, pushing, and giving good deals. We work together.
Most of the best salespeople I have met at my store have all left to other, better things. Many have become managers. Others have found a career. Many of these people faded away before they even received their degree, they couldn't wait to get out of it. They knew what selling was about, working with customers, building a sale. They understood.
CCs
Credit cards. Credit cards. When a company is focused on credit cards, they are focusing not on the sale but the acquisition. When a company acknowledges and thanks people only for their credit card acquisitions, what are the salespeople going to strive for? Where are they going to put their energy?
If they do not receive the same or similar acknowledgment and thanks for making sales, building sales--giving the store income to stay open, to pay the bills, to give coworkers paychecks--what incentive do they have to do so? And if you do make a huge sale, why shouldn't coworkers thank you? You are helping to pay their bills, too. Where is the logic in this?
If you want to go further, look at what is important to us--welcoming customers, finding sizes and styles, cleanliness of the store.
Does welcoming customers affect getting a CC from that customer? No, it only matters who makes it to the register, so why do it?
Does helping a customer find a size or style affect getting a CC from that customer? No, it only matters who makes it to the register, so why do it?
Does it matter if the store looks clean in order to get CCs from that customer? No, it only matters who makes it to the register, so why do it?
The results of this CC focus are evident in all survey scores--poor. We have no need to focus on great sales floor activity, great selling, great anything, because we just need to focus on CC acquisition, because that is all we get credit for.
What do you think would happen if we got credited for helping customers? What would happen if we received immediate thanks for giving great service, for building a huge sale? No salespeople have an incentive to sell, so why would they sell? Think about it.
Tourists
If our focus, acknowledgment and thanks are focused around CC acquisition, what about the tourists that cannot get CCs? What incentive is there to give them great service, they won't get me thanks or acknowledgment? If half of the customers at our store are tourists, and I'd say they generate more than half the income, why isn't there some form of acknowledgment for methods that help them?
They say CCs create customer loyalty and bring them back to the store. So does good selling environments. So does salespeople who are able to work through a language and cultural barrier to make people feel welcome. Giving great service makes tourists return. Giving a great experience creates world-wide loyalty. Yet, where is the focus? On something they are not a part of.
No Salespeople
It is a true concern where I work, people are not encouraged to become salespeople. They do not have product knowledge, because that isn't part of CCs. They don't get acknowledged for product knowledge. They get acknowledged for CCs. They don't need to develop their selling skills, working to build larger and larger sales through their efforts, because that isn't part of a CC--you can get a CC from a single sale item.
There is no gratification. There is no satisfaction. Thus there is no selling, no environment made for customer satisfaction. Do you think if a salesperson made a large sale, helped a customer buy a dozen units, if they were thanked and acknowledge immediately, as equally as CC acquisition, that you would see more selling, more care, and more movement towards that ideal?
Conclusion
Selling happens, when selling is made to be important. One of my peers once told me, "I never get thanked for anything I do, but a new person, they'll get thanked for doing something small. I don't feel appreciated anymore." That I understand whole-hearted, my dear. Maybe I'll go to the nightclub you work one night, and order a drink to toast.
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