Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the best salesperson of them all?
Why, oh why, does every salesperson not look in a mirror every now and then?
Have a read of this, and decide yourself whether to laugh or cry. This happened to me just last weekend.
Being a Gentleman of a certain age, I find whenever I enter an electrical store, I’m either judged to be digitally sub normal, in need of a very wide berth, or to be spoken to very slowly with as little jargon as possible.
So when I do find someone who can help me, I’m often surprised at the effort and energy that goes into their deliberate attempt to confuse me.
Me! The customer! The one who wants to buy from them!
Product demos are full of assumed prior knowledge, quicker hand movements than an old-school card shark, or overuse of jargon. All of which appears designed for me to look at them and admire their ‘brilliance’.
So last weekend saw me attempt to make a significant impulse purchase, something you’d imagine the store manager would have been delighted with.
Alas ‘Chris H’ decided he would impress me by explaining the item was HIW.
What?
Held In Warehouse. Of course! Back in the good old Victorian days we called that ‘Not in Stock’. But not today. Luckily for me, Chris thrust his iPad at me. He probably should have stopped there.
From this, I was supposed to glean that I could order it online using the iPad. So I entered the product code and proceeded to enter my card details. At which point Chris whipped it back, in order as he put it “to do the magic”.
“Is that your number” he said. “Bang”. “Enter”. “Done”!
“No” was my response. “Chris, that’s my home phone number, and the confirmation code is now being sent to my home phone 14 miles away, and I’m stood beside you”.
Sharp as a tack, Chris realised his error, and quickly gave me back the iPad. Apparently, I needed to do the process again. But clearly, I’m now agitating Chris and his patience is wearing thin.
We go through the same process, and approaching the final hurdle, I prepare myself to point the drop down menu with my mobile number….. Too late. Chris, in his agitation to process data at breakneck speed, has hit enter again.
So luckily for me, I now have two authorisation codes from my bank on my home phone!
Two attempts and no success. Fortunately, my patience now matches Chris’s, and I turn on my toes and walk out.
Reading this, some will interpret me as unnecessarily particular, but this was a real world situation, that happens every day, and costs businesses real money. I actually sympathise with Chris. He needs a mirror. We all do now and again, to help us check our own behaviour.
I have to be conscious of this every day in our business at Yomdel.
We spend a great deal of time training our Live Chat operators to listen to the customer, to hear what they need, and not to assume that we know. We also work hard to manage their expectations, and be as helpful as we possibly can to ensure a fantastic digital customer experience.
But that doesn’t mean we live in the belief that the above is enough. We use our own mystery shopping too.
The insight available, had a mystery shopper been with me on the fateful day I described before, would have been priceless. If Chris could see my customer experience played back, he'd know where to improve.
First hand video, would reveal the lack of patience, the disinterested guy lounging over the counter, whilst this poor soul spent 30–45 seconds entering his bank details, really just interrupting Chris’s previous chat with his colleague.
Heavily laced sarcasm can’t really illustrate how I actually felt in the moment, and it doesn’t help me now either. It doesn’t have to be like that. Great customer experience is about shared learning.
Missing out on my £350 won’t bring the store to its knees, but will I go there again?
Unlikely. Will I recommend them? No.
With positive training and development, Chris could have done so much more. He could have asked me what I was looking for and why. He may very easily have been able to upsell me, and add additional items. When I did eventually buy elsewhere online, I bought an additional item of similar value.
I want to help Chris. I really do. I guarantee he'd enjoy his job more, with positive input, constructive feedback and guidance on what good looks like. And he'd thrive on the success he experienced as a result.
We're obsessive about great customer experience at Yomdel. Talk to me any time about it.
