No, not you personally. I am talking about several of the shops that I visited yesterday, as I made an infrequent trip into the City of my home town. I was out shopping for a birthday present for my sister, what amazed me, I just could not believe how 95% of the stores that I visited, were throwing away sales and sales opportunities.
My sister loves a particular perfume, let me tell you that it is not cheap, at £85.00 a bottle and a small bottle at that. This is not something she would normally buy for herself because of the cost, but it was her birthday and I had decided to treat her.
I visited several shops to ask for this perfume and the responses given to me were amazing.
In one shop the assistants were in the middle of taking stock of the lower shelves, sitting on the floor, this was not the problem, I have done enough stock taking myself, when asked if they had the perfume I wanted to buy the response was: If it's not on the shelf then we haven't got it. They did not get up, ask what the perfume was for and could they find me an alternative, or some other perfumes by the same label. They did not engage with me at all, not even eye contact.
In some shops I received polite responses, telling me that they did not stock that particular perfume, but not one sales assistant actually asked me if they could show me an alternative. One very helpful assistant, in the last shop I visited, did give me directions to a store that she believed did stock the perfume, they did which was very good news for me, but, and it is a very BIG but, they too should have asked more questions and at least attempted to sell me an alternative.
I have no idea if the managers or owner's of these stores were on the shop floor, or even in the building, but I can guarantee they would be the first to complain about the state of the economy, agree with all the media babble about falling sales, when what they need to do is - deal with the poor sales and service in their own backyard first.
Many sales people have never had to really sell before, because times have been good for so long. In the emerging climate of the new economy, consumers are more careful and particular about where and on what they spend their cash, unacceptable customer service is the last straw for some, and they will make a decision to spend somewhere else.
Poor sales people and business owners, who are not stepping up their sales and marketing techniques, are leaving themselves exposed and vulnerable, and they will suffer for it.
Don't let this be you. Step up your marketing so that your customers know that YOU are the person they should be doing business with.
In the examples above, the first weak link in the chain were the shop assistants. The second weak link has got to be the structure that allows this level of customer service to be acceptable. Always go over your business looking for the weak links and fix them, you will be surprised with what you find. Do this regularly, it is not a one off exercise, but a way of life. Invest in staff training.
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