Concepts of Customer Service
What have the Future Shops and Wal Marts of the world done to customer service? It seems like these days everyone is out to save a buck, and rightfully so. However, people appear to have a distorted vision of cost and value. Let me use a concrete example. At Henry's, if I sell a camera to a customer, and a few other products, I will often times be informed that so-and-so store is selling the product for a few dollars less. Today, I sold a camera which was actually cheaper than what Costco was selling it for (the customer had researched prices). However, the memory card was about $10 cheaper there. Now, the customer wanted me to price match this for him. This does not really pose a problem in theory.
But.... you have to ask yourself a few questions about people's perceptions of customer service. You can basically bend down on all fours and take it up the ass by a customer, do everything right, help them with their questions, and at the end of the day they'll still gladly walk out the store and buy the product elsewhere if it's $15 cheaper and you refuse to match the price. The problem with buying something at Costco is that they offer zero customer service. It's a warehouse and little more. Clearly they have not only a cost advantage in terms of employee costs, but also in terms of economies of scale. Now, I find it ridiculous that a customer who I have spent over 30mins helping would still only buy a camera and not the memory card they need with it, for example, and instead go buy that at Best Buy. This is a completely ridiculous scenario. It's not only about money. Instead, you are paying for the service and advice you are receiving.
Picture a world where every store was a Costco or something similar. This is fine if you're shopping for apples, which requires little knowledge, but if you're shopping for a complicated product with a number of variables and options, this scenario quickly falls on its place. This, however, is exactly where we're headed. I still enjoy walking into a store and receiving personalized service. It's nice when you can trust the person who is selling something to you. I will gladly pay extra money if I value the service I get. The general mentality is, though, that service should be a free thing. Maybe the way to solve this is to sell the products cheaper, but charge a small service fee on top. Some stores would not charge a service fee because they don't offer service. This, actually, is how a tipping system was supposed to work in the first place, but that just kind of fell on its face.
While I'm on the topic of pricing, when the fuck did it become common place to barter for something? Whatever happened to the days when a product had a price, if you valued the item, then you would save up and be prepared to pay that. I don't understand this whole situation where buying a product is like auctioning stolen cars. If I had to pick, I'd point my finger at greed. On the part of business, first of all, but second of all, greed on the part of customers because they have no concept of value.
But the Future Shops of the world will continue to grow like empires because they offer good prices on crap you don't really need. Isn't it great when the same guy will sell you a washing machine and an Xbox?
6 Comments:
Very good point. Our society obviously emphasizes quantity and not quality, exchange-value and not use-value in more Marxist terms. The emergence of Wal-Marts and Future Shops really have built up a disposable consumer culture, where goods are cheap and readily available. And since they are sold for ridiculously cheap prices it would be completely irrational for any greedy self-serving prick to go out and pay 5$ more for a better product.I was always completely dumbfounded both at my old job and my current one how people were always so quick to refuse to buy something because it cost something like 47 cents less than the regular price. I work at the SAQ and I can tell its so awesome to be able to tell people to virtually go fuck themselves since we are a state monopoly! Seniors also seem to be predisposed to this practice, they think every goddamn store on the face of this earth is like Ye Old Cornerstore where the friendly neighbourhood vendor will gladly barter with you because he personally knows you. Chrisss on fait du troque icite!!!
wait... isn't that what you did when you bought your headphones ? :D
I think ultimately, the issues lies at the level of production and distribution. The same guy will sell you an Xbox and a washing machine because basically, they are made on the same assembly line in the same factory over in China. What seemed like high tech products yesterday are really mass products nowadays. If it takes under 10 seconds to assemble a laptop, it's more profitable to sell a million to uninformed customers than to sell a thousand with good support. That model sucks, but it's what we opted for a long time ago.
You're right. The photography market is interesting, though, because lots of the lenses are produced in very limited quantities because the glass is hand-polished and all this kind of stuff. It's not really mass production in a lot of cases (but then it's usually really expensive, too).
Toul, do you get people at SAQ trying to negotiate prices with you? If so, that's fucking ridiculous. The second people have a human face associated with a product, it's like a sign of weakness for them -- or rather that they're getting fucked over. If the SAQ was just a counter where you'd place an order and the guy would bring it out to you (as alcohol distribution used to be in the post-prohibition era), I guarantee this bartering would be eliminated.
I think one of the major problems when it comes to selling products is that we don't want to lose sales either, but we should feel free to tell a customer to go fuck himself if they're making outlandish requests.
Strict Bureaucratic procedures sort of keep us from bartering with customers...but this weekend we had a sale where if you bought over 100$ you get a scratch card that will give you 10/15 or 20 percent off, and so many pathetic customers were asking me to give them another scratch card, or hey I bought over 200$ I derserve 3 tickets...so there are some ways around the system :)
That's hilarious. Sales are OK, but it's great to see how people think that they deserve preferential treatment if they're buying a lot.
For example, a guy bought a professional camera from me. This camera is a constrained item at the moment and very difficult to get your hands on. A few weeks after, we had a promotion on some amateur cameras of the same type, but this did not apply to pro cameras. The guy was arguing with me that I should be giving him the deal. He didn't understand the concept of the sale. Companies don't sell things when they can't provide the stock. Also, you never get sales on top-of-the-line products simply because those who want or need them are going to get them no matter what. If you're talking about a more amateur-style camera, you can possibly attract people to upgrade by offering certain promotions. That's business.
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