If You Break It…It’s Broken
November 5, 2009
Companies have a right and an obligation to protect their investments against accidental damage. But sometimes doing so can strain customer relationships.
Companies have a right and an obligation to protect their investments against accidental damage. But sometimes doing so can strain customer relationships. A great example of this is the “cute” sign you sometimes see displayed in gift shops:
Pretty to look at,
Lovely to hold.
You break it, you bought it,
The item is sold!
In other words, you are welcome to enter the shop, examine the merchandise, and decide if you would like to spend your money there. But if an accident should happen and an item is broken, you’re on the hook to pay for it.
In fact, I don’t really have a problem with this. Certainly, if I accidentally damaged something, I would offer to pay for it or have it replaced. That’s just common courtesy,
But consider the sign I saw recently at another store:
If you break it, it’s broken, but the world won’t end.
So enjoy shopping at Jackalope and feel free to handle the merchandise!
Most marketing research shows that people are generally more likely to buy what they can sample first, whether it is tasting a flavor of ice cream or handling a piece of pottery.
The first sign makes you reluctant to handle anything; the second one actually invites you to. Which store do you think sells more merchandise?
Everything in business, and in life, involves a sense of balance. Look at your company’s policies and see if they enhance or impede the customer’s likelihood of doing business with you.
If You Were Serious
November 3, 2009
A woman takes her business to another car dealership after the sales person doesn’t take her seriously in her intentions to buy a car.
You would think that commissioned sales people would be incredible attuned to the needs of their customers. After all, they only get paid when they sell something. But there are times when it seems as if they just don’t want to make any money at all.
Several years ago, a woman we know went into a local car dealership to buy a car. She had done her research and knew the specific model and features she wanted. She knew what the dealer had paid for the vehicle and what she was prepared to pay. Armed with this information, she entered the dealership and was greeted by a cheerful salesman.
After spending about 20 minutes with his customer, showing her the different cars that met her criteria, he began to act impatient and seemed to lose interest in spending any more time with her.
When she commented on this, the salesman suggested that she might want to come back when she was serious about actually buying a car. Taken aback, she asked him why he would believe she wasn’t prepared to make the purchase then. His answer left her speechless for a moment: “If you were serious about buying a car, you would have your husband with you.”
After taking about 30 seconds to calm herself down before speaking, she reached into her pocketbook, took out her checkbook, and showed him the current balance. She told the salesman, “Look at that amount. That’s probably more than you are going to make in the next six months, and that’s just the balance in my checking account! I was fully prepared to buy a car from you today, but now I’ll just go down the road and buy it from your competitor.” Which she did, but not without first speaking to the general manager of the dealership to let him know that this salesman had cost him the sale.
As it turns out, this woman and her husband were wealthy. No, I mean really wealthy. She was going to write a check for the full amount of the car that afternoon and it wouldn’t have made a dent in their financial standing.
It is curious that the salesman didn’t know that more than half of all new car buyers are women. Or that you can’t judge a person’s intention to buy from just his or her general appearance. It was difficult to believe that he held a sales position when he was capable of making such a blatantly stupid comment to a prospective customer.
Unless you have more business than you can handle, make sure your customer contact employees have some basic customer communication skills – or at least some common sense! And make sure that your sales team understands the trends in your industry and who is likely to be the key decision-maker in any given situation. Evidently, that is sometimes not as obvious as it might seem.
