When I turned 16, I got my shot to work at Randall Foods, your one stop shopping center in New Ulm, the same store at which my dad worked. The biggest concept that was drilled into us over my seven years of working at both the Randall Foods in New Ulm and in Winona was customer service. It was not, “Can I help you?” but, “How may I help you?” It seemed obvious that we could help a customer; it was much more courteous to say the latter.
In fact, there was a two-month period where everyone in the store underwent intensive re-training on all aspects of customer service. The opinion was if a customer wasn’t satisfied and never came back, that person could tell another person, who might tell another, and we would slowly lose all that business.
That’s a sound principle. Michelle and I experienced both ends of that spectrum recently while shopping for a new vehicle.
That’s right. Once the old mini-van turned over 200,000 miles, we decided it was time to look for something different. We stopped at a number of car dealerships looking for a good used vehicle for our family.
At one location, the gentleman who helped us seemed like the entire time spent with us was a waste of his time. He didn’t smile, and he actually lied to us at one point about a noise we could hear from the rear of the vehicle. (He claimed it came from the key box outside.) When I asked to test drive a second vehicle we were looking at, it was if we had removed all energy from him.
He didn’t work very hard to sell us on the good points of the vehicles. I had to pry information from him. We were very interested in one they had, but a big part of the reason we didn’t go back to look at it again was his demeanor.
Listen, we all have bad days. However, during my grocery store days, we were told to put on a happy face, no matter what. It could be the most annoying customers in the world, but we would smile and help them find what they needed.
When we eventually stopped at Car Time in Owatonna, we faced the opposite of our previous experience. The salesman was friendly, polite, not pushy, and answered any question I had that he didn’t already anticipate.
We really liked the vehicle, but we decided not to go looking any more or even go back and look at the one we liked at the previous location, in large part because of the salesman. He can be happy that his good service helped him make a sale.
Unfortunately, I see more and more of the former type of service than I do the latter. Again, in my years in the grocery business, if a customer asked where something was, we were to lead them to the item.
It seems that if I ask someone at a store where to find something, it’s as if I’m disturbing them from the most important task in the world. I had this happen at Walmart when I was looking for a specific type of clock radio. I asked where it might be. The woman looked at me as if I was the most idiotic person in the world and told me it would be with the clocks.
I replied that I assumed that, but wasn’t sure where the clock section was. At first, she pointed in a vague direction. Perhaps when she saw the annoyed look on my face, she decided that leading me there would be a better idea. Guess what? I didn’t buy a clock radio there. I did at Fleet Farm, where a helpful employee guided me right away to what I was looking for.
Why is customer service so difficult? We seem to live in a society that doesn’t find it to be a defining feature of customer-centric businesses. If you’re at Walmart, you’ll probably come back, even if you have a bad experience. Will I go to Walmart again? Of course I will; that woman isn’t the only person who works there. But they did lose a sale that day.
I do find good customer service in our local stores, as I mentioned last week. There is always a smile at Lerberg’s and Wagner’s. I’m always shown exactly what I’m looking for if businesses in our school district have it. Maybe that’s another reason that makes living here so great. The small businesses need every sale to make it, so customer service means something to them. Plus, they seem to legitimately enjoy their jobs; they’re not just collecting a paycheck. Bravo!
Word of the Week: This week’s word is panache, which means elegant style or charm, as in, “The salesman’s panache helped make the customers feel at ease.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!