The first rule I tell anyone I train, “Treat everyone like a shoplifter.” Before you back away and gasp in surprise, you need to understand how we treat a shoplifter. We pay attention to them, we notice what they’re looking at, offering suggestions so they know we’re there, we’re available. No matter where they look, they can always see us. How is that not great customer service?
I don’t just say hello to customers that come in, I watch what they look at, this way I get an idea of what they want, what they are shopping for. I generally ask if they need another size, but I also offer other alternatives, too. Whenever they hold something, I ask if I can put it aside in a fitting room or at the registers for them.
Some customers are utterly amazed when they walk into the fitting room and I ask, “I saw you looking through the pants at the front of the store, I see you didn’t find your size, did you want me to check if we have it?”
“How did you even see from here?”
I laugh, “I see everything, it’s okay.”
This is how you should treat every customer, because anyone could be a shoplifter. This is how you should treat every shoplifter, because anyone could just be a customer.
Tags: consumer, customer, fitting, fitting-room, greet, greeting, hello, help, notice, offer, questions, sales, salesperson, shoplifter, shopper, shopping, steal, stealing, stole, stolen, suggest, theif, thief, thieves, watch, welcome
Memoirs of a Retail Salesperson 
November 30, 2010 at 8:48 am |
Every one is the architect of his own fortune.
December 2, 2010 at 7:31 am |
This is what the painter, the poet, the speculative philosopher, and the natural scientists do, each in his own fashion.