"Back to the Future"

Even before the negative publicity, a new trend we have seen developing over the last year is companies who are trying to get customers in their doors by advertising and promoting the fact that customers should come in because their salespeople aren't pushy because they don't make commission. Saturn, a division of General Motors, even promotes the fact that they have non-commissioned salespeople. There is no negotiation on the sticker price, just come in and a non-pushy salesperson will be glad to assist you. Granted they may not be working directly on commission but I find it hard to believe that their pay is not in some way linked to their production. If I sell twice as many cars as you do, and continue to make the same amount of money as you do, how long am I going to want to continue? OK, so they don't pay commission but isn't it possible that the person selling ten cars a month makes more than the person does selling five cars? Or maybe, they earn bonuses based on the number or cars they sell.

There is something seriously wrong if you have to communicate to the customer that your salespeople are not going to be pushy because you don't them pay commission. Period. The truth is that a store's atmosphere and customer service behaviors are the direct result of management's mandate on how they want their customers' served.

As consumers, we had much more trust in each other 50 years ago. As retailers we were just more service oriented. There was a lot more emphasis placed on doing what was right for the customer and in their best interest. A segment on the news show 20/20 brought a situation to the public's eye, which is a classic example of what I'm talking about. Eight repairmen were called in to look at a refrigerator, which was not working. Each was left alone to find the problem. What none of these repairmen knew was that the only thing wrong with this brand new refrigerator was an uncon­nected wire. Out of eight repairmen only one had enough integrity to point out the simplicity of the actual problem and not charge for the service call. Is it really any wonder that trust is seriously lacking in today's society? It's because of situations like this that John Smith finds it hard to believe Joe Salesman who is being sincere when he tells John he would be much better off in the long run with the more expensive item. John Smith has no reason to believe that Joe Salesman is looking out for any one's interest other than his own.


The Beginning Of The End For The In-Between Store

Another thing that I see happening is that there is a polarization occurring in retail. What this is doing is eliminating the in-between stores. Consumers will either be willing to spend the extra money to get the service from a high-end retailer or they will be satisfied with rock bottom prices and little service. It's going from one extreme to the other. As different things hold different value to different people, you'll have to determine where you want to position yourself in the market. Are you going to be the high-end store that can justify your higher prices by the expertise and service you can offer? Or would your customers be better served if you positioned yourself at the other end of the spectrum (assuming of course that you can afford to do so)?

It seems like people's expectations increase as the amount of money they are going to spend or cost of the item increases. For example, if you were to walk into Tiffany's you would expect salespeople to fall all over you. On the other hand, if you were to walk into Zales looking for the same item you would probably expect a lower level of ser­vice. Well, the truth is that the quality of service you should expect to receive at Zales should be no different than Tiffany's. The problem is that because customer's expec­tations are lower, too many stores just strive to live up to their expectations rather than exceed them. The general consensus is that consumers are just grateful if they can just get someone to wait on them. In high-end stores, they expect service and if they don't get it they are just as likely to go to a discount store. It may be nothing that anyone at the high-end store did—their indifference may be the end result of a culmination of the indifference and negative shop­ping experiences they've received along the way. They just don't have a reason to remain loyal to the specialty or high-end retailer.

Of course, you're probably saying to yourself that what I'm saying is nothing new. You may be aware that you need to provide high levels of customer service in order to re­ally stand out above the crowd. You know you need to do something that gets noticed. But how many of you really take the time and put forth the effort to make certain it gets done? Do you care enough to make sure that every customer receives a thank you card—not just when they buy something expensive?

A funny thing starts to happen when you start to be a sincerely nice person—people start to notice and appreciate it. Maybe grandma and grandpa who ran the corner store 50 years ago weren't so stupid after all. They may not have known anything about advertising, and they didn't have any fancy computer systems, but they sure knew how to treat their customers—they truly cared about their customers. They knew how to build relationships with their customers and keep them coming back. Maybe the answer to the future, can be found by going back to the past.