On Sun, 18 Dec 2005 18:25:29 GMT, "Edwin Pawlowski" <
[email protected]>
replied:
> "The Ranger" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> > > There is no excuse for a person to be degraded by another.
> > >
> > Sure there's an excuse! You, as a sale clerk, are there for the
> > money; there are no other altruistic or spiritual reasons. If you
> > can't handle the lone difficult customer that steps your way, then
> > you need to find a research programming job that does not deal
> > with John Q Public.
> >
> So it is OK if I degrade you, call you names, curse at you, as long
> as you are getting paid? Are you a prostitute?
As one salesman once quipped, "People know exactly what I am. It's
only a matter of how much they're willing to pay me in commission
that I care about." So, yes, Ed, commissioned salespeople are
legalized prostitutes. Non-commissioned salespeople are stupid.
> Handling the lone difficult customer can mean telling him to leave.
No it does not... Ever. If you can't handle that lone "difficult
customer," you are in the wrong line of business. If you find
yourself experiencing an ever-increasing number of difficult
customers, look inward to the problem; you're experiencing job
burnout.
Any salesclerk that tells a customer to leave has overstepped
their job description. They are NOT empowered to do that and to
counsels otherwise is doing them a disservice.
> Some custoemrs are not woth the profit you maymake on
> the sale. Sre, there are many egrees of difficult customers,
> but when you get to the extreme, money is not the deciding
>factor. There is a limit.
Money _is always_ the deciding factor in sales. If there is a
diminishing return on the sale of an item, then it must be made by
someone higher than a line-report.
A great example of just how far managers are willing to go is car
salespeople. The ONLY two things a salesman (or saleswoman) is
graded on is how many cars s/he sold at the end of the month and
how much profit s/he brought into the company. The top salespeople
take customer guff and turn it back into a final sale. The sales
managers don't care if their reports are abused; it's a part of
the business. If they can't handle it, they're dropped or they
leave voluntarily.
> > As much as necessary to close that sale. At the end of a difficult
> > sale, the clerk can move to the back of the store to check
> > inventory and compose herself for the next customer.
> >
> ********! I'm not a very PC type of person, but there are limits
> to what one should endure. Bad behavior condoned just breeds
> more of the same.
Maybe in your little portion of the universe but then we disagree
on almost everything.
> > > Take away your badge and ticket book, How much would you
> > > have put up with if you had no recourse for revenge?
> > >
> > You're comparing apples and oranges, Ed. A constable/LEO is in
> > charge of public safety, not simple sales of merchandise.
> >
> The LEO is human. Some will take revenge in the form of writing
> tickets, making an arrest, or anything they have the power to do.
> My point is that he has the power, the retail sales clerk often does
> not. They should and must be able to take some control.
The retail clerk has enough power to exact revenge in other ways.
We've all seen clerks get abused. The greater the abuse the
quicker the response from the community at large. And abuse is
always controllable. Always.
> If you are willing to take a string of profanities, be screamed
> at, harassed, and whatever else just to make a sale, you are
> probably getting what you deserve. Thank you and please
> come again. We value your patronage.
And that's all a business owner gives a flying hoot about at the
end of every business day. Did she make enough sales to open up
again tomorrow? If not, let's find the reasons and fix them. Most
of the time that means firing a sales clerk (or two) and replacing
them with the next group of expendable human resources.
The Ranger
I think I am getting the picture