I went to Reading today to do some pre-Christmas shopping, and had an experience with a salesperson that made me wonder when it became OK to insult customers.
I wandered into Phones4U to have a look at some new phones that have recently been released. I have no intention of changing my phone any time soon because my contract isn't up since the last time I changed it. This is not a large shop but it definitely had more salespeople than customers in it; there were lots of them. I'd been in there for less than a minute before one of their salespeople asked me if I needed any assistance. I politely said no and he left me alone.
About thirty seconds later another salesperson approached me with the same question. Again I said no. This person did not respect my wishes as the previous one had, and continued to talk to me. He was asking whether I was looking to change my phone soon. I said no, reminded him that I did not need any assistance and told him he was the second person to ask me in as many minutes.
He said he "had to talk to you or I wouldn't be doing my job very well and would lose it". I repeated that I was not interested in his sales pitch, just wanted to be left alone to browse and I added that his persistence was starting to annoy me.
He then told me I should leave if I wasn't going to buy anything.
This threw me a bit. He continued, saying something about me wasting his time. I didn't really know how to react to that, so I left the shop muttering something about never going to buy anything from Phones4U again. I just caught him saying "well, you weren't going to anyway were you" as I was walking out.
I have two real issues with this particular shopping experience. First is that he ignored my initial response to his offer of assistance. It may just be me but isn't that just a completely daft attitude for a salesperson to have. I've worked for a sales machine (PC World) as a sales advisor, and to me it was fairly obvious whether a customer actually meant it when they said they didn't need any help. At the very least you leave them alone for a while and go back if they are still browsing, especially if they haven't moved very far.
My second issue is with his assumption that because I didn't want his help I wasn't serious about buying something. Despite that fact that I wasn't intending to buy anything that day, he has certainly decreased if not evaporated the likelihood that I will every buy anything from that particular chain of shops ever again.
I hope this was an isolated incident and does not reflect the general attitude of the staff at Phones4U, but there does seem to be a gradual shifting of power from buyer to seller. Have we really been affected so much by the advertising and the continuous hard sell that we now think retailers are doing us a favour when they sell us something?
Something else I've always wondered is why we take anything a salesperson says as the truth. I've worked for PC World, and I won't say that all their salespeople don't know what they're talking about, but a fair proportion of those I worked with would fall into that category. That was over 10 years ago now, and it's possible that things are different now, but I highly doubt it. And yet I still talk to and hear stories of people who have gone to PC World to buy their new computer because "they're the experts". Why are they the experts?
Aside from the general attitude he had, this is what really annoyed me about that Phones4U salesperson. I won't say that I know more about mobile phones than he does, because I haven't been through the intensive sales training that he probably has, but I know what I want and I certainly don't want someone jabbering about a load of things I don't care about. In particular I don't care which phone is currently offering the largest commission for the successful salesperson. And I don't think I'm alone.