One thing a mature salesman learns is to have patience in dealing with customers.
You are there to make a sale/money.
Keep focused and "idiot" customers will not be a problem.

It also applies to the clerks.

About 2006, I found a nice S&W M48 at Clark Brothers. The clerk gave me the paper work to fill out and places the revolver in a paper bag to put in holding until the sale is approved.

The revolver fell out of the bag and hit the concrete floor. End of sale.

quote:

Originally posted by k5blazer:
Tons of training out there on customer service but I have yet to come across any training on how to be a good customer.

And we're done

It's a two way street.

That's a world of difference from the music store I worked at. The owner had enough of this one drunken asshole who'd come in and just play guitars and never buy anything but strings and went ridiculously high pressure on him one day. "You like that guitar? Will that be cash or card? Will you buy buying the amp today as well? Here, I'll start getting you rung up. Ed? Go grab the case for this guitar." This guy looked around totally bewildered and asked what the problem was. My boss said "you come in here, play terrible music loudly, often, and you never buy anything. We're not a music studio, we aren't a practice space, we aren't a live venue. If you wanna play guitars, I suggest you buy one. Now if you aren't going to buy, you can get out of my store and not come back." From there, it got heated and I was directed to call the police while the shouting migrated from the show floor to the front door. Last I heard, the police zipped him on the causeway heading into the mainland, drunk.

There was another customer I fired for doing basically the same thing, but pouring sweat all over the guitars. I told him it was unpleasant cleaning sweat off of the guitars. "Well, it's no big deal, you can just give them a quick wipe down." I explained to him that I was running a guitar store, not a gym, and that at the gym, the polite thing to do was wipe down the equipment when you're done using it. He got up in a huff and didn't come back. He never bought a single thing, ever, so it was a net gain.

Serious buyers don't do this. Finger-fuckers do.

quote:

Originally posted by smschulz:
One thing a mature salesman learns is to have patience in dealing with customers.
You are there to make a sale/money.
Keep focused and "idiot" customers will not be a problem.

Another thing a mature salesman does is qualify the customer. After a bit, within a fairly high degree of certainty, it's pretty easy to tell who's there to buy vs who's there to finger-fuck all the merchandise. Here, let's try it: Fredward, did you have the feeling the guy was gonna buy the gun? Did he end up buying it? I'm guessing no.

quote:

Originally posted by Schmelby:
I'm not a people person. I couldn't work retail, Patience is not my middle name.
I probably would have bitch slapped him. LOL

Me too!

I sold cars for 21 years. People would come in asking for cars that did not exist. You are the professional and it is your job to educate your customer and sell them what they need, not what they think they want.

I have a good friend who owns the LGS. He gets so frustrated and angry with customers. I keep telling him they have come to him because he is the expert. He needs to be polite, explain to then why they are wrong and make a sale and a repeat customer.

Another example. A customer was looking at a Beretta Tomcat. He popped the barrel latch, and promptly forced the barrel forward, more than 180 degrees, and we heard a sharp crack. He then attempted to slap the barrel back into position with the palm of his hand. It's back at Beretta for repair right now. I waited a week before posting this as I was quite angry. There's no excuse for this type of ignorance. All he had to do was ask and we would have shown him.

Yeah, I'm SURE I'm in the wrong line of work. I should thank assholes for breaking guns due to ignorance.

quote:

Originally posted by k5blazer:
Tons of training out there on customer service but I have yet to come across any training on how to be a good customer.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I disagree. It starts in the home. When we were shopping with my Dad we knew NOT to touch anything and be polite. Being a good customer starts with having responsible parents.

I hopped the counter counter at the NAPA Warehouse in Omaha 5 years helping customers needing auto parts. I loved that retail job! Loved it!!

Example: customer says, my car won’t start and it makes a clicking noise. Me: you mean like, click , click? How does it sound?

I could make the customer so much at ease, enough to make car sounds themselves.

I’d get them to play starter, solenoid, and bad battery sounds. They became so much at ease, i sometimes had to look away for fear of laughing.

I especially liked to help professionals make mimic sounds.

Ps… you’re right, it starts at home.

Mrs. Tinyman worked at Toys R Us for just shy of 10 years -- she's got lots of 'dumb ass customer' stories that would fill another 20 pages.

It's not just customers in stores either.

You wouldn't believe some of the things people using the Situation Rooms I designed and programmed would say to me.

My wife was in retail management for many years . Now she's retired and is a substitute teacher part time . You want stories ?