Each year I attend many international jewellery fairs, which means I often find myself in airports with lots of time to kill. Consequently, I have found myself playing a game with the sales staff at the duty-free stores.
When travelling I like to visit stores I would not normally get to at home, observe visual merchandising ideas and see how different retailers stock shelves. I also like to analyse in-store promotions and I especially note how staff greet and engage customers.
Anyway, a few years ago a saleswoman in an airport perfume store approached me asking the inevitable question, “Can I help you?” Of course, I politely replied, “No thanks, I’m just looking.”
Now, in regular retail environments, the conversation would have ended there and the salesperson would’ve walked away but not at this store; she just stood and watched me after I’d declined help, and whenever I moved away, she followed closely behind.
I found this a little disconcerting and thought it rather weird; even though I had told her I didn’t need help, she continued to ‘assist’, staying less than five feet behind me. I didn’t think too much of it and left without buying, assuming that it was a personality trait of this particular salesperson.
When I was next back in the airport the same thing happened, only this time with another staff member. To ensure it wasn’t me, I quickly moved around the store and she followed me.
I left the store and came back later. This time another staff member came over and the same thing happened so I simply moved quickly in the aisles, tracing my steps so the saleswoman was going around in circles with me. It became a game, like a scene from a Monty Python sketch. Each salesperson would follow me closely while I walked around in circles, backtracking, walking really fast and then slowly, stopping, turning around, two steps this way and then one step that way and so on.
Velcro sales staff
Finally, wondering whether they might have thought I was a thief, I stopped and asked this particular staff member not to follow me. She didn’t say a word and kept following me, so I left the area without purchasing.
Every time I’m in an airport, I do a new test to see if the same thing happens and I’ve found they do it to everyone. I mentioned this to a mate of mine who also travels a lot and he laughed and said, “Yeah, we call them the velcros; they stick to you and drive you nuts!”
It turns out that the sales staff are trained to follow customers; they believe even though you don’t want their help, they should be within five feet, just in case.
My friend described how he once walked to the corner of a store at Hong Kong airport, turned to the salesperson who had followed him there and said, “Stand there. Do not follow me. Leave me alone!”
I cannot believe that any type of retail training would encourage this type of ‘customer service’. It’s simply weird. I also don’t understand sales staff who continue to greet customers with, “Can I help you?”
It is widely believed that people form first impressions within seconds. What a retailer says and does from the moment a customer walks into their store can be the deciding factor between whether or not they make a sale; however, customers can often seem defensive from the outset, making it difficult for sales representatives to engage them and offer assistance.
And when it comes to retail sales one of the worst ways to start a conversation is with, “May I help you?” It’s dreaded by sales training experts the world over yet almost all retail staff open a sales opportunity with it all day, every day.
If “May I help you?” or “Can I help you?” are the best ways to slam the door on a sale then how should your staff begin a conversation?
Greeting customers
In the digital age I think it has become more important than ever to train your staff on how to welcome, acknowledge and address customers. It’s always been a bit of an art form to read people to determine what they like and then respond in the appropriate way.
We have written before about the importance of identifying different types of buyers and learning how to deal with various personality types on a daily basis.
There are many different customer personalities and staff must help to get them all through the store’s ‘hell zone’ first before they can begin to assess how to handle them for maximum success.
The hell zone is the first two-three metres inside a store where new customers form their first impressions of a business. Staff who blow this initial ‘greeting’ can lose sales before any transaction has even started.
There are many ‘dos and don’ts’ about greeting customers and Bob Phibbs, one of our regular columnists, recommends using a prop when dealing with customers as they step through the hell zone.
During those first 10 seconds, staff could even grab a prop – something noticeable like a display box or a sample – which will create the appearance that the employee is interrupting their current action to assist the shopper rather than swooping down on them like a hawk on a mouse.
He has many other tips too; however, I am sure sticking to your customer like a velcro strap is not one of them.