Shop Talk #1: Only One Customer at a Time

There are two different kinds of shopping venues most of us visit on a daily basis. 

The first is the bricks-and-mortar store, where real people stock physical items that you can pick up, put in your cart, and check out with a real person. 

The second is the virtual experience, otherwise known as shopping online.

I'm sure you know all there is to know about shopping online: you browse, compare prices, read reviews, and make a selection. You can at the same time wear pajamas, spill coffee, and watch TV. In other words, the kind of experience you have is totally up to your mood and ambition. No one's pushing things over a dressing room door, no one's glaring at your tattoo.

Big box stores blur the line between real and virtual -- but most people buy gas, a sandwich, coffee, etc. most days from a real, live, standing-in-front-of-you person, and it's this experience I want to talk about. 

I want to talk about it because, let's face it, if the customer wants cheap, she'll go big box or online. 

But the customer may also decide to go big box or online because the service is indifferent at her local stores. 

Take bookstores for an example. I can get any book I want at Amazon and I can get it cheaper than at my local stores -- and that includes Borders. So why go to my local stores? Because I'm interested to see what bookish people have selected as interesting reads, because I'd like a recommendation, because I want to hang out with readers, because I want to browse real books that I can open and leaf through. 

(The idea that one should shop locally -- an idea strident amongst independent booksellers -- may appear virtuous in their argument, but is nothing if not self-interested. Besides, how many people do anything because they “should”? I mean, if no one’s watching. People do things because they want to, and if their wants also happen to fall under “duty” or “localism” or “patriotism,” so much the better.)

So, all you storekeepers out there -- and this includes hair salons, cafes and doctor’s offices, any place where something is for sale -- accentuate the one thing that makes you different from the big box or the Web. Make your customer service personal and undivided. 

And here’s that Rule #1:

Do not ever talk on the phone while a flesh and blood customer is standing in front of you. Even if you’re just checking someone out after having given them outstanding service choosing a product, do not talk on the phone. It’s a horrible insult to both the real life customer’s ego and her pocketbook. 

If the phone rings, answer it and ask them to hold as you’re with a customer. This will make the real life customer feel special, and it will alert the phone customer that this store gives its undivided attention. Everyone wins.