by Gwion » 06 Jul 2016, 2:29 pm
Not to bag out on you, Gamerancher, but this is such an arse about attitude to retail sales. Not having a go, but this isn't even close to the first time i've heard this kind of advice doled out in relation to shooting stores.
It is up to the retailer to win the customers business, not for the customer to 'earn customer service'.
I have spent quite a bit of time in retail and whole sale of fishing gear and outdoor adventure gear where i use the gear i sell on a regular basis. Top end angling gear, hiking gear, alpine cooking gear, tents, sleeping bags, knives.......
Part of the job is spending time with tire kickers and newbies who just want info. Sure, it's annoying when you get wannabe gear freaks in there telling you what is what, just the same as it's painful for a customer having some local hero sales staff telling them they need something that they clearly don't. You, as floor staff, spend the time and win the customer's loyalty and business by helping them make informed decisions about what is going to be useful for them by asking them questions and listening to them, or, if they obviously don't know their arse from their hat, y giving them a reasonable starting point that suits their budget. In the long run, you end up with a heap of repeat business and good word of mouth.
I had one particular customer who came in about 5 times before he bought a thing as it was on his way past on a weekly business run. He was quite open that he hadn't been fishing since he was a kid and wanted to get into it with his son. After developing rapport and tossing around likely scenarios of where an how to get into a few fish, he came in and bought 2 top of the line light spin outfits for around $1500 each. A few months later he wanted to go rock fishing, so i sold him another two kick arse light surf/rock outfits for $1500-2000 each, plus tackle. Then, he had a mate who wanted a regular crew on his 6m boat, so this customer wanted a couple of outfits that could handle anything from good snapper up to kingfish and anything up and down the east coast. You guessed it, he again dropped another $4k odd on a PAIR of outfits.
Had i taken the 'this guy is a tyre kicker and not worth my time' attitude, i would have lost the store some $10k odd worth of sales over 6 months. As it is, there is a very happy guy who loves fishing now and has his first three outfits that are capable of fishing for just about any freshwater/esturine/inshore species going around Australia, up to reasonable sized pelagics.
Retailers, no matter what kind of technical gear they flog, need to remember that they are in the business of customer service, not the business of being a local hero.
If you find a store or two with good, honest and useful customer service: stick with them.