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Customer disservice and de-selling

JANET KNOTT/GLOBE STAFF Customer service at Nordstrom: You don't feel like you're being sold but are paying for the atmosphere and help.

"All the world is a store, and all the people in it are salespeople." Arthur Brisbane

When you hear basketball commentators talk about "the worst shot in basketball," they probably aren't talking about the one I think of when I hear that phrase -- the air ball I threw in a big game against our high school's cross-town rival. No, the commentators' "worst shot" is any shot taken just inside the three-point line.

There exists something similar in business, conditions that rate as The Worst Service the business can give. These are the ones where customers are given what they ask for, but in such a way that the customer feels alienated and won't return. For the business, it's the worst of both worlds, costing the company now and later.

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Consider the time I bought a pair of pants from a men's store and upon getting them home, discovered a burn mark on the inside of one cuff. I returned the pants, and the manager sighed and said, "I know that you did this." Before I could respond, she added, "but I guess I have to give you your money back."

I might have put some burn holes in her, straight from my flaming eyeballs. So they canceled a sale -- I'd gone to exchange the pants, not return them -- and canceled many future sales, as I'd been a regular. So I could modify the Jimmy Buffett song about the phone and say to the store, "If the cash register doesn't ring, it's me." That's customer disservice, and it is one of the forms of stupidity that results in de-selling.

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What got me thinking about dumb service and stupid selling was reading a charmer of a book called "The Little Blue Book of Selling" by John Brentlinger. (This is not the "Little Red Book of Selling" by Jeffrey Gitomer. This one, the blue one, is harder to find -- look for it via Google or at www.basbleu.com.)

Brentlinger wrote this about trying to "close" the sale: "A trial close pushes the prospect further from the sale. A trial close means you have not done your job of sincerely finding out what the customer needs and wants, why they want it, how bad they need it, what will happen if they don't get it, what they have done so far to find it, and what you can do to help them get it."

So closing is de-selling.

This may help explain why the world's most successful retailer, Wal-Mart, is a place where no one is going to close you. Indeed, there are days when trying to find a clerk in Wal-Mart reminds me of those reports of searching for Osama bin Laden. (Picture a local evening newscast: "A Wal-Mart clerk issued a videotaped statement today, taunting customers. CIA analysts say that the tape seems authentic, and that analysis suggests that the clerk was in auto accessories at the time. However, when a customer SWAT team surrounded the area, the clerk had vanished, leaving behind only an empty can of Sam's Cola and a worn smiley-face sign.")

And then there's Costco. I am a willing participant in the Cult of Costco, but let's face it: Sales and customer service are all but absent.

My friend Bill Coughlin says that because they don't have dressing rooms, he buys pants, and then goes in the men's room and tries them on. If they don't fit, he returns them before leaving the store. That's the sort of thing that makes me want to refuse to shop there, but I can't help myself. Why?

Why do so many of us love Costco? In part, it's because we don't encounter any selling. We don't need to be convinced that something is a good deal; the store has us preconvinced that if it's there, it's a good purchase.

So then, why are there still salespeople? Take a trip to, say, Nordstrom, and you get the right answer. Why? Because at Nordstrom you don't feel like you're being sold. You know you're paying for the atmosphere and the help, but that's OK; you don't feel slimed by the process -- just the opposite. You aren't being sold; you're being helped.

Maybe we can conclude this about the role of the salesperson: If you're not educating or otherwise assisting customers, you're distracting them from buying. All selling is de-selling. There is only helping.

Dale Dauten is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached at dale@dauten.com.

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