Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Great at selling to a customer but lousy at listening to what they want to buy

I went to a petrol station to buy a cup of coffee. The dispenser with my favourite coffee ran out when I was filling my cup, so I topped it up with some plain black coffee. As I was standing in line to pay, the person in front of my had a cup of coffee and when paying was asked by the sales clerk would he like to get a muffin for just 1 euro extra. I thought, great upselling.

I was next and I informed the sales clerk that the coffee dispenser was empty and I assumed he would apologise and tell me he would resolve the issue and get me my favourite coffee or just apologise. But no, he looked around for someone other staff member, but with no one else to be found he just ignored what I had told him, took my money and then moved to the next customer.

It appeared to me that all he wanted was to sell and not to serve me the customer. I wanted to buy and all he got was what he wanted to sell. He did not lose any money, but my opinion of him as helping customers is that he only wants to help himself and not go out of the way to help me the customer.

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