Customer Care

Home Forums General Trade Forum Customer Care

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #19026
    gegsy
    Participant

    As a spin off from another topic, what is the general census from your customers regarding the level of care given from sale to breakdown.
    I have taken a comment from the other topic to get it started.

    Greg

    #181398
    gegsy
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    squadman wrote:They certainly need to change their idea of customer service especially in store. I would never buy anything from Comet, at my local comet store the are rude, dismissve of customers and have a don;t care less attitude if they serve you or not. This poor state of affairs linked with non existent product knowledge only compounds their lack of understanding as far as customers are concerned. I find most of the big sheds not much better and every day I have customers complaining to us about such matters so its not only my experiences that I balance in my view of them.

    It’s fortunate for the staff that these companies can buy in bulk and stack the stock high and sell it cheap. Customers frequent these places on prices not the poor service that is dished out as a matter of course.

    #181399
    kwatt
    Keymaster

    Customer care, more like councilling for the not so bright amongst us most days. 😉

    K.

    #181400
    Martin
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    Do customers really care about the attention they get when entering a larger superstore like Comet? I don’t think so, they go for cheap pricing from a vast stock range. Most if not all products on display have a full description of what the product is capable of doing along with the price, sizes, weight etc etc.

    Customers then make their choice, note the stock number then ask someone at the sales desk if the product is in stock? No customer care required up to this point.

    The product is out of stock as it happens, they don’t care to say when they might have some more in, who cares anyway?

    #181401
    squadman
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    IMHO I think that the majority of customers do care about the attention they get when in a store considering parting with their hard earned cash. If a customer gets the right sort of attention, product knowledge, and decent friendly informed opinion they will be much more prepared to spend their money with you.

    These days many stores seem to fall into two different camps, the first where you can wander around the store without anyone approaching you, the second where the eager sales staff pounce on you as you walk through the door. A salesperson has to be able to read a customer correctly and have a complete comand of the products which they sell in order to maximise the sales they make. To often wrong and misleading information is given to customers and not all customers are idiots !

    Yes people do buy on price, others buy on service and price,as far as information on display on products in these stores that is mainly superfical information and a customer eventually requires the assistance of a trained salesperson.

    There are many high street names these days that I avoid due to the young wippersnapper cocky pressurerised no knowledge bull**** people they seem to employ. As a customer I have the right to spend my hard earned cash wherever I like and I have often paid more for something due to the service that I have received. That is worth more to me than something piled high and sold a bit cheaper.

    The people who train sales staff these days seem to have a model on which they work, using methods derived from who knows where, the trouble is we are all different and what suits one will not suit another, these people seem to battle away with their brainwashed plans without regard for what the customer may really want.

    just my two cents worth.

    #181402
    iadom
    Moderator

    Re: Customer Care

    What puzzles me is that our friend from Comet, macmini is listed as the Author of this thread.?????

    #181403
    gegsy
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    My fault I think when I was shuffling from one post to another.
    Hands up to that one, sorry for any confusion.
    Still he has been quiet on the subject 😕

    Greg

    #181404
    superfix
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    Had a good example of poor sales advice today.

    Think it was from Comet. Customer had gone in looking for a frost free f/f. She was approached by the spotty young know it all who asked if she needed any help.

    She explained she wanted the f/f and it was to go in the garage. Oh no madam you can’t have a f/f in the garage, as in the winter the freezer won’t work 😕 .

    So know it all procedes to sell her a conventional defrost it yourself KGV which of course is affected by ambient temperature :haier: . Also the dozy get has done himself out of some commission as the KGV is considerably cheaper than the KGU f/f 😆

    #181405
    macmini
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    Comet employees no longer get commission 🙁

    #181406
    gegsy
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    Do they actually pay the sales staff a decent rate now. I remember applying many moons ago to work on the shop floor. Was told that the wages are minimum in order to make you keen to sell the breakdown policies as this is where the profit end lies of the sale. Most of the sheds were guilty of this practice not just Comet.

    Greg

    #181407
    kwatt
    Keymaster

    Re: Customer Care

    It staggers me the lack of product knowledge in the multiples and please don’t take offence if you work for one, but I’ve used them a few times and I can’t say that any occasion was a particularly pleasant experience.

    The product knowledge was nothing short of abysmal and I’m not just tealking about whitegoods either. On consumer electronics and computing it’s just as bad. TiVo is a perfect example of zero product knowledge on a revolutionary product, poorly explained and poorly marketed by the multiples.

    Ask anything beyond what’s on the spec sheet or how much a warranty costs and often you’re faced with a blank look.

    K.

    #181408
    squadman
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    Its True, its not my imagination then ?

    #181409
    macmini
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    There are a few that’s different, honest! I like to think i’m one.

    Anyway, before we were on below minimum wage, but commission made it up, it weren’t too bad, about £4 for every £1000 that you sold, 50p for a delivery, £1 for a 3yr guarantee and £5 for a 5yr guarantee.

    Now, we get an extra 90p an hour, and ‘Performance Related Pay’, which consists of how much money you take, and how much you take in warranties and essentials, devided by the number of hours you do, it gives upto an extra fiver an hour.

    It’s awful.

    #181410
    andy_art_trigg
    Participant

    Re: Customer Care

    Mr Julian Richer has shown you can have cheap prices and staff with excellent customer service & product knowledge, although he’s had to avoid the High street to be fair.

    #181411
    don
    Moderator

    Re: Customer Care

    kwatt wrote:It staggers me the lack of product knowledge in the multiples and please don’t take offence if you work for one, but I’ve used them a few times and I can’t say that any occasion was a particularly pleasant experience.
    K.

    Probably because the stock ranges the big sheds carry is just too much for the staff to keep on top of compared to the independants much smaller range. Add to that the visits from reps who offer training, leaflets and support you then have motivated sales people who want to do a good job.

    The staff in the sheds very rarely see a rep as in the main, accounts are managed between the manufactuers national account manager and the retailers head office. It then comes down to the motivation of the individual to find out about new products which have arrived in store by reading the instructions. Only trouble here is that the staff are under so much pressure to achieve the various targets they are set that product
    knowledge goes by the wayside to a certain degree.

    Don

    Ex Comet 😉

Viewing 15 posts - 1 through 15 (of 17 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.