I have to relay this crazy story. After Super Storm Sandy on Long Island a couple of years ago, we had to do a lot of re-construction at my house. Needless to say we were anxious to get things back to normal so we made some quick decisions to move projects along. I have this small bathroom downstairs that needed to be gutted and when the contractor asked me if I was going to put the same medicine chest back up I said yes so he left the original hole in the wall.
When the bathroom was done, I decided I really wanted to update the medicine chest, but now I had to find one that would fit exactly in the hole. Lots of shopping led me to realize, this was not as easy as I thought it would be. Finally we were in a store, which will remain nameless, and I notice one way up high on the display wall that looked like it might be the right size. I asked a salesperson if he knew the dimensions. He looked it up for me in a book and I was so excited to hear it was exactly what I needed. He told me that they don’t even carry that style anymore and offered a discount if I would take the display model. I said that sounded fabulous; could he just take it down so I could examine it and make sure there were no major defects.
And then it happened….he told me he couldn’t take it down. Naturally I asked him why not. He said, “Well, what would I do with it, if you decided not to take it?’ I thought this might be a trick question, but decided to take a chance. “Put it back up???” I said. And then he said the craziest thing. “We’re not in the business of taking things down and putting them back up.”
No lie, he really said that. I was so thankful for more material for my customer service classes, but I really couldn’t believe he said that. I laughed in his face and later made a sales call to his manager to try to sell my customer service training……
But on a serious note, when I thought about it, I truly believe that salesperson did not intend to piss me off and lose my business. I am sure there was some sort of policy that stated salespeople can’t use a ladder in the showroom, or something like that. But that’s not what he told me and that’s definitely not what I heard. What I heard was, “We are not in the business of helping you!”
Don’t let your policy stand in the way of good service. When you can’t give a customer or coworker what they want, don’t blame your policy. Don’t tell them what you can’t do, tell them what you can do. The salesperson could just as easily said, I can have someone bring that down for you after hours and have it ready for your inspection anytime you can get back here this week. Instead of that ridiculous comment, he should have gone straight to how he was going to help. If this type of thing happened often, he also could have been proactive and suggested alternatives to his manager to help the customer in the moment when they wanted to buy a display sample.
Don’t be afraid to bring these types of things to the attention of someone who can have an impact of changing the policy. But even if nothing changes, don’t ever lose the opportunity to help your customer because of your policies. Figure out something you CAN do.
Thoughts…….. Contact me at abbe@TECResourceCenter.com
