100% of his state taxes stay in my state. 100% of his local taxes stay in my community. As a local merchant he understands the importance of community, so he spends as much as he can within the community. Want me to go on?
REI does a decent job and as I posted above, I shop there occasionally. They make an effort when it comes to events. But they do not compete with any local shop I've been to in the last decade when it comes to service or selection.
self righteous was an apt description I really have nothing more to add. This person can make all the claims they want; it’s pretty clear that price was a big determinant. Well, down the road, you get what you pay for.
here’s what gets me someone driving up in a Mercedes could spend $600 at a fancy restaurant paying for four people and tip 20%.
I’ll help that person for two hours in the showroom and at the water THEN they ask for a discount, “what’s the best deal I can get on these two kayaks?”
I’m thinking to myself, why don’t you do that at the restaurant or the Mercedes shop next time.
Customers are NOT “always right" I’ve spent most of my 45 years in the working world in businesses where my responsibilities were to directly “service” the needs of customers. The whole time I have firmly resisted the mistaken perception of “customer service” that is evinced by that old saw “the customer is always right.” This is no more true than it would be to say “my children are always right.”
Good customer service should be like good parenting – you, the salesperson and expert on the goods being considered, should be (like a good parent) the one who assesses what is in the best interests of the customer/child and then steers them towards making that choice. If the customer knew exactly what would best serve their purposes, they would not need your help but could just walk in, pick up the right item and pay for it and walk out. Pandering to misinformed or totally clueless customers does them no good and is poor “customer service”. Being a truly good salesperson requires a great deal of understanding of human nature, much patience and a strong spine. Sometimes it means being insistent, pushy and even rude.
This is particularly critical in sporting goods, since the wrong choices can lead to outcomes for the consumer ranging from buyer’s remorse to actual risk of life and limb. I can’t possibly tell you how many times customers walked into shops I worked in and demanded that I sell them items that were completely inappropriate for the purposes for which they intended to utilize them. It would have been simplest for me to just say, “sure, you’re the customer and you can have whatever you like” and marched them to the counter to pay for it. (it should be obvious I am talking about major items like tents, packs, sleeping bags, boats, skis and climbing equipment, not cans of Sno-seal or rain ponchos.)
But I always felt it my responsibility to gently draw some information out of them before closing the sale to determine if the purchase was going to meet their needs. Sometimes they can’t be rationally persuaded to consider other more suitable items, like the guy who came in demanding our “warmest sleeping bag”, which was a $300 down 12” loft arctic expeditionary bag. Turned out he had spent a miserably chilly weekend in a hunting cabin in an old army surplus bag and thought this purchase would guarantee his comfort. After I found out what was motivating his choice I tried to talk him into a more reasonable $75 polarguard 20 degree bag but he would have none of it and walked out with the arctic bag. Two weeks later he crept sheepishly into the shop and asked if he could put up an ad on our bulletin board selling the thing, which (as I had warned him) had been like sleeping in a sauna inside the cabin. I conferred with the shop owner and we made him a deal – though sleeping bags were not refundable once used (per state law), we gave him back the wholesale price on the bag plus a discount on the more appropriate synthetic model, then had the down bag cleaned and put it in our gear rental livery. After that he listened to me when I advised him on other purchases.
At the other end of the spectrum were the “tire kickers” (like what we have been talking about here), people who took up massive amounts of our time getting every detail of items in stock and never buying anything. Some clearly just wanted attention but I often picked up that they were merely very insecure people who had trouble making decisions. In such cases it was my responsibility in “serving” them to prod them into pulling the trigger on their purchases. We had a guy who came into our shop 3 or 4 times a week for two months one summer, and each time he would obsess over a particular premium Trailwise sleeping bag made with a very silky proprietary shell fabric. He would insist on having one of us take it down from the hanging display and lay it on the carpeted “try out” area so he could slide inside with his shoes off. Frankly, I thought the guy had some sexual fetish with it since he would lie in it sometimes for 20 minutes, grinning and patting the thing. His visits became an eye-rolling joke amongst the staff (though we were always courteous to him about it.) Finally he came in one night when the owner (a prosperous psychologist who ran the shop as a tax writeoff) was in the shop. The owner said “Is this the guy you’ve been talking about? Get rid of him.” Instead of evicting him, I volunteered to close the sale (the other sale staff then placed bets on my attempt.) I walked over to the guy (who was standing by the hanging bag, fondling it) and told him straight out “No more test runs. It’s time for you to take that bag home with you.” He was startled and said “but I’m not sure it’s the right one for me yet.” Says me “I know you really want this bag and it makes me sad to think you have missed out on all the camping trips you should have been taking this summer – no more looking, today is the day you need to leave here with a sleeping bag.” I took a chance that he would storm out indignantly. But instead, he turned and looked longingly at the bag and said “You’re right.” He bought it. (and our boss ordered the employee who won the bet to split his take with me)
Whether selling you hiking boots, a sleeping bag, a kayak or (as I do now) electrical upgrades to your facility, it is not my job to “kiss your ass”. It is my job to use my expertise to assess what you need and then make sure that you get it. It isn’t always the people who coddle you who are the ones best “serving” you.
The ones who complain about service at stores clearly have never worked in stores. More importantly, they have never owned their own small business. This is similar to the guy that doesn't leave a tip because their service was slow.
Tire kicking is acceptable, but don't get mad when you get called out for it. After all honesty is more important than making you feel good about your purchase. Just pick up some smartwools or a canister of fuel every once in a while.
In our coupon nation, we all want the best price, best deal, best service, best return policy, etc, etc. But then we want to have personal relationships and buy local, etc., etc. All of these things are in conflict with each other. Everyone is so concerned about calling out people in reviews online, and bragging about their deals, spending money to save money, blah, blah. In the end we are just buying crap we don't need. Talk about first world country problems. It's embarrassing that we don't have better judgement as a society.
If one is worried about 5-10% price while buying something as useless as a kayak, I question their whole existence.
electrical upgrades (I work for a massive global infrastructure engineering and construction company – don’t get as much “hands on” dealing with customers as I did during the many years when I was a senior PM for electrical contractors)
tipping (and other social negotiations) I only worked as a waitress (back during college) for a total of 3 days. It was enough to give me a lifelong appreciation for how hard they work and what a thankless task it can be. Since then I have never left less than 20% for a tip. If the waitperson seems to be really “in the weeds” I will leave the same even if service has been crappy – if it is clear that they are overwhelmed because of circumstances beyond their control I will leave even more and then stop and tell the manager that I noticed that the service was being badly run.
I once stopped at a diner to take a break on a long solo motorcycle trip. I sat at the counter and just had tea and a pastry. The place was very busy and the waitress was grim, even rude, as she slammed my order down. I got the feeling she was having a really bad day. When I left, I put a $5 tip under my saucer before paying at the cashier. As I was putting my helmet on in the parking lot, the waitress came running out and tried to give me the bill back. I explained to her that I could see she was having a rough day and I had been there myself. To my surprise she began to cry and told me how her 10 year old daughter was in the hospital and she couldn’t afford to take the day off to stay with her.
There are some exceptions, of course, but I have learned that in most cases, if people are curt, ignore you or are unpleasant, there is usually something behind the behavior that explains it. If we would all try to respond with compassion instead of indignation, I think we could improve the world.
Being indignant is a form of personal arrogance that benefits nobody, yourself included. In both in my professional and personal life, I have gained more success and cooperation through humility, candor and empathy than from being demanding and self-entitled. The squeaky wheel does NOT “get the grease”. More often it earns itself the short shaft in the long run.
In fact, several of my friends and I were just talking the other day about the nasty trend (i call it a cult) of indignation in public and political discourse. The "how dare he/she/they offend me/us/them" has become a wearying pattern, too often replacing honest debate, exchange of opinions and any attempt to understand the opposing points of view. To many people appear too eager to seize the slightest opportunity to portray themselves as grieviously "wronged" over the smallest, even imagined, "slights".
In fact, most of what I hear on outlets like Fox News consists mainly of pointless rants of self-righteous indignation.
Since when did questioning someone's opinion, or disagreeing with them, or even offering evidence against a statement they've made, constitute a personal "offense" against them?
Oops. Guess I should relocate this to "Bicker and Banter."
you can mark me down As being indignant about being indignant. On this I will not bend. Life is way too short to get run over. If that’s personally arrogance, mark me down for that too.
Side note, if you actually knew me you would know that I use indignance and hyperbole as a matter of style not an actually tool in my professional life. I’m rarely being completely serious about anything. So when I say that I question someone’s existence, I don’t really, but I would ask them to remember the kids in China.
Great observation that I’m sure many of us have made. You expressed it very well. What I worry about is that young folks who grow up in this environment of “I am entitled not to be offended” don’t even understand what you’re talking about. Disagreement is not an offense, but very few under 50 or so seem to see it that way.
transference People get mad because someone is mad, or get offended that they offended someone or they have been offended. This has been going on since the beginning of time. Please don’t push this onto young people, I have had my fair share of people over 50 exhibiting this same behavior. What’s worse is they use their “wisdom” as a sign of proof they are right.
Also, my other least favorite trait of customers is when they make their problems your problems. I think it is an extension of learned helplessness in a world of blame.
Also, also, no one watches fox news. It’s the highest rated of the cable news channels and still a very small share of tv viewers. Plus kids these days don’t watch news anyway
Also, also, also. This is way too serious. Kayak shops don’t make anyone rich, everyone go buy something so they can stay open and feed our need for stuff we dont need.
personal "offense" If you re-read my first “volley” in this, I framed it initially as my own response of being upset at hearing what WB’s reaction was to the curtness of the dealer he visited. In all honesty, I’ve had that same reaction myself at times in my life “well, screw them if they are going to give me an attitude, I’ll take my business elsewhere.” I think that’s a prety natural human reaction.
What I have been trying to explicate here is that we should take a deep breath and consider if that instinctive reaction is really in the best interests of ourselves, as well as the people who have “offended” us.
On a deeper level, have not most of the horrible wars and mass sufferings of humanity been triggered by that sort of defensive “indignation” by one or more parties? I would argue there is a continuum there between our personal everyday habits of indignation (to having our real or imagined entitlements thwarted) and to the holocausts our collective flag-waving and religious or political self-righteousness can lead us towards.
I don’t think I intentionally insulted WB (sorry if it came off that way). I have been trying to suggest alternate ways the situation could have been approached.
This rise in the primacy of “indignation” has real costs at all levels of society. I have numerous friends who work in health care who unanimously report that their jobs and the medical industry as a whole are becoming almost unworkable due to the swelling dominance of “political correctness”, i.e., no one is allowed to “offend” a patient/client or even other staff member for fear of legal or regulatory penalty. Doctors are chastised for, even expressly prohibited from, telling patients that certain ailments that they present with are directly attributable to their being overweight or from poor lifestyle choices or behaviors. ER staff are not permitted to evict unruly and disruptive family members from exam rooms nor to deflect chronic abusers of services (drug seekers or people who routinely tie up emergency staff with non-critical problems.) Patients file complaints about having to wait for exams or staff being “rude” in overcrowded facilities that are jammed up because those same patients won’t take their routine medical issues properly to their family doctors. Again, no one is allowed to point this fact out to the complainers. And massive amounts of money (much of it our tax dollars in the form of Medicaid and Medicare billings) is wasted in “cover our ass” tests and procedures that the “entitled” crowd demands but does not really need.
I’ve seen it in retail sales and I’ve seen it in healthcare: there is an entire category of people who revel in creating situations where they can claim to have been disrespected so they can flaunt their righteous rage to authorities. In past years this sort of pathological whining was routinely ignored by management or the whiner was placated in a benign way. I even had bosses in the past who would side with me against customers with spurious complaints, in one case even banning the client from the store.
Now, most likely due to the eagerness of some branches of the legal profession to create income stream through spurious lawsuits, managers turn around and punish employees for trying to deal rationally with such people. It is “political correctness” taken to the nth degree. The squeaky wheelers end up not only getting the grease but bringing the entire cart to a full stop. Mass media contribute to this by hyping stories of these trumped up “insults.”
This modern glorification of the “offended” reminds me of the cartoonist Al Capp’s creation (in his “Li’l Abner” comic strip in the late 1960’s) of a mock student activist society based on the campus S.D.S. groups of the era. He had his crowd of placard waving hippies self-identify as S.W.I.N.E., an acronym for Students Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything.
Let me be clear, I am NOT accusing WB of being one of these individuals. But his (fairly benign and admittedly understandable) reaction and action in the boat buying incident brought up the wider topic of indignation and how it should be a response we ought to be cautious about indulging in ourselves.
wrong about Fox News Fox news has been watched regularly by 25% of the public since its inception in 1996. Furthermore it is the single most watched TV news outlet. Ironically, recent studies have indicated that Fox News habitual watchers actually tested lower than people who watched NO TV news at all on being informed about current events.
The acrimonious tone, shrill (mostly right-wing) commentators and the blatant promotion of lies and misinformation by the network, as well as its general tone of sneering and indignation, I would argue, have been a major factor in contaminating public discourse over the past 15 years.
There are many regions of the country and certainly certain industries where Fox is the major source of “news” and public opinion. I’ve lived and worked in the midst of such bubbles of rampant misinformation.
good one, Ryan We ought to remember to poke fun at indignation at all times.
Think about it, hasn’t being indignant been among the central themes of some of our best comedies, from “The Jack Benny Show” (and the star’s signature crossed-arm slow burn), "All in the Family, “Seinfeld” and “Fraser” to the Sheldon Cooper character on “Big Bang Theory” (who is as apt to display it himself as provoke it in others)?
If you are in business You are entitled to make a profit. Profit needs to cover expenses and overhead and something for yourself. That’s the way the world works.
