The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – The Beginning.

It has been a while since I had this idea to have illustrations,which I will try to have to done soon,on different types of customers which you can see where you fall into. And if you are honest with yourself – you put yourself in the right category. Here are some of the categories I have. 

• The Overly Nice Customer. 

The Japanese fall under this category. Not that I am complaining. I really like serving the Japanese customers with my basic Japanese language and well equipped with a calculator. The typical Japanese really love to know how much it cost in Yen thus you see them typing furiously on their “Hello Kitty” calculators and after seeing how inexpensive the item at hand is, you will constantly hear them say, “Yasui!!” also not forgetting the repeated nodding of their heads in pure excitement. When they find the item really nice, they´ll go,”Kawaii!!”. Over and over again. It does gives you a headache after 5 minutes of hearing it.

I have a lot of memorable moments with Japanese customers while working at Quiksilver in the most “ghost town” area of Singapore – Millenia Walk. The store was located not far from the Duty Free shop and the tour bus which carries mostly Japanese and Korean tourists will make their stop there first. Often we get Japanese surfer hunks walking into the store and of course,us feasting our eyes on them! Okay, let´s not digress. 

To sum it all, the Japanese are the most polite, courteous, well mannered, wealthy(they don´t ask for discounts nor they care if the item has been tried on so many times and if it is the only piece left in the throughout the rest of the Quiksliver stores in Singapore) and they always smile! This is what I call a two way great shopping experience.

• The Arrogant Customer. 

This customer has the mindset that he knows everything, down to how to change the printer paper of the cash register, when it´s out of paper. I can sense an arrogant customer within a 5 meter radius. It is truly a skill you develop after a couple of years in retail. 

The arrogant customer will waltz into the store, looked around at the clothes, then calls for assistance using the index finger – mind you!. Then asked heaps of questions, followed by, telling you that the material is really actually not cotton even though it does says on the material label inside the T Shirt but then again the mindset of the customer is “Customers are always right”, then comes the sales-person-do-not-know-their-product-knowledge expression. It is not true because, the Sales Personnel is NOT agreeing on their matter-of-fact tone of voice. You feel somewhat in a debate contest with this sort of customer all the time. So to make life simple for the Sales Personnel, you just have to suck it in and say,”Yes, I agree with you that it is not made out of 100% cotton”. Like by saying this, it will change the price of pork(courtesy of my elder brother). Do you fall under this category?.

• The Pointing With Your Feet Syndrome. 

Now, this is one of the best customer that portraits the lowest level of a human being with a brain. Why I say this, is because, there is a profound meaning why humans are and still the most intelligent mammal on this face of this earth but using their feet to point to the Sales Personnel to which item he wants depicts the purpose of having a brain. For example, I worked with BÄR shoe manufaktur in a departmental store(not very glamorous) the shoes are displayed on shelves that is when “The Pointing With Your Feet Syndrome” comes out to play. 

Customer looks at a pair of shoes he is interested in which is on the last shelve below and then calls for me,the Sales Personnel, for help. I say,”Hi, can I help you?”. He says,”Yes, what size do you have in that shoe there?”. Lifts his right feet and points to the direction of the shoe he wants with the tip of his shoes. With that done, I took a deep breath and point with my thumb(the polite way of pointing)”Do you mean this sir?”. So, if the item of interest is on the top level, you lift your feet all the way up to point at it too?.  

 

Using the thumb to point.

As shown in the picture above. There was a mother and daughter incident where, the daughter was sitting with her mother,looking at some shoes. She saw a nice pair to be purchase for her dad I reckon. Then points to the shoes with her feet for the mother to see which she is referring to. Doing that to your own mother? That is plain out disgusting manners to me. Do you fall under this category? I really hope not. The lesser of you in this category,the better the world to live in without these sort of bad habits existing. 

These are some of the category I have come up with. In my next blog, I will feature even more. If you have seen absurd manners being projected at Sales Personnel, do email me. I really would like to hear someone else experience. 

 

Ridiculous Questions Asked.

I had many conversation with my fellow colleagues about ridiculous questions asked by customers. Most of it is too extremely funny. Our company will have bi yearly Golf Fair and it always is a hit with golfers, of course. And really busy to the point there was no time to eat. 

One of my colleague is in-charge of the socks section which was going really cheap! On the wagon lies a couple of sample of socks so customers can see those, touch and feel. Along came a customer, looking at the socks sample. Here comes the extremely funny part-he asked her,”What is this?”. LOL! My colleague looked at him with not knowing whether to give a ridiculous answer back or just ignore him! Of course, she told him it is socks. Duh.-okay, she didn´t say that to him.

She told the others what happened and one of them told her she should have said that those were condoms or a hand puppet! LOL! I laughed my behind off hearing about the incident! There is another customer asking a colleague this,”How many shoes can you put in this shoe bag?”. She wanted to say,”You can put at least ten shoes-baby shoes that is!” LOL! Oh man, the ridiculous questions customers can come up with! 

When I was working with the boxing brand which was one of the division of my company. The store was covered with mainly boxing theme, posters of Muhammad Ali, boxing gloves, punching bags were hung at the window display and so on. But each day, we get customers coming in asking,”Do you sell swimming goggles?”, “Excuse me, do you guys sell swimming trunks?”.*smacking my forehead with my palm* LOL!

Note to customers: Do ask questions that actually make sense.

How To Be A Great Customer 101.

The reason why I have decided to write about customers is simply because the way they have been treating retailers or the person who serves them at a local deli, a shoe shop and so on with no respect what so ever. 

A couple of years ago, I had brainstormed an idea of writing a book about bad customers. You get tons of books about giving excellent customer service but here´s the twist. I write about customers. The good, the bad and the disgusting. And to teach them basic courtesy.

In all my eight years in retail, from a mere sale assistance to head supervisor of three boxing stores and supervisor of a popular surf brand here in singapore. I have come to experience the worse kind of customers. Being yelled at something you have no power of has come to be a daily routine.

Here´s an example, a fellow huge shoulder customer walked into the store with a mate of his asking for a tank top to which I showed him the men´s range but he didn´t really liked it. My senses kicked in when I saw him telling off his mate about letting him choose and not to rush him. His mate backed off. The customer then walked to the ladies tank top section. I told him it´s for ladies-no, he wants to try it.(OMG) I couldn´t argue of course-customer-is-always-right motto these customer has been planted in their head. 

He tried the largest size for ladies tank top and came out of the dressing room looking all proud of his very “workout” shoulders plus he just expanded the tank top like crazy. Then, he wanted to tried the same top but different color! This time, I had to say no because by then all my tank tops are gonna be stretched!

Here comes the fun part, he yelled at the top of his lungs telling me off. I tried to calm him down that there is of no need to get mad. Plus, I told him the reason why I can´t let him wear the rest. Protecting my right to decline. My colleague was already afraid that the customer was gonna hit me. Of course, if he did. I can sue him. He wanted to complain to my office, I gave him the name card and he went on yelling standing outside the shop. Now, is this insane or what? The people we have to endure and paste a smile on our faces each day is tiring. They should come up pills for this!

I will post up short videos of basic courtesy here so customers could apply in their daily shopping routine.