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.
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.
