Know your onions

As we all find ourselves sprinting towards the finish line that is the end of the financial year, I'm delighted that you managed to find a few spare minutes in your day to read through my random musings. As you look back on your year, you may well feel like I do - pleased to see the back of it and looking forward to a much better one. You're not alone - none of us are - but things do feel pretty busy around here and perhaps it's a sign that true confidence really is starting to come back to the market.

Here is the UK, people believe that things will pick up after the General Election. Why? Is the new PM (you don't seriously think the current one is going to win do you?) going to wave a magic wand and put extra money in everyone's budget? Remember, it's not about money - it's about confidence. If you believe your firm is worth shouting about, then you will invest the money in doing so, it's really that simple.

This week I want to talk about another favourite bugbear of mine, and that is customer service. The difference this time is that I want to tell you about good customer service - it is still out there and I got to experience it first hand. I'm not talking about some fancy 5 star hotel or a posh restaurant where you can pick up a bottle of wine for the price of a second hand family car. No. I'm talking about a sports shop on the high street.

Recently I had noticed some posters on the London Underground for a particular brand of footwear. Now I am not going to name the brand here because they are not a client of mine and if you want me to do some marketing for you, you're going to have to pay for it (please refer to the archives and the post entitled Stop Giving It Away for more information).

None the less my father had already bought a pair of these shoes and he spoke highly of them. They're not ordinary shoes - they're designed to help improve posture and exercise your legs properly when you walk. I have dreadful posture and often have back and neck problems, so it seemed like a good idea to try these things out.

I did my research and found that the nearest place to my home to get them was an unassuming sportswear shop on the high street. I called them first to make sure that they had my size and the models that I was interested in and, once satisfied that they could help, I set off. It's also worth pointing out that I had Felix with me that day, and that's relevant, but more later.

As I went in I was instantly approached by one of their people asking how they could help. Good start, and in these times, a sadly rare one too. I told him I had spoken with someone on the phone and he instantly knew it was his colleague. How did they do that? I can only assume that once I had hung up, the person I spoke with told his colleague that someone was coming in to try on these shoes - a little detail but impressive.

Now this guy really knew his stuff. He knew that regular sizes didn't work on these shoes and that they had to fit a certain way. He knew the popular models, how best to walk in them, all of the fine details. I actually made a point of asking him if the manufacturers had trained him especially and it turned out that they had.

Remember I mentioned Felix was with me? Well when we first went in he was asleep in his pushchair, but within 10 minutes he was up and ready to play. Whilst I tried on shoes the other people in the store played catch with him and he had a great time.

Where's all this going? Well the fact is that these shoes are not cheap. We're talking three figures here. Recently I've found that my shoes are dying on me far too quickly, so I decided to take a long term view and invest in a pair that would last a long time and actually do me some good. However, because of their exemplary knowledge and customer service, I actually ended up buying two pairs. I spent so much more than I had originally intended and whilst I did suffer the inevitable buyer's remorse, I was able to get over it.

These people did not attempt to up sell. In fact, they really didn't try and sell at all. They answered my questions confidently and asked me some important questions too. Not only that, but we negotiated a good price on my buying two pairs instead of one (you didn't really think I'd pay full price did you?) and they also let Felix have his pick of the mini footballs to take home as a birthday present - he's two next week.

As a parting gift, he also gave me a DVD which explained more about the shoes than he could have done in store. I appreciate that the manufacturer does this, but it's a lovely finishing touch.

Product knowledge is so important, and yet many people working in retail just overlook it. They figure that they can just read the information off of the little display ticket or grab the box and read that. It's just not good enough. When I first started in sales I worked in electrical retail. I was 17 years old and worked on Saturdays and school holidays - I was still in college studying for my A Levels, which in hindsight were a total waste of time but there's no point in being bitter about it now.

Every so often, a new product would come into the store, and as I put the item out on display, I'd take away the instruction manual and read it. My colleagues would tease me about being such a nerd and asked why I was wasting my time on such activity. Each time my response would be the same; "When a customer asks me if this is any good, I want to be able to tell them, and to answer their questions without running upstairs to grab the manual." I was young, innocent and enthusiastic, and I outsold them all every single week!

These days I weep at the state of the high street, filled with apathetic teenagers who make you feel bad for interrupting them as you try desperately to buy something from them. Think about the last time you went into a store and was treated with respect and enthusiasm - a pleasant surprise wasn't it? Now remember the last time you got the opposite of that? No? Of course not - because those experiences will not stay in your mind - you'll shrug them off and move on.

Now I know I preach on and on about the value of good marketing and why it's important to spend money on it. The people in the sports shop are capitalising on the very best marketing of all - word of mouth. You will always share a positive experience with someone. I am more than happy to tell people living in North West London to buy their sportswear from Sportec in Barnet. Now they didn't pay me for an advert either, but they actually earned it by doing such a good job.

The morale of the story? Good service costs you nothing - bad service costs you everything.