Daily Nonsense

“May I help you?”

Some of you may know that I once lived in retail-land, far above the Caramel Mountains and beyond the Sodie-Pop Sea. As a Staples employee I was taught to ask the question “What Can I Help You Find Today?” This is an open ended question and pretty much demands anything other than a Yes/No answer. The rationale here is to engage the customer, not simply point the way. Pointing the way simply shows the customer where the product is. It doesn’t show the customer why he should buy it from me.

Seth Godin, a man who is quickly becoming my “Marketing/PR/Why Do I Exist” go-to answer guy, posted about the basic futility of the question “May I Help You?”. That question really isn’t about opening a dialog, it’s about finishing a conversation.

Copied below, in it’s oh so terse entirety, Seth’s Blog post:

“May I Help You?”

… is almost a useless thing to say.

If you want to end a conversation with a teenager, just ask, “How was school today?”

If you want to end a conversation with a customer, just ask if you can help. Instead, ask, “can I get you a hot drink?” or “what’s the worst thing about your insurance company?” or “one slice or two?”

[Thanks, Seth]

A New Day – Follows a New Dawn

Today I finished my last shift at Staples. A bitter sweet feeling to say the least. I’ve posted a little bit about Staples these last few days but I really haven’t said what’s important about my time there.

Staples taught me about customer service. Staples showed me how it’s the most important aspect of retail. But besides just at a service level, those lessons on how to treat customers transfer to everyday life. I’m trying to treat everyone with the same levels of courtesy and respect, and paying attention to them. It’s amazing what a difference it makes in how people treat ME!

Retail is not for everyone. Whether it’s the hours, the expectations, or the face-to-face interaction; not everyone is suited. But you can learn valuable lessons that can affect your life and how you live it and in it.

My Staples Era, Coming to a Close

It’s been almost 6 years now that I’ve been working at Staples. What a roller-coaster of a time.

I started as a full-time, hourly associate in the Business Machines (Electronics) department. After about 6 month there I moved into the Manager Trainee (MT) program. That was the most difficult time of my employment. The difficulty stemmed from the fact that you end up with too many bosses while enrolled in the Staples training system.

But I got thru it, and moved on upward into management. I was promoted to Operations Manager after about a year in the MT program. That was a stressful year! I was responsible for the 3 ‘Ps’, the Place, the Product, and the People.

So, the place, the building and it’s health. Are the doors working, is there a toilet clogged, stuff like that.

The product means the inventory in the store. The Ops Manager and the General Manager are responsible for all of the inventory, managing shortages, overages, and damages.

The people, hiring and retaining great employees. There are two ‘Ps’ associated with the people. Praise and Punishment. ‘Nuff said….

I then became a Sales Manager. That was the job I enjoyed the most. My job was to drive the sales of Business Machines along with the associated attachments. What many people do not realize is that the average profit margin on a computer or printer is less than 10%. That is not enough margin to keep a store in business so attachments are vital to the store.

A year ago last December I stepped down from management and took a part time technician job at the same store and went back to school. I’ve been studying to become an MCSE through an online course.

I’ve recently started working for Apian Software as their Technical Support Rep for SurveyPro 4.0, a software package that allows you to create meaningful surveys with a rather easy interface. It should prove to be an interesting job.

Starting over with customer service

As some of you know I’ve worked at Staples for about 6 years now and have a few stories to tell about customer service. I have enjoyed working at Staples for many reasons one of which is the level of customer service that the company DEMANDS we provide. I really want to help most customers (now let’s be real, there are always some that grate…) and Staples gave me the opportunity to do so. But…..

I’m a consumer too. There are some stores I won’t go to any more. Someone, a cashier, an associate, a manager, someone ticked me off. I’ve know for years that customer service outside of Staples, is hit or miss.

Seth Godin recently wrote about it on his blog and I was impressed by his insight:

Customer service is broken. Not just because of bad management, though we have plenty of that to go around. Customer service is broken for three reasons:

1. The internet has taught us to demand everything immediately (and perfect). As a result, we expect that every single time we pick up the phone or deal with someone in a retail setting, we’ll be dealing with the Senior Vice President of Customer Satisfaction, the head of accounting and the chief of quality control, all at the same time. We expect instant results and undivided attention.

2. The rapid proliferation of choice has taught us to demand that everything should be cheap. As a result, we won’t pay extra for superior service, which means companies need to hire cheap.

3. The availability of blogs and other public histories means that it is harder than ever to treat different customers differently. Word gets out.

As a result of these three inexorable trends, companies are on defense. They are forced to add a new layer to their pyramid, and yes, it’s on the bottom. This layer consists of lots and lots of people, the cheapest the company can find. These folks are ill-trained, poorly supported and under lots of pressure. There is a lot of turnover (what a surprise) and most are working with nothing more than a simple manual and a lot of metrics.

[Thanks, Seth]