Thoughts on Service Economies, Economic Depression, and Huiman Awareness

When I moved to the Northwest, I made a journey to a place south of Seattle I had only heard about - Fry's Electronics. Reading about it in Coupland's Microserfs, I fell in love with that place and Ikea, and the two became the things I associated with the Northwest - I think I had gone to Fry's twice before I ever went to Pike Place Market or the Space Needle.

Every couple of months, I make a trip down there - it's about a 30 minute drive, sometimes longer with traffic - usually with no specific reason, just to see what's on sale and maybe pick up some gear for fun. Today I went in to get a second LCD monitor - I found one I had been looking at for a while and it was 50 bucks cheaper than Amazon's list price. It was a great find and I was very excited - finally, some more real estate for projects at home!

Fourty-five minutes later, I walked out of Fry's with no monitor, frustrated and annoyed.

In the time since I saw what I wanted, no salesperson approached me. I looked for a stack of the LCD monitor I wanted and found none - this means a salesperson has to get it from the back and bring it to you for purchase. After the first five minutes, I started making eye contact with a few salespeople, some of whom were tied up with other customers.

I then started making eye contact and smiling, which also didn't work for the next few minutes, while touching and examining the merchandise to show interest. This didn't work.

I finally got a salesperson to acknowledge my presence; she was very nice, smiled, and unfortunately, did not work in that department. She walked over to a salesperson who was busy helping an elderly couple decide on a monitor - she pointed me out, he nodded. And he never got back to me, even after the couple had left.

I switched to folding my arms and pacing around slowly, which is a signal of impatience. One salesperson, whose eye I had caught twenty minutes earlier, came over within three feet,. I made eye contact, he avoided me, and adjusted the monitors, checking some numbers. He walked off without even asking if I had been helped.

I waited five more minutes and left. I couldn't have given Fry's my money that day - I tried and they failed to take it from me.

The point of this isn't to slam this bad service - it's to point out how it could have been better. In a service industry in an economic depression or downturn, sales performers rise to the top and those that do not perform fall to the bottom. It's a simple fact.

By being aware of their surroundings and their customers, each salesperson I saw or saw me could have made a ten-minute sale of two-hundred dollars. That's US$20/minute or US$1200/hour if sustained throughout the store - that should pay for the workforce for a 20-person store easily.

In downturns, companies that have excellent service outshine the others - if people are spending less in general, you want to be known as a service leader. This means that those that buy from you expect quality and will statistically pick you over an unknown or negatively-viewed competitor.

It all starts with the worker - the individual who interacts with the customer.

So, how can workers obtain this awareness? Observe behaviors - people who have not made up their minds usually display generally neutral body language. In business, someone who is overly friendly towards someone they don't know often wants something - the only thing I want from a salesperson when I'm friendly is some quick assistance.

Similarly, pensive customers are sales lost - those who are going to be leaving your store soon and maybe not coming back. By catching them on their way out, you might be able to at least get them to come back to the store, instead of never coming back at all.

The benefit to the worker is enormous as well. Citing a number of sales on a review is going to give you more leverage in getting promoted or a raise. Being able to show how much a department will lack when you leave is a reason to keep you around. And should your reputation as a salesperson get outside your store or to the regional or national management, you may not be working the floors much longer, but training your replacement when you move into management.