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Witness: The crumbling tenents of quality customer experience

Was it a social experiment? No clue, but it clearly wasn't a warm fuzzy consumer interaction.

August 6, 2015 by Judy Mottl — Editor, RetailCustomerExperience.com & DigitalSignageToday.com

Since coming aboard as editor in June for Retail Customer Experience I’ve been amazed at all the advancements, technology deployments and savviness retailers are boasting these days.

But yet I’m more than a bit fearful all that good is coming at the price of declining customer service and lower quality of consumer experience. I think both may be paying a price, and I'm not sure it’s a price businesses can afford.

Now, before I elaborate, please know I harbor no ill feelings toward any retailer, online or off, or own any stock or business investment. I literally have no vested interested in anything retail besides loving jewelry and Christmas shopping and writing about how retailers can improve their businesses and boost the customer experience.

That said, when I blog about my personal retail business and consumer interactions, I am offering my own view, my experience as a customer and as someone who supports business. I truly admire the small and mid-size businesses as well as the mega retailers and everyone in between in the retail segment. It’s not easy to run a business, and it’s only getting more challenging.

So let me share a real life experience I believe reveals how one or more valuable tenants in retail customer experience are buckling and beginning to crack.

A few weeks back a PC blowout prompted me to get a laptop in quick fashion. I scouted online, asked a few friends through social networks and found the machine online at a mega office products store.

Problem? While the computer was displayed for sale on its ecommerce site, for some reason I had to visit the store to buy it. No explanation why since this company’s e-tail is as vibrant as its brick-and-mortar and equal to its top competitor (Amazon).

Ok, so having to buy offline didn’t make me happy.

I hit the road, hoping the one left in stock was still in the stock (when I called the store ahead to check no one could help me with that for some reason). Again, that didn't make me happy.

So I get there and immediately and nicely ask a clerk for help. I give him the laptop info on a pink Post-It, and he mumbles, looking at the slip, that he thinks it's still available, trudging off for the "‘back room."

About 10 minutes later, well more like 15 but I wasn't counting as I was eyeing new pens, he returns. I seriously do love pens, but that’s another blog topic.

So as this early 20-year-old is heading over, head down, empty handed, I realize I have to go back to start in finding a machine.

Then he says: “Yes, we have it.”

My first inclination is crinkling my eyes and brow (a bad facial response that has literally tattoed a short line in my forehead) and cocking my head slightly to the right. I’m speechless. But not for long.

“What?” though, is all I manage to say, with my eyes still squinting at him a bit. The idea of being pranked, or snap chatted in an awkward moment, has darted quickly to my brain and I fast scan the store for a camera.

“We have it. It’s here,” says the clerk, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

“Ok, so.. uhhmmmm.. I want to buy it,” I reply and the reply sounds like a question I realize.

“Oh ok. What’s the model number again,” he asks me, finally looking me straight in the eye.

Now, I smile.

I smile because that’s what my parents taught me to do when something unexpected happens, especially a negative human-to-human interaction. No one being mean, ignorant or obnoxious ever expects a smile.

A smile also affords the smiler a few minutes to frame an appropriate, mature verbal response.

Nodding my head toward his right hand, I grin and remind him he still has the note with the machine info in his hand. He looks down, nods and heads back to the back room.

He returns holding the box. I reach for it and he says “Is that all?”

Again, I smile and also I nod, again speechless. He turns and heads to a register.

And yes, I ended up treating myself to a few new pens. And no, he didn't thank me for shopping at Staples.

And if this isn't a short concise example of how not to serve a loyal customer, a consumer who took time to visit a retailer's store to buy something I likely could have found online with another retailer, I'm not sure what better example I could share. Sometimes it's the easiest, and the 'free' aspects of customer engagement (a smile, common sense, enthusiasm and yes a 'so glad you're here' feeling) that make for the greatest customer experience.

About Judy Mottl

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Judy Mottl is editor of Retail Customer Experience and Digital Signage Today. She has decades of experience as a reporter, writer and editor covering technology and business for top media including AOL, InformationWeek, InternetNews and Food Truck Operator.

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