Condescending Shop Staff

parsi

I was in Sound Store in Cork yesterday and was gawking at the computer end of things. There were these three Poles there and they were asking for a laptop - nice high spec and they wanted 1GB RAM but with an option to go to 2GB.

Yer salesman said to them. You can't get 2gb RAM in any laptop - not Dell, HP, Toshiba etc.One of the Poles questioned this and was told "I worked in wholesale and I remember not being able to order 2gb ram".

Well he never told Michael Dell...

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_m65?c=ie&l=en&s=gen

Nightwish

well you'll always get people making honest mistakes or else they were just trying to get a sale from you.

eth0_

Um..I think you should look 'condescending' up in a dictionary.

parsi

eth0_ wrote:

Um..I think you should look 'condescending' up in a dictionary.

Um.. thanks for the suggestion. I looked up the Oxford Online for you and I got back a result from

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dict&field-12668446=condescending&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact&sortorder=score%2Cname

"showing or feeling a patronizing attitude"

Now I also tried Merriam-Webster (just in case you wanted me to look it up twice) and they gave this result

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/condescending

"to assume an air of superiority"

as in "I worked in wholesale and now I work in a really cool shop so what would you dumb people know about how much ram you can get in a laptop...?"

dahamsta

Believe me parsi, eth0 knows the definition of that word better than anyone else on Boards. She's incapable of communicating without it.

eth0_

parsi wrote:

as in "I worked in wholesale and now I work in a really cool shop so what would you dumb people know about how much ram you can get in a laptop...?"

Sorry, I just don't see how (if you are quoting him verbatim) you could interpret what he said as condescending, that's all.

parsi

eth0_ wrote:

Sorry, I just don't see how (if you are quoting him verbatim) you could interpret what he said as condescending, that's all.

Keep looking.... someday you may be able to see....

@Ken Shabby -nice one ;-)

rubadub

eth0_ wrote:

Sorry, I just don't see how (if you are quoting him verbatim) you could interpret what he said as condescending, that's all.

I could imagine it, all in the tone of the voice. I have heard sales people do this too. What really annoys me is the selling of overspeced PCs to the ignorant.
"I want to check my emails and print the odd word document",
"AH, you'll be looking for the 500Ghz Pentium 16 with 25Gb of ram and a 48" LCD screen then, the entry level PC"

I have even gone up to customers afterwards and showing them what they really need, really annoys me.

padi89

rubadub wrote:

I could imagine it, all in the tone of the voice. I have heard sales people do this too. What really annoys me is the selling of overspeced PCs to the ignorant.
"I want to check my emails and print the odd word document",
"AH, you'll be looking for the 500Ghz Pentium 16 with 25Gb of ram and a 48" LCD screen then, the entry level PC"

I have even gone up to customers afterwards and showing them what they really need, really annoys me.

Yeah it gets on my tits too ,but i guess business is business and if people are going to earn some commision from a sale then they are gonna sell as high as possible.To be honest i dont think its hard to do a little research before you buy and make up your own mind of what you need.

parsi

Aye. And in this case it sounded (to me) that the customers had done a bit of research but their research was rejected .

Cabaal

Come on in fairness its Soundstore, they hasn't a clue......its not like their rocket scientists.
The only qualification people need to get a job their is to be able to talk and walk at the same time...oh and of course sell stuff

BArra

went into sound store today, what a complete shambles of an outlet, the sales staff, complete and utter planks

chump

Ken Shabby wrote:

Believe me parsi, eth0 knows the definition of that word better than anyone else on Boards. She's incapable of communicating without it.

Pity that 'rep' scheme still isn't in operation.

Most of these stores are full of snotty know-nothings anyway. Much better buying things with as little human interaction as possible. Click click

Nightwish

Cabaal wrote:

Come on in fairness its Soundstore, they hasn't a clue......its not like their rocket scientists.
The only qualification people need to get a job their is to be able to talk and walk at the same time...oh and of course sell stuff

http://www.soundstore.ie/ tbh

rubadub

Cabaal wrote:

Come on in fairness its Soundstore, they hasn't a clue......its not like their rocket scientists.
The only qualification people need to get a job their is to be able to talk and walk at the same time...oh and of course sell stuff

then they shouldnt talk like they are rocket scientists!

vector

a certain amount of misinformation (be it intentional or accidental) is to be expected from all salesmen, remember their job is to sell current stock

rubadub

vector wrote:

a certain amount of misinformation (be it intentional or accidental) is to be expected from all salesmen, remember their job is to sell current stock

translation: they lie to customers so never trust them.

Sam Vimes

rubadub wrote:

translation: they lie to customers so never trust them.

sales staff never lie to customers. everything they have in stock at that moment is the best one of those in the world and always will be

dbnavan

parsi wrote:

I was in Sound Store in Cork yesterday and was gawking at the computer end of things. There were these three Poles there and they were asking for a laptop - nice high spec and they wanted 1GB RAM but with an option to go to 2GB.

Yer salesman said to them. You can't get 2gb RAM in any laptop - not Dell, HP, Toshiba etc.One of the Poles questioned this and was told "I worked in wholesale and I remember not being able to order 2gb ram".

Well he never told Michael Dell...

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_m65?c=ie&l=en&s=gen

He said "I remember not being able to order 2gb ram" therefore he tried to do it in the past so he cant be condescending, he was stating his dated knowledge if anything he was out of touch with technology.

Condescending definatly the wrong way of phrasing this, i know what u mean though.

parsi

Well he gave a definite "you can't" (present tense) followed by the example of his previous employment.

So the customer was told - you can't get what you want and I know because I used work in wholesale... yadda yadda yadda...

rubadub

dbnavan wrote:

He said "I remember not being able to order 2gb ram" therefore he tried to do it in the past so he cant be condescending, he was stating his dated knowledge if anything he was out of touch with technology.

Condescending definatly the wrong way of phrasing this, i know what u mean though.

It is more the tone that could be condescending, and I would imagine it was more the "I worked in wholesale" bit that was condescending in tone.

godfather69er

ahhhh what a prick but what can you do????
have any of you worked in retail i do and i fin customers to be really condasending.
they ask you for advice and proceed to throw out bull**** that they heard from a friend of a friend that is only half true. if you ask for advice ...take it, dont question,the fact you ask for advice means you dont know a whole lot

and the number1 condasending comment, 'can i speak to sombody higher than you because i want this product for free and you are not giving me it'

if you want to say this dont say sombody higher say can i speak to the manager please?

shoegirl

Not surprised to hear that. A lot of shop staff always had appalling people skills. My local supermarket back home had an army of scowling young wans who'd sneer at you over the counter to such an extent I nearly died of shock one day when one of them was nice to me.

Mind you all of that went when he hired a big batch of Chinese girls. At least they are polite and try hard to be helpful. (And he won't have their mothers down complaining a few days later if they get sacked for robbing the tills).

I worked in tech support in a large box builder for over a year and can tell you of many occasions where parts were sold to customers who had pcs they didn't fit, entire corporate orders that were completely mis-sold (for example the entire board of a company were sold an ultra-portable, except the company used handhelds and the ultra-portable had no serial port to use them with!! After the sales team insisting to them they were 100% compatible!) In fairness most sales staff get limited training and often don't know the product very well.