Can I help you? No thanks

trishasaffron wrote: »

Is the art of sales not all about understanding the needs of customers? My need is not to be repeating "no thanks - I'm fine" over and over. And so I take my business to places that seem to be able to understand that if I need help I'LL ASK FOR IT.

Just sayin........

This is a fine attitude in a Plaza or a Shopping Mall where theres a high volume of stores and traffic: you can safely assume the vast majority of people are browsing.

When you work in a Niche Retail in an Industrial Park its pretty easy to assume the customer is coming to you having an idea of what they want. Its not really that rude to ask them when they come in "is there anything I can help you find?"

For me most customers will say "yea do you have any Bruce hardwood?" and a few times they'll be standing right in front of the Ginormous 30ft BRUCE display and would be oblivious.

There is also of course the customer that asks "How much is this hardwood?" and you have to go "Actually, that's a Laminate, not a Hardwood."

So to allow my customer to browse around and confuse themselves - It's not something we like to have done. I like to point out what is what. Very few people come in understanding the difference between solid hardwood, engineered hardwood and laminate.

Do I feel like an ass saying hello to customers at the door? no.

although,

Chorcai wrote: »

Ya'll haven't lived till you go shopping in the USofA, overly happy, how can I/we help you today, welcome to "X" store have a nice time ! So false and tacky.

Best Buy greeters are terribly annoying. Mainly because all they do is say Welcome or Goodbye. Thats it. It's rubber-room treatment for high school kids.

To be completely fair, it takes little effort to say "No thanks, I'm just browsing/I've got it."

The scummiest of the scummy jobs though has to be the Walmart Greeter/Receipt checker - they are paid a meager minimum wage and forcibly trained to treat exiting customers as a potential thief:

http://consumerist.com/2010/01/walmart-manager-takes-customers-dvd-away-because-he-wont-show-receipt.html

Deleted User wrote: »

I don't particularly mind it in regular shops.. I want to punch every butcher who asks me tho.
I will have a look at everything and then ask the butcher who is no more than two metres away when i'm ready.

Thats understandable. Most people go into a butcher knowing what they want. Butchers know where that something is. Ask, receive, buy, leave. Quick and easy. I miss Irish butchers though man. Ads you prefer the Canadamerica way, stroll into Publix/Walmart, all there is is a pile of crappy cuts on a cold shelf and you just pick and choose? puhlease. I miss Clarecastle and I miss my butcher and I miss asking for fresh cuts

Actually, just found a good article about this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/blog/2010/jul/09/sales-assistants-happy-to-help