Can I Help You?

Ever been shopping in a store, pick up a item just to look at it and put it back? I mean we’ve all done it right? At some point in your shopping life span you have been this customer. Hell, I am this customer. Well this is a great segway into this weeks retail rant. Can I Help You?

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I’m cleaning the store, per usual, folding a stack of jeans to be exact. A customer comes over and starts searching the table for her size. (Me being the amazing associate that I am I ask her a few simple questions.

Me: How are you doing today?

Customer: Fine and you?

Me: Great. Can I help you find something?

Customer: No, I think I found it.

Full Disclaimer

When an associate ANYWHERE ask you if you need help or are you finding everything OK and you’re in the vicinity of the area that they are proceeding to clean, 9 times out of 10 they are not asking you to actually assist. They are asking you because they know you are about to mess up there fully perfected area.

In order to stop this from happening we ask if we can help. Now don’t get me wrong, there are associates who desperately want to help you with any and everything regardless if you are messing up there area or not. I for one am asking you so you can help me, help you. (With a smile.)

Now Back To The Story

So I watch her dig through the perfectly folded stack of jeans I JUST got done fixing. As she’s going through the stack and pulls her size out she proceeds to say….”I didn’t want to mess up your stack.” Then pats the stack of jeans as if it were a pet.

I stood there with this blank look on my face starring at her and I thought to myself. “Now how in the world could you possible think that you just helped me? The stack you threw back together did not help me in ANY way. And what the hell was that pat going to do? Magically put the jean in a perfect stack like you met them???” But seeing how I’m in the business of customer service I simply smile and say “Oh don’t worry about it, I’ll fix it later.”

It’s Almost Like…

It’s almost like customers see a perfectly organized area in the store and have to tear it up! The rest of the store could look a mess and then there is this one table, perfectly folded, and not one customer will go over to the table that has shirts thrown everywhere or jeans that are out of order. Nope. They want to touch the neatly folded shirts and tightly stacked and well organized jeans. It kinda reminds me of a kid in a candy store.

I just want to know as a customer…..does a million lights gleam in the area that has been recently cleaned? Or is it the fact that you just don’t want to be bother with digging through the unorganized mess? I mean trust me I get it? BUT if I came in for a white shirt and I needed to leave with a white shirt, I will pull from the unfolded pile and keep it moving.

WHY?

Right now I just want to know why? Why not allow a fully capable associate to help you find the item you are looking for? Why do you feel the need to mess up a perfectly folded table? Why lie when we ask you if you need help when you KNOW you do? Why tear up the table looking for a pair of jeans you know you’re not gonna buy? Why say you don’t want to mess up the table AS your messing up the table?! Most importantly why are you smiling at me??? Why, Why, Why?

Moral Of The Story

If an associate ask you if you need help and you say no and then proceed to mess up whatever area they were currently working in, they will probably go missing because they can’t fathomed to stand there and watch you tear apart the area they just started to clean or was almost done cleaning.

Also if you are EVER in this situation as a customer where the associate ask you if you need help, PLEASE let them. We know how to get the item you need without messing up all of our hard work. I mean, isn’t that what we’re here for? To help?

If you enjoyed this weeks rant make sure you look at last week! Retail Rant #15 – Fit Verses Print