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June 23, 2008
When giving a sale pitch, sometimes less is more...
I had a funny experience the other day when out shopping with my girlfriend.
And it all started with the promise of a golf club.
We walked into a big box electronics store the other day fully expecting to walk out with a new TV. We had looked it up online in advance. It turns out the TV was on sale and to make it even better they were giving away a free golf club with it. We knew exactly which model we wanted, someone basically had to take our money and help us lift it into the back of our vehicle.
Enter dufus sale guy...
I walked out of the store about a half-hour later with no TV and so annoyed that I basically refused to buy it there no matter what.
What should have been an easy process turned into a whole routine about how the manufacturers mess up the colour so their TV sticks out on the sales floor so we better have the tech guy come out and make it right, how it would be a good idea to get their "performance guarantee" plan (not to be confused with a mere extended warranty) to the tune of almost $500 and the best line was something like "what I told you there was a way that you could get this TV for free and I'll get my manager to throw in world peace, would that interest you?"
(huh?)
Puhleez...SHUT UP!
All this from someone who claimed he was non-commission.
Whatever...
Anyhow, after making an excuse to look at some other product outside the TV department we left the store.
We ended up going back to a place we had look awhile before. A locally owned electronics store called Audio Warehouse , owned and operated by guys that have been around for good long while in the business. These are guys that I remember saying hi to me when I'd go in there when I was 15 and didn't have enough money to buy more than a CD. People remember that kind of stuff and smart sales guys think ahead to the potential lifetime value of a customer.
Anyhow, they gladly matched the price and we left with a particular set of components that I was really happy with and felt like "our" system.
Even though it was a Sunday, that same owner guy who used to say hi to me 20 years ago was there at close and helped put the TV in the back of the vehicle. It sounds cheesy, but it's really nice to see that kind of thing these days.
And to top it all off. Guess what? The golf club is a manufacturer's promo, not the retailer's.
So I get the golf club after all. :)
Posted by Derek Leverington at 10:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack