I remembered this story after reading this thread over at the Octopus Overlords gaming forums.
I Walked into Electronics Boutique back in 2003 (nearly a year after the game Dungeon Siege was released, by Microsoft... which means a very wide release, it's important) and was browsing the PC games section, which was much larger back then. The store was very busy and there was a guy standing right in front of me browsing the same shelf.
A clerk came over and asked the man if he needed help finding something. The man asked if they had any copies of "Dungeon Siege". The clerk replied...
"I've never heard of it. We don't carry it."
I said, "Excuse me" and without moving my feet, reached between the clerk and the man to the shelf, where I pulled out one of their six copies of Dungeon Siege. I handed it to the man and said, "There you go." He thanked me and asked me if it was good. I gave him a quick review. The game is pretty and has a great soundtrack by Jeremy Soule and it's easy to get into. On the down side it almost plays itself and it gets boring and repetitive quite quickly. He said that sounded exactly like the light couple of hours of entertainment he was looking for, thanked me again and went over to the counter to buy it.
The clerk looked at me and said...
"Can I help you find something?"
I turned and walked out of the store.
If you work in retail sales, let me give you a bit of advice. Nobody cares whether you've "heard of it" or not. If you don't know, say "Let me look it up on the computer." or something. Anything. We didn't come to the store to hear your vaunted opinions on whether something exists or not and whether it's worth buying or not. We came to buy something. So shut up and sell it to us.
I went into an MDG computer store last year, with their flyer in my hand and the sales people swore up and down that the flyer was a misprint. They they had the nerve to tell me (I built my last computer from parts and my first job was as a sales clerk at Compucentre) that the PC I was interested in could not be connected to the Internet.
What? No seriously, what? I can connect my left sock to the Internet with the right equipment. Are these people on drugs?
I got the manager's attention and asked him about the flyer special and told him what I wanted. He refused to look at the flyer and said...
"I've never heard of that. We don't have that."
I turned around and walked out of the store.
I don't shop at Electronics Boutique or MDG any more. It's the fault of the sales clerks. And these stores wonder why they're losing customers to online retailers? Yes, I bought my last PC online. And it was a wonderful experience.
Nobody told me I couldn't connect my PC to the Internet.
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2 comments:
I want into Home Depot (more like Home Despot). I needed a plane so that I could plane off a bit of a door that was sticking. Stupid me thought it was a fairly well known tool.
I went into the small tools area (where they should be) and asked the clerk where I could find a plane. I was told they were seasonal (HUH? - can you only do DIY stuff at a specific time of the year?).
I toodled off, found the item, took it back to the clerk and informed him where in his department he could find this item.
"I can connect my left sock to the Internet..."
ha!
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