The Case of the Inexperienced Employee- Dumb Marketing Move

I was in a Borders bookstore yesterday looking for a children's series which I specifically needed books #30 and above. However, they were missing numbers 30,31, and 32. I called my daughter-in-law and found the books needed to be read in order...

MISTAKE 1

I asked a store staff (Asst. Manager) to tell me if there was any inventory on #30. She told me if "I" didn't have the name..."she" couldn't look it up. I told her that she should try searching under the author. Of course ALL the numbers books came up.. I was holding six books in my hand numbers 33-38 at $ 7.99 each...

MISTAKE 2

She told me they were out of stock on the three books I couldn't find and I asked her if she could order them for me.

I have seen signs in the store saying they would order books not in inventory.



MISTAKE 3

Promptly after asking her if she could order them she told me she was very busy and that I could go to the corporate website and order them myself (at home).

MISTAKE 4

I laughed and actually asked if she realized that she had just asked me to leave the store. She didn't understand, so I handed her all the books I had in my hand..... and left. I'm sure she'll be telling someone about that idiot who was being unreasonable, but I'm sure it was the first thing I did right in the whole interaction.

CEO Lesson Learned : Don't hire cheap inexperienced help by giving them inappropriate titles. Yes, payroll drops, and yes, they are stupid enough to work without benefits that a real employee would want/need. Truth be known. Your sales goes down in direct relationship to the quality of the sales and sales service staff.......

Garbage in--- Garbage out!




Pete Ticali, Director
MLA Training Center
masterylearningarts@gmail.com





**Editors Note**

Customer service is a big part of marketing because employees are building relationships with customers, as opposed to a customer viewing advertisement on television or a large billboard. A company can potentially lose a customer due to the fact that one individual will more than likely tell ten or more people about their bad experience. Management neglecting to properly train and analysis employee interaction with customers can be a costly decision.