Squeezin’ the Juice
by SVEA SAUER

Sometimes we become so saturated with the commentaries of experts about the failure of the economy, we overlook many of the commonplace reasons. Every day we experience poor service and while we are being told that in order for the economy to recover money must be put in circulation, all kinds of petty irritations prevent the buyer from spending.

The seller complains there are no jobs and people have no money. Although this is true up to a point, he misses the most important way to stimulate sales, and that is service. Instead, he lays off personnel, resorts to time consuming forms on the internet, makes himself unapproachable by the customer, adds sub-menus to his telephone answering machine, sells cheap goods from China with assembly instructions in Greek, eliminates home delivery, provides no chairs for customers to rest or fountains from which to drink, and never, never thinks to have a design engineer plan every step of the customer’s buying experience for the customer’s satisfaction.

The whole world of selling, from the smallest business to the largest corporation has changed from service to the customer to convenience for the seller.

With modern technology being the answer to all problems, the seller has bound himself to concepts that are bad for business. Who needs employees to talk to the customer when a machine can direct all questions to ready-made answers or even determine what the customer may ask? Who needs anyone to wait on a customer when there are racks with signs? Who needs to worry about the waste of the customer’s time if there is a way for the seller to save his own? Who needs to make sure the few employees are not talking to their friends or sending messages while the customer stands around and waits? In today’s market, the buyer is the low man on the totem pole. If markdown sales and advertising do not stimulate buying, then the economy is at fault. If money needs to circulate, let the government worry about it.

Customer service has become a joke in every area of business where the customer intends to spend  or invest money. In each step of the process, the burden is placed on the buyer. Americans are known for their ingenuity. Unfortunately, ingenuity in gimmicks has replaced service. In consequence, money is not circulating as it should.

Fortunately, ingenuity is not limited to America. One store, wildly popular here, has chosen to use ingenuity to hire experts to plan every stage of a customer’s experience. A specific market has been targeted and catered to. The products sold are designed especially for that market. The whole process of buying its products, from parking the car to providing easy access, comfort while shopping, delivery of goods, assembly information and customer complaints, is concentrated on convenience. The store is crowded with customers contrary to the empty aisles seen in stores which depend mainly on “markdown” sales.

Yes, recovery in the marketplace depends on money circulating, but don’t expect it without doing some planning to please the customer.

sveasauer@gmail.com