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There have to be some perks to being a temporary refugee in the US , so I obviously couldn’t resist visiting the local Best Buy store with company credit card in hand.
I found myself intrigued by the iPad display, and it didn’t take long for the first (of many) irritatingly friendly Best Buy’ assistants’ to ask me how I was doing. Aside from my perplexity about their interest in my health, I had a number of questions about the iPad, in particular wanting to know whether it would be able to browse pictures on a NAS device in a Windows network.
“Sure, definitely” he confidently replied. When I asked him how, he reached for the display model and started scrolling through settings, brightness, passwords and so on. “Hmmm. Not too sure where that is.” he eventually admitted.
When I asked whether a USB memory stick could be connected, he confidently pointed to the headphone socket.
The next ‘assistant’ explained that there was no way to browse the contents of a NAS device or attach a USB device.
The third friendly ‘assistant’ was more interested where I bought my watch from and whether it was cool.
Here’s the point. The people employed by Best Buy can’t hope to know everything about the thousands of products they have in store. They can’t be expected to be knowledgeable about CF cards, iPads, mice, PCs and NAS devices.
But the problem is that they know almost nothing about almost everything. The result? I can’t trust anything they say; zero credibility means zero trust.
The independent software developer, by contrast, knows their product better than anyone else in the world.
If they sell network monitoring software, they’ll know networks and the needs of their customers like no-one else.
If they sell PC optimisation software, they’ll understand the intricacies of Registry Fragmentation, DLL conflicts and memory leaks.
We live in an age of hype, where many companies are prepared to stretch the truth beyond the point of distortion. We’re so used to trying to filter hype from facts that as buyers we’re more sceptical than ever before.
Yet if visitors to your website recognise your expertise, see that you understand their needs and truly are experts in your field, then you’re making the right impression. And you’re one step closer to their credit cards.
Unlike Best Buy.
Knowledgeable and approachable sales people are essential to keeping customers happy. It sounds like Best Buy has the approachable part down…but is that because Best Buy is hiring the average Joe?
I was at Best Buy over the weekend and asked if there was a foreign film section, the kind employee made a funny face and said, “Maybe in drama?” And that wasn’t even a technical question. Haha
I share your frustration with a company that employs people and fails to educate them about their products and services. I recently blogged about the issues Blockbuster is still suffering with due to poor consideration of their customers.
Great blog. Right on.