Do You Actually Want My Money?
Following my recent Sunday Thoughts pieces about the way music brings people together and the joys of listening to other people bellowing into their phones in airport lounges, I received an email from Sheldon in Canada. He began by saying he might be lucky enough to squeeze in another couple of motorbike rides before the Canadian winter really gets going, which sounds lovely until you remember that a Canadian winter isn’t so much a season as an attempt by the weather to kill you. He’d enjoyed the articles, particularly the memories of music discovery being a shared experience rather than the largely solitary pursuit it can sometimes be today. He also said his blood pressure had risen just thinking about a world full of people wandering around yaddering into smartphones, so clearly my Sunday Thoughts are now providing both entertainment and a basic cardiovascular stress test.n You’re welcome!
However, the main reason for his email was to tell me about his attempt to buy what he described as his “last” pair of loudspeakers. He is 64 and acknowledged that this claim may be slightly delusional, though I’m in no position to cast aspersions. In HiFi terms, a “last” purchase usually means the last one until something else catches your eye, a manufacturer announces a new model, or you decide the whole system needs rebuilding from the ground up. His proposed budget was somewhere between 2,500 and 6,500 Canadian dollars. This might not be the sort of five- or six-figure purchase that has a retailer laying out rose petals from the car park to the demonstration room, but it’s still a decent chunk of money and, you would imagine, a sale worth pursuing.
Unfortunately, pursuing a sale didn’t appear to be especially high on anyone’s list of priorities, judging by his email. To be honest, I was really surprised at how calm Sheldon was in his email!
He lives outside a small city with only one proper audio shop, while the greater retail delights of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal are all more than two hours away. This meant he couldn’t simply pop into six dealers during his lunch break. Any audition required a bit of planning, some driving and, presumably, the hope that the dealer at the other end was at least vaguely interested in selling him something. Spoiler alert…they weren’t.
He emailed the local shop to ask whether it stocked a particular brand and which models it had available. There was no response. Perhaps the email disappeared into the same mysterious void that contains odd socks, missing remote controls, and my specs. He then contacted another shop, a little over an hour away, asking about three brands it carried and which models were available to demonstrate. The shop replied that it had two of the three loudspeakers he wanted to hear, so he told them he would arrive at noon on Tuesday. When he got there, the person who had answered the email wasn’t working, and the person who was working told him that neither of the two loudspeakers was available. There was also a scissor lift being used to work on the HVAC system (I had to look this up, but it’s short for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning), which isn’t generally considered the ideal acoustic backdrop for a successful loudspeaker listening session. At this point, I reckon I’d have been incandescent with rage and would have been inclined to shove a pair of speakers where I wanted to shove the lady’s smartphone in my last Sunday Thoughts article.
Next, he emailed a Toronto retailer about two brands listed on its website. The reply consisted of a single line informing him, “We don’t have them.” He wrote back asking whether the shop had any alternative suggestions or recommendations, but received no further response. He then decided that email was clearly too unreliable and tried the radical approach of telephoning a shop instead. He explained that he lived a couple of hours away and wanted to plan his visit properly, only to be told that the retailer operated by appointment (a detail apparently not mentioned anywhere on its website) and that the person responsible for booking appointments was currently on another call. He left his name, telephone number and details of the loudspeakers he wanted to hear, and was assured that someone would call him back. You’ve probably already worked out what happened next: absolutely bugger all.
He even replied to an advert on an established audio marketplace, where he had previously bought and sold more than 25 items without a hitch. The seller was only ten minutes away, the loudspeakers were right, and the price was right, but once again there was no reply. How Sheldon hasn’t been on the international news for exploding in a fit of pique and running amok, I have no idea.
By this stage, he began to wonder whether audio retailers carefully screen prospective clients and whether he had somehow been found wanting. Perhaps there’s a secret financial and psychological assessment taking place behind the scenes, and only those who demonstrate sufficient commitment are invited to progress to the next level and receive the sacred dealer funny handshake.
Should he have chased all these people again? Perhaps, but why should he have to? He was the person prepared to travel and spend thousands of dollars. THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS! He wasn’t asking anyone to donate a kidney or drive through the night to hand-deliver a pair of loudspeakers. He was asking whether products advertised by businesses selling HiFi equipment were available to buy, and he wanted to spend THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS.
In the end, he repositioned the loudspeakers already in his listening room and decided he might already own his “last” pair after all. His search cost him little more than some petrol, while several retailers managed to lose a potential sale without having to endure the inconvenience of actually speaking to a customer. Congratulations to the retailers on missing out on THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS!
The whole thing got me thinking about some retail service in a wider sense, and I’m going to emphasise the word “some” here. There are some superb retailers out there, in HiFi and elsewhere, who understand their products, respond to enquiries, listen to their customers and work very hard to provide a genuinely excellent experience. Needless to say, I’ve ranted on about this before, but I thought it might be useful to emphasise again!
Independent retailers in particular often work long hours, operate on tighter margins than customers may realise and deal with an endless parade of punters who take up an afternoon auditioning products before buying them online for £4.50 less. I understand why that can make even the most enthusiastic salesperson feel slightly jaded, and folk who do this latter trick to HiFi retailers deserve derision and perhaps a sound kicking!
However, there does appear to have been a decline in basic service in some parts of the retail sector. We’ve all encountered the shop where it feels as though the staff are doing us an enormous favour by allowing us to purchase something from them. You walk in prepared to spend money and are greeted with the warmth normally reserved for someone who has arrived to piss on their chips. If you ask a question, you get a sigh and that look. If you ask to see a product, the response suggests it is stored beneath a sleeping tiger (too early?) that must now be disturbed solely because of your unreasonable demands.
I’ve never subscribed to the concept that “the customer is always right”, because anyone who has dealt with the public knows that the customer is sometimes spectacularly wrong. However, the customer should at least be acknowledged as an existing human being who may wish to exchange money (sometimes THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS) for goods or services. That’s how retail works, isn’t it?
Responding to an email doesn’t require a week-long training course or an advanced qualification in customer relations. If you don’t have the product, say so. If you can suggest an alternative, do that; it’s in your bleeding interests. If you promise to telephone someone back, make a note and telephone them back. Do your job! Even a short message saying, “We don’t currently have that model available, but we’ll contact you when we do,” tells the prospective customer that their enquiry has been read and that their potential business matters. Silence tells them to look elsewhere…and they will. And they will spend their THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS elsewhere…or not at all!
The retail marketplace is ferociously competitive. If one business doesn’t provide decent service, another one will, and that other business may not be in the same town, country or even on the same continent. Customers now have more ways to spend their money than ever before, and loyalty isn’t something a retailer can demand simply because it has been trading from the same premises since 1066 and William the Bastard once bought a lute from them – it’s depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry; go look!
This is all particularly relevant to specialist HiFi retail. A good dealer offers something that an anonymous online warehouse can’t: knowledge, demonstrations, advice, system matching, installation and ongoing support. They can stop you buying the wrong product, introduce you to something you hadn’t considered and help you get the best from what you eventually choose. A good retailer is worth their weight in diesel. That expertise has genuine value, and good dealers deserve to be supported. However, customers can only discover that value if someone answers the email, returns the call and ensures the loudspeakers they’ve driven an hour to hear are actually in the building when they have already said they are.
Some retailers complain that the internet is killing traditional shops, but every ignored enquiry nudges another customer towards buying online. You can’t complain that people no longer value personal service while simultaneously refusing to provide any. The curious thing is that exceptional service doesn’t always require extravagant gestures. Most people aren’t expecting champagne, a red carpet and a small string quartet performing beside the demonstration system… nice as all that is… They want accurate information, honest advice and the sense that their business is appreciated. It’s not rocket surgery!
Perhaps modern life has made us all less patient. Perhaps staffing levels are lower, inboxes are fuller, and everyone is expected to do three jobs at once. Emails do occasionally go astray, messages do get forgotten, and stock systems aren’t always accurate. Any one of the experiences described by Sheldon could be excused as an unfortunate oversight, but when the same pattern repeats across several businesses, it begins to look less like bad luck and more like a culture.
Ultimately, if somebody is actively trying to give you several THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS, pounds or euros, it shouldn’t feel like they’re attempting to gain admission to an exclusive private club. They shouldn’t have to chase you repeatedly, prove themselves worthy or stand outside the shop holding up a handwritten sign saying, “PLEASE LET ME BUY SOMETHING.” Sheldon, if you do this outside any of the shops you mention and film it, I will bestow a HiFi PiG Knighthood upon your shoulders!
Fortunately for Sheldon, moving his existing loudspeakers appears to have solved his problem. He may have found his “last” pair without spending another cent, which is good news for him but perhaps less good news for the various retailers who couldn’t be arsed to respond.
Stu
