Get Dressed!

I have always fancied a Rolex. Not in a massively obsessive way, and there are actually not many I would spunk a chunk of money on. Add to that the fact that I’m not the kind of person to save up every spare penny and register at a gazillion authorised dealers. My wanting one was a long-held thought that one day I might own one. A classic steel model. Nothing flashy. Nothing that screams at people across a room. Nothing gaudy or too blingsome, just a well-made, beautifully engineered object that would probably last longer than me…and would likely be worth as much should I decide sell it as it cost me to buy.

Over the years, I have come close to buying one several times. Very close. I have stood outside watch shops, looked in the window, walked away, and gone back again. On more than one occasion, I have thought, today is the day. In Madrid late last year I made an appointment to go buy a pink and black model, but the shop owner failed to show…twice. For whatever reason, it never quite happened.

And now it never will, I don’t think.

Not because Rolex suddenly stopped making a handful of watches I like, but because of a single encounter with a representative that made me feel like I did not belong in their shop.

I was in England and had a bit of time to kill. As you do, I wandered into a few watch shops in the shopping hell known as a mall in the States, and I’m really not sure what they are called in England – answers on a postcard, please. I enjoy looking at watches in the same way I enjoy looking at HiFi. I am interested in how things are made, how they evolve, and how different brands present themselves and the history behind watches and the brands. I obsess about stuff. Read all about the history and whatnot. Anyway, eventually I walked into a Rolex dealership and asked the simple question.

Do you have anything in stock?

Anyone who has spent even five minutes looking at Rolex will know that this is a perfectly reasonable question, and that the answer is usually no. The less expensive models, particularly in steel, are famously hard to come by. Waiting lists are long and often involve you having to build a relationship with the dealer. And that relationship might include you having to buy other things before you are deemed worthy of “getting the call.”

The woman behind the counter looked me up and down. Not in a subtle way but in a very deliberate kind of way. I’d like to suggest that she thought me somewhat the catch, but I’m guessing not. She then told me that they never get the less expensive models in and that the waiting list would be a year or more.

I asked again what they had in stock.

She told me, with a tone that managed to be both dismissive and somewhat arsey: “Precious metal ones.”

Then I asked which models specifically.

“Just the precious metal ones”, she repeated.

That was it. No attempt to engage me in conversation or ask me which ones I was interested in. No interest in why I might be there. No curiosity. No conversation. No fact find. Bugger all! I thanked her and walked out.

A short while later, I walked into a shop nearby and an hour or so later walked out with a Grand Seiko Evolution 9 Genbi Valley on my wrist. And I could not be happier with the watch or the experience of buying it.

The moral of that story is not that Rolex makes bad watches. They don’t. It is not even that Rolex dealers are universally dismissive and snobby. I am sure many are excellent, and I’ve sat in a good few to try different models and narrow it down to what I would eventually buy. The moral is much simpler and much more relevant to the audio world that I spend most of my time thinking about.

Never judge a book by its cover.

Every single person you engage with in a retail environment deserves your attention. If you do not give it to them, they will go somewhere else. And when they do, they may never come back.

That little preamble/ramble leads me, in a very roundabout way, finally, to HiFi.

As we move into a new year of HiFi shows, with events like the fab Bristol HiFi Show just around the corner and the equally excellent but very different Audio Show Deluxe close behind it, I find myself thinking more and more about what I expect when I walk into a room at a show. Yep, I consider the show to be a shop window. A retail experience.

Like it or not, HiFi is a luxury good. This opinion will not be new to anyone who reads my Sunday Thoughts on a regular basis. It might not feel like it to those of us who live it, but to the outside world, it absolutely is. Nobody needs a high-end HiFi system. People want them. They aspire to them. They save for them. In that sense, HiFi is not all that different from expensive timepieces, luxury cars, or high-end furniture. I’ve talked about this before. A lot!

And with luxury comes expectation. Expectation of the quality of the product, obviously. And, imporatantly in the context of this week’s Sunday Thoughts, the expectation of the level of service you receive. If I walked into a luxury watch shop, or any shop for that matter, to find old bottles of water lying around, discarded detritus from breakfast festooning the area, or boxes that the day’s stock arrived in lying dumped in a corner, I’d most likely walk out before most of me had got through the door.

I have written before about the importance of the retail experience, and I am not going to rehash old themes too much here. But HiFi shows are, for many people, the first real point of contact with a brand. For some visitors, a show might be the only time they ever experience certain products in the flesh. That matters. First impressions count. They count a LOT!

Get to the point, Stu, I can hear myself thinking… and you all yelling at your screens.

What I want to talk about is effort. Specifically, how much effort exhibitors put into making the experience at HiFi shows a positive one for visitors, and what I think those visitors deserve in return for paying to be there.

Let us be honest. HiFi shows, many of them held in hotel rooms, are not ideal listening environments. We all know this. Thin walls, crappy room dimensions, background chatter, and people coming and going. Because of that, I think it is even more important that exhibitors engage visitors in other ways.

The vast majority already do. Most exhibitors make a real effort to dress their rooms. Some aim to recreate a home listening space, with sofas, rugs, lamps, and shelves. Others go for a more luxurious retail feel. Some stack products high and are actively selling. None of these approaches is wrong. They all have their place, and they all speak to different audiences.

Where I think things go to crap is when rooms feel like an afterthought. And if you’ve made the effort to cart loads of kit and records to a show, the room really shouldn’t be an afterthought.

I no longer think it is acceptable for paying visitors (or non-paying visitors if the show is free, for that matter) to walk into a room where equipment has simply been plonked on a table, cables trailing everywhere, no information available, and a single person acting as the guardian of the room while playing their favourite tracks.

The experience needs to be better than that.

A HiFi show visitor has paid to be there. They have probably travelled. They may have booked a hotel. They are giving you their time. That deserves respect.

Dressing a room does not have to be expensive. It does not need to be extravagant. A bit of thought goes a long way. Clean surfaces. Thoughtful layout. Clear branding. Fresh leaflets on chairs if that is your thing. Literature to take away. Detritus disposed of! Something that says, we care about how this feels to you.

And perhaps most importantly, acknowledge people.

Say hello to everyone who walks into the room. You do not have to launch into a sales pitch. Just acknowledge them. Make eye contact. A simple hello and a smile do wonders. When they leave, thank them for taking the time to visit.

This sounds basic, but it is remarkable how often it doesn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, the vast majority of exhibitors do say hello and goodbye to us, but I do sit there and cringe when I see others not getting that same treatment.

At most shows we attend, even with a team of people, we struggle to get around every room, even if there have been press days and the show lasts all weekend. A visitor there for the day has no chance of seeing everything at most shows. They are making choices constantly. Which room do I go into? Which do I give a miss? Which do I stay in for ten minutes, and which do I leave after thirty seconds? And people in the bar at lunchtime chat. They discuss what was good, what was mediocre, which rooms felt welcoming, and which rooms felt a bit dismissive.

Those decisions about which rooms to visit are often made before a single note is played on the system.

Yes, it is all about the sound. I can already hear that being said. And yes, sound matters. Of course it does. But sound does not exist in a vacuum. The context in which it is presented matters too.

When there are so many luxury products all competing for attention, brands need to up their game. They need to think beyond the system and think about the whole experience. Think about the punters and what their expectations are.

Just as with my watch story, people remember how you and the space made them feel.

They remember whether they felt welcome. They remember whether they felt judged. They remember whether anyone seemed pleased to see them. They remember how the room was dressed. And, of course, they remember how the room sounded. And those memories stick with a person and influence their buying decisions down the line.

HiFi shows are a brilliant opportunity for brands, dealers, and exhibitors. They are a chance to tell stories, to explain philosophy, to build relationships, and to invite people into your world of audio. Wasting that opportunity by doing the bare minimum feels like a missed trick in my book. A missed opportunity to engage a potential client. A missed trick to make a sale. A waste of time and money from both punters’ and exhibitors’ perspectives.

Nobody expects perfection, and nobody expects every room to be a magical experience, but a baseline standard of care and attention should be absolutely expected and absolutely delivered.

Because once someone walks out of your room, just like me walking out of that Rolex dealer, they may never come back.

And do you know what, they don’t keep that feeling of disappointment to themselves!