Here are some ways to give it.

• Make things to go smoothly – If there are hassles things can go bad fast.
• Give them timely responses (not waiting) – Make sure you connect with them as fast as possible, they will appreciate it and you will stand out from the crowd.
• Show great courtesy (the best service wins) – Manners matter.
• Respect, their views values and ideals – That does not mean you have to change yours to meet theirs just respect them.
• Give them clear explanations in their language style – Speak at their pace using their tone etc.
• Keep them informed – We have ordered that for you, we will call when it comes in…
• Acknowledge them – Hello – Someone will be with you soon.
• Listen to them – Active listening means you pay full attention to what they are saying, be there (in the moment as they say) so they feel as though you are focused on them

If your organisation is doing this part of customer service  right, then you have a chance to impress people and provide them with what they want, solutions to their needs and wants. Now that’s another story…

I was out shopping today and started to see a few, “not quite Walmart’ people” but some a bit too close for comfort. Then a few who were the opposite, I started to put two and two together and thought… “Isn’t it interesting how the looks convey so much”. What I was now seeing was confidence, poise, pride, conviction, energy, warmth, integrity, strength, trust, beauty… “Guess which group this was!”

While on the other side there was, sloth, lack of care, little confidence, an unruly ‘dis-ease’, coldness etc.

It then struck me, it was a reflection of the shopping experience I had been having recently. Some businesses were, poised and confident while others, uneasy and fragile. Wow what a comparison, on the one hand people and the other hand businesses, yet there was a correlation to the way I felt about them both, a sort of emotional connection, ethereal and subtle but somehow strong at the same time.

Well that’s how I feel sometimes with some businesses I observe. The businesses I love are the ones who are consistently on top of their game. The ones who take care to present well, keep up with the times without following the latest fad. The ones who have pride and professionalism without an air of arrogance.

One quick example, I parked near a shop which sells Chef’s essentials, it’s open to the public so I took the chance to browse (I’m an avid cook so hey it was a great fit). On entering the store, one of the staff (although serving others) nodded and said “hello” I reciprocated and continued to browse.

As I went further into the store another service professional approached and said “It looks to me as though you are happy to browse, unless there is something specific you my like assistance with?” I smiled broadly and said “I’m quite happy thanks you read my interest well!” She smiled back reassuringly.

I wandered some more and selected a few things which took my fancy, on arriving at the counter, I was assisted with some light chatter and some ideas about one of the items I had selected “You can also use that for…” it was welcome info. I felt confident to ask a few silly questions without the store people rolling their eyes and I was met with some great responses which answered my queries well and helped me feel as though they were not silly questions after all.

I left the store pleased with the purchases and information I sought, nice… Mind you I have had the opposite on more than one occasion. Oh and by the way the store was well stocked (range and qty of each item) and beautifully presented, with items clearly labelled with price and other details.

To get back to the original idea of the post, I reflected on a not so good experience in a store earlier in the day, not enough staff, taking too long to serve and trying to find what I wanted in their crowded space was annoying, If I did not want the item so much I would have gone elsewhere. I walked out of there with a sense of disdain and grumpiness. Mind you this store had started out well a few years back but is fading off my radar the more I go back and suffer the little things which annoy me.

Stunning looks, but what happened? Take the time to figure out what’s happening in your business so  you can prevent this from happening and keep on top of your game.

What does it cost your business and how should you handle it?

Being a service nut I like the way it can make your business stand out from the crowd, compliance or not… so handling guarantees becomes a major issue you solidly stand behind, giving every customer ‘peace of mind’ in knowing you will be there with them if ANY issue arises.

Over the period of a year or three it can be easy to look at the cost of supplying services to fulfill your guarantee obligations to keep your ‘customers happy and fulfill your legal obligations. In the intervening ‘learning phase’ it may be a case of  guessing how much guarantees might cost. Here are a few points you might consider in the process.

• Is there a consistent percentage of sales which you can attribute to guarantees?
• What is the time taken by staff in providing guarantees?
• What is the cost of providing the staff to do these tasks?
• Is this time significant enough to impact on other aspects of  your business… e.g. making profits from std sales.
• How much will the cost eat into your profit margin?
• What will you need to add to your operating costs to take into account this ‘cost of doing business’?
• How will the cost variation affect your average dollar sale and will that still make your business competitive?

I’m sure there will be other questions to ask in the process as you explore guarantees and their impacts further. The main thing is to be very mindful that guarantees have a cost, learn to live with that and allow for it in your forward planning.

So here, take a lok at more weird and whacky ways to “love the customer!”

Concentrate on the customer, figure out  what they need – want – love – aspire to – entertain them – quiz them – excite them – prod and poke them! (careful!) – cause them to giggle – get VERY curious about them (In the right way…)

• Thrill them with a fresh approach or two to loyalty
• Tell them things (good things, bad things, things they want to hear and get engaged with)
• Wrangle with them (Perhaps their minds.) – Massage them (metaphorically perhaps)
• Tell them to love you / cause them to love you!
• Care about them intensely but don’t tell them
• Invigorate their souls
• Cause them to blink (for the right reasons)
• Feed them deeply satisfying nourishment
• Talk to them seductively (think more metaphors…)
• Tenderly hold their hand/s
• Cause them to blush (by doing Ok things…)
• Give them a passionate embrace
• Dance with them
• Know their fears
• Know what they love
• Develop personal profiles of them (not stalking!)
• Know why they love your organization
• Keep them warm and comfortable…
• Readily and effectively tantalize them
• Get quirky with them (like they are experiencing a Cirque Du Soleil clown act!)
• Thrill their senses
• Knock them down with a feather
• Build them up with kindness
• Awe inspire them with a sensational view
• Throw windows of exceptional opportunity at them
• Link them to things they will love (think strategic alliances here)
• Give them a recipe they will love or at least might love it if they try it
• Cause them to cry with splendid delight
• Caress their emotions/soul with every ounce of passion you can muster
• In short, build the relationship with them, because people buy from people they like/love.

There, now go love your customers, your bottom line will appreciate it. One things for sure though, your competition will not be able to keep up if you get started.

Although the other posts offered insights into Customer Service people and some aspects they should look out for the following thought came to mind.

“When it comes to sales (esp business to business) it’s not about simply waiting to hear ‘no’ from your prospect, it’s more about finding out what people want and providing that for them.”

Many sales people are trained to be persistent and go for a minimum of 5 no’s… when they get that far they generally get the feeling the first few might have been a smoke screen the next few could be the way forward to open up the chance of a sale. I am suggesting there’s more to it than that, and the offering of other ‘things’ could be the start to a long term deal maker. Lets tackle an example.

If you sell copiers, how would you go about providing other ‘things’ for the prospect? Lets take a look at what I mean, if you sell copiers and not tooth brushes then it would be silly to try and sell tooth brushes… however if you can assist the person to evaluate their current copier situation then you might be solving a problem they didn’t even see before.  Or if you are able to provide them with information on a topic of interest, you might just build more rapport (people often buy from people they like… greater rapport means a greater connection is possible.)

I think all good long term relationships start off slowly and develop from there, if you are selling bigger ticket items then you might want to make the connection to your prospects, customers and clients work for you. In my first article in this series I outlined some ways a Customer Service Executive might go about it.

Go ahead and do some planning to make more of the right connections to more of the right people, instead of simply churning through the ‘no’s’ to try and get to a yes, because you might miss a future customer if you lose a prospect this early in the process.

The organisation you work for has done some shuffling of titles etc. Or perhaps they are about to hire a new person (you) for a role in Customer Relations – they want you to manage it… Let’s say they are giving you ‘some scope’ to develop the role and or the department and let’s say they are serious and want to really wow the customers, love them so to speak. How will you go about it? Here’s ten thoughts from my perspective.

1. Create an environment in the organisation from top to bottom where the Customer is King (it’s not new but it is still a great idea) no customers – no business right… so it should make solid sense.
2. Get clear about the intended results – more sales from more visits of existing customers – or higher level sales from existing customers? (Hey did you notice I’m talking about existing customers and not new ones, they’re the role of the marketing dept…)
3. To what level can you ‘schmooze’ them? If you sell luxury or expensive items it will be very different to lower value items (or it should be…)
4. Plan like crazy – implement the same way. A great plan will beg to be implemented, so take a look at the plan and set out what will happen for the year (once in place the tweaking should be fairly easy).
5. Develop a budget plan, see if you can get the budget to go up based on results more sales more slice of the pie to build the relationships further.
6. Customer loyalty plan – sounds nice what does it really mean – I think it’s more part of the relationship and a guide as something to aim towards, not so much a plan on it’s own.
7. Exceptionally train everyone who comes into contact with Customers, remind them, support them and allow them to give the customers service brilliance…
8. Watch customers dealing with your business and go crazy over any and or ALL barriers to them being able to do business with ease. Just watch them for a while, any squirming, wincing, annoyance of any kind do something about it NOW!
9. Ask yourself (and the rest of the team) how many ways can we woo the Customers so they love us and want to come back… perhaps search the web for ways to connect with customers you might not think of (go for weird, you can always cut back.)
10. Scream “Service – Service –SERVICE!” at the start of every training session on service and at the start of each day (just before the customers start to buy) and ram home the message often (perhaps whisper it quietly to staff with a grumpy disposition).

Now take massive action on all of the above and give the people what they want, your unconditional love! Sure it might cost a few $$ to do, but the end result should be very well worth it. Oh and one last thing, do not tell people you love them, just show it by brilliant action and example,.. They will tell you they love being loved and that’s a far sight better!

If you land this role ask for clarification on a few points, just to see if they are on the same wavelength…

• What do they really mean – Customer Relationship – ?
• What’s the budget to do this? (Not including wages…)
• How many customers are there?
• How important to the business are they? (No brainer! It should be priceless!)
• What will they let you do to build and maintain the relationship…
• In the organisations mission, vision, values and beliefs, is there much about the customers? If not why not…
• How did the title come about? (They should have a quaint story for this part…)
• What resources are you allocated?
• What has been done in the past?
• Does the organisation have an strategic partners
• Is the aim to truly and unconditionally love them?
• The person you will answer to, do they know all this and fully support it? (Better hope so!)
• Does anyone in the organisation know the lifetime value of the customer?
• What is the average dollar sale and is the aim to make that rise or the number of visits by a customer rise?
• What level of tech support will you be given? (Database, admin support, access to the website etc…)
• To what level do they want the relationship built?
• Will they expect you to do other (non customer focused) tasks… and how much time will that take up?
• Do they have key performance indicators for this role… what are they
• Will you have open access to the data on turn over, number of customers through the door etc?
• Will you have to train others on how to work brilliantly with customers?
• What previous training has been provided for the organisation in customer service – relationship building?
• What promo products have been used to thrill customers?
• How often are the customers currently contacted per year?
• Is the organisation worthy of excellent customer loyalty? (does it look great etc…)

Notice all these things are about exploring customer relationship excellence…  and how the role you first accepted might not be quite what you thought it was but could be so much more… I thought you might notice that. If you have a keen eye you will have noticed this article is similar to the one just after it (inspiration comes from some interesting sources!)

Many thanks for the phone call recently, I note the last CRM person did not last long in the role… Pity, like you, he sounded  good on the phone, sent me a business card and an intro letter. He also asked me how my car was going. Nice…

Slight problem, the only time anyone has been in touch, has been to send me a Christmas card or to let me know the CRM person has altered.

Sure you did ask if I was thinking of upgrading my vehicle… (nope but I figure you get that kind of ‘smoke screen’ from a lot of people).

I figure you probably make such a lot of calls and get so little from it, iot would look good for your weekly stats however. The good thing about your call is it set me thinking, (And thanks for the nudge!) here is what I thought.

Nice that you called, but where’s the add on, the incentive, the relationship building, the “Hey next time you’re near here drop in for a coffee.”

Ok, so being the generous soul I am, may I give  you a few free chunks of info on how this could all alter.

• The email program your dealership has is okay, but can it be tweaked to take into consideration my interests and let me know about things related to my interests? – Maybe
• Can you send me a birthday card, a hand written one? – Yes
• Can you chat to me about my interests and send me little snippets you might find (other than via email) ? – Maybe
• Can you send me updates on programs your organisation is supporting? (Oh, so you did send me something once… er… what was it again?) short answer… Yes
• Could you share stories of other people using the same type of quirky little vehicle I buzz about in town in… er yeah!
• Could you have an in store tea and bickies session to chat about the latest version of the quirky little car, and developments in the future like an electric version? – Maybe
• How about adding a photo of yourself on the intro letter so I can find you in the dealership and say hi, and thanks for the info, the invites, the great stuff the company is doing? -  Easily, so that’s a yes
• Maybe you could ring me and invite me to be surveyed at a time which suits me… to find out what I love (and possibly hate) about the vehicle. – Yes (I’m a sucker for a good survey!)
• Perhaps you could find a whole bunch of ways to build the relationship with me and others like me, ask me when my anniversary is or any one of a number of events which are of value in my life so you can assist me to celebrate these events and feel like the relationship with you is a special one. – Yes
• How about the anniversary of when I bought that special quirky little car from you, how about we celebrate that too! – YES

So take that to your team and brainstorm a few more ideas, so you can blow me away with excellence, sweep me off my feet and find out what I have been up to lately.

Sure there are a few maybes and a few ‘yes’s’ but it’s a whole lot more to go on than simply one phone call a year and one card… BLEH!

So take a look at your card and see your title, ‘Customer Relationship Executive’ now build that relationship like you mean it. NOTE! The highest level of any relationship is  unconditional LOVE… so get on with the role of loving me, because I might just want what you, have and it could be sooner than you think!

There are customers who need to have detailed knowledge of what’s taking place and others who don’t care too much about the details. For instance, if the customer is hiring a tradesperson or a specialist to do a task. The ‘detailed’ customer can feel much more at ease if they have some information to appreciate the complexities of the task to be completed.

If you find you have customers who end up complaining about how long a task takes, why it costs so much… or any one of a number of other pointers to ‘moan’ about, then perhaps they need education. Especially if it is a recurring problem and creates negative stress for your team!

It could be an information sheet which answers their queries BEFORE they become an issue, a bunch of FAQ’s could be a starting point and then build from there. Or it could be a series of points woven into a sales spiel which lets them know about issues which may arise.

Either way someone needs to educate these challenging customers so it creates less heat for your team and gives the customers peace of mind in knowing they have some answers before they even have questions.

It must be hard to be in the one spot taking calls and saying the same thing all day, every day and then directing people. The challenge is doing it in a way which makes the company sound professional every time.

Here are just some of the things I found.

• The company name was not clear – Some companies have strange names, okay so make sure you say it in such a way that people don’t have to re ask the name to make sure they have the right number. Mumbling, a quiet voice a poorly directed phone hand-piece, speaking too fast or an accent make it very hard to understand.
• The person’s name not clear – For all the above reasons the name of the person answering the phone is not clear, as the caller it’s hard to refer to them by name if you can’t understand it.
• What do I do next? – Ok they figure out you are calling to chat to a specific person who does not want to get sold to. They have been told not to pass you on, but with a few ‘deft words’ and a touch of rapport building, voom “I was in the door” due mainly to them not really knowing how to deal with calls out of the norm. Training would help I’m sure.
• Being a great gatekeeper can be an art, but not that difficult if you do some research – I was amazed at how easy it was to get through at times to the right Dept or the right person in a flash. If the company has a policy of not letting their people get tied up with inbound sales call then figure out a method to stop the callers in their tracks. A privacy policy of not letting callers know the name of any staff from a chat to the receptionist is a great way to go.
• Being on hold while waiting – It’s a necessity some times sure, but to get the obligatory recorded advert at the start or a “press this button for sales..” became frustrating. I want a person on the phone who can direct me fast.

Have you rung in to your business… have you had a few friends ring in… what did they find, what was the experience like. Now ask, what can we do to make a change for the better and get the system right, so the caller can feel like they are dealing with top notch professionals.

There were staff sitting and standing about texting or chatting on their phones, some CLEARLY bored out of their brains.

Dear Boss… Tell them not to do it please!

I was embarrassed for them and I was a spectator.

If you take a stall at a trade show, you are on show, the business is on show… Therefore make sure you do the right thing and present professionally and do it well.

Firstly, these people may have had no idea what to do when they got to the show, they may have been told to “Turn up and chat to people.”

Secondly, if you feel you must text or email people use a lap top or an i pad so you look like you are doing business, or don’t do it at all.

I fully appreciate it can be a hard task to be at a trade show and be attentive all day long, it really is a draining experience.

May I suggest.

These people need to have something to do,

• Set the situation up so they have appointments with people before the event, book some prospects to drop in and see what’s going on.
• Make it clear about the things they can and can not do while on the stand texting for more than 30 secs is a no no!
• Ensure you use a friendly branding expert to have creative ways to work with the people walking by the stand. It may be a giveaway you actively hand to the people, get the chance to chat to them and find out more, qualify them to see if they are a fit to what you have on offer, if they are then get their details and reward them with a better handout, this time with solid “remember us” branding on it.
• Perhaps involve the people in a survey.
• Consider other novel approaches to create interest. A juggler, a celebrity… make it so the people walking by want to stop, engage them, qualify and go form there.
• Just because a person is not a prospect now, does not mean they can’t change if they move companies or start a different business later on.

Simply put, having people just sitting or standing about mindlessly not engaged in “working the crowd” are a liability, not an asset. perceptions and image are often paramount to ensuring your business puts it’s best foot forward.

Oh and to finish, “To the man who was so rude as to ignore myself and my friend by looking straight past us once he had figured out we were of no use to him, think again. The scan tag telling you my line of business is only one of my business activities so you gave me a BAD impression of your business, so the very important question I wanted to ask you will wait for the next celebrity speaking bureau chief I meet.”

This year, month, week, that’s pretty much changed. The word is, we are fast moving towards breaking the drought. With just “average” rainfall mind you. Fantastic! However, it’s caused a bit of chaos this week. You see, Geelong is a city divided by the Moorabool River. It runs roughly West to East, and dissects the North from South.

Of course, there are multiple points at which to cross the river, but one (apparently) vital one. It’s called the Breakwater Rd & Breakwater bridge. As the name suggests, it’s a breakwater, and it floods every time the Moorabool River reaches a certain level. It a pressure release valve so that the river doesn’t flood as badly as it might.

It’s a two way, one lane intersection. It’s tiny. It’s insignificant. It doesn’t appear to be that busy in the scheme of things. I take it everyday in my 5 minute trip to the office.

When it floods, it throws the City of Geelong into Traffic chaos! This week has seen a lot of Geelong employees late for work. My daily 5 minute drive has turned into 45-60 minutes!

My City has a heart problem. Like our Hearts, the city depends on all it’s arteries to follow un-hindered – block one, and you have a heart problem.

It made me think about my business (while i was stuck in traffic ) Sometimes, we have arterial blockages in our businesses. It might be that the phone messages stall at reception and don’t quickly get sent to the sales guy, it might be the order release message from the accounts dept stalls and doesn’t get communicated to the despatch area, so an order sits on the back dock two days longer than it should.

An arterial blockage in our business is simply a part of the system that gets blocked up, slows the rest down, and sometimes even stops the system dead – grid lock!

The first step to clearing such a blockage is to identify it. Sit back, take a breath, and objectively look at your business and how an order goes through your system, even place an anonymous order and see how your system looks to an outsider. Once identified, you can take steps to alleviate the pressure and work out ways to prevent future issues.

In my business for example, the artwork process can be one of those areas that can bog down and block the system. It might be the client is slow to send us appropriate files, or our email breaks down, or a contract artist does not do the job fast enough – there are any number of ways that part of my business can (and has) block and stop orders from proceeding. I don’t like it, but knowing it is an area for a higher potential for screw ups, I pay more attention to it to avoid said screw ups.

Another area with potential for blockages is delivery. I rely on third parties often for delivery. I have clients all around Australia and even a few Internationals. Therefore, I am often reliant on third parties like manufacturers and couriers. If the guy on the back dock at the pens factory is having a bad day, my urgent delivery might not go out, just as the courier driver might have a flat tyre or only pick up 2 of 3 boxes. Even a foggy night made us miss one deadline when the plane holding one box was grounded.

I can’t completely avoid potential blockages, but if i know exactly what they are, I can put safe guards and pressure valves in place to reduce the risk.

So, does your business have a heart problem? It’s one of those questions just like your own health – it might not be comfortable to self analyse if you are at risk, but well worth the effort.

The chat started with the difference between “May I and Can I…” May I assist you, or Can I assist you, what happened next was a BFO, (Blinding Flash of the Obvious).

You see it was so simple when he explained it. “Imagine you are at the top of a cliff and your task is to push someone off, would you say “Can I push you off or may I push you off…” ” Can I”, relates to skill and “May I” relates to permission to do a thing.” I was engaged in the conversation now, what a great hook! Yes he clearly knew his English and the lesson was simple but so good. Actually on thinking about it none of the above would get you far in the pushing stakes but it makes a point also about service being more about offering, rather than demanding. Chances are you would not ask a person if they wanted to be pushed!

I asked him for a view on my old favourite, “help and Assist” he agreed, Help is needed when you are in dire straits, assistance is softer and more readily taken up unconsciously. So many people will say “Just looking thanks” when you offer help, but more people take up an offer of assistance “May I assist you…”

It could go further you could say “May I assist you to find what you are after today?” That way you are being specific about what you are offering. Without the specifics it is so open you might get in a bit of a bind, like this… ‘May I assist  you?” asks the store attendant… “Oh yes, you can give me a million dollars, that would be great assistance…” replies the customer.

Take the time out to consider the small things like this which may impact on people  you deal with so the service you offer is as elegant and correct as possible. We also chatted briefly about G’day as a greeting, I will leave that one for another article.

Well time got the better of our conversation too quickly and circumstances meant we had to part ways, all I can hope is that I said goodbye in an elegant manner!

On providing great service, “I don’t know if you can but you may…”

In my more recent travels I have noticed bitter, grumpy and annoyed people operating businesses. It’s one thing to have grumpy staff, but quite another to see the operator of the business in this “state”. Seriously if you want to be in business and be a grouch stay out of site of the customers…

I guess it’s in part due to the Global Financial Crisis or at least compounded by it, to the point where people are wondering about where the next customer and cash is going to come from. Okay so you may not be able to do much about that, (especially if you have spent all your marketing budget already!) So you have to sit and wait… BUT if that can’t change, what about you?

To alter being a “grump” you may have to take a stance and force yourself to be happy. try a few of these.

• Write a sign for yourself “Be Happy!” and put it where it can be seen by you and not the customer, make a bunch of them, put them up and act on them.
• Make a list of things that make you happy and each day “do” something on that list somehow… and DON”T give me the line of “Oh I don’t have time…”
• Get or make a CD of a bunch of funny things, jokes etc by comedians you really like and laugh at even though you have heard them a zillion times, play it on the way to the office, and LAUGH heartily!
• Look up, yes it’s that simple, look up and try to not feel good, hard to do eh? Note how glum people tend to look down a lot, makes sense right…
• Tell  your staff to tell you to smarten up… Go on I dare you to.
• Make a list of the things getting you down, now write a bunch of ways to fix them, then act on it… go on do that now! Keep adding to the solutions list.
• Take a five minute stroll, go out of the office or store, walk briskly and get the blood pumping.
• De stress, mediate or do whatever thing helps you to de stress (without hurting others or things…)
• Get an unreasonable friend, one who can hold you to your promises, and chat to them about ways to work around your challenges, share a few jokes etc.
• Kick a footy, It won’t de stress everyone, but It might work for you, heck even going to a sports shop and buying one might break your routine enough, no cash? Borrow one off a kid in your street… hey imagine going door to do and asking “Does your kid have a footy I can borrow for an hour?” Heck that kid has probably been looking for a kick to kick friend for ages.
• Go to an Art Gallery or five for a few minutes, I used to do this when driving around in a van all over the city, I would drop in to see contemporary art, (no cost!) and I knew where heaps of them where so I could get to one fast for a break in routine. Oh and turn your mobile off for the few minutes you are there. Seeing other people’s “views” on and about the “human condition” can be useful.
• Put a picture of yourself up on the fridge at home and yell at yourself… Did you like that? Now think about the last time you yelled at someone, did that feel good? Perhaps for you, how about them? Get the point, it’s not good.

It’s a great time for retailers, it’s all so busy.

Me, I’m after an item, and like to compare prices and hunt about for a good deal (so I’m a cheapskate at times, negotiating can be like that.)

I saunter about zipping through lines of shoppers going this way and that, slow fast, turn right, shoot down an aisle, negotiate another bunch of people… I get to my destination to be greeted on browsing with a pimply faced kid who asks, “Are you right?” I have a standard response to that, “I’m fine thanks” unless “narky” and I give them a serve of “Great question are you implying I’m otherwise wrong?…”

The other one they serve up is, “Can I help you?” perhaps it’s a better approach but I go for “I only want help if I’m drowning…” This generally stops them in their tracks.

If I was running a retail  type business I would sack INSTANTLY any staff member who said either of these.

For goodness sake, chat to me, get to the point and discover if I have a need or want, but spare me the pathetic lame approaches, say hi, after all I am human and may well spend enough to pay your wages this week, but put me off and your wages will go elsewhere very fast!

Folks, if you are in retail, teach your people so say hello, how are you, good morning etc. Then follow this with some pleasant banter that engages me more effectively. Then and only then can I let you through to be able to find out what I want.

For those of you who find this pedantic, lots of people are put off subconsciously by these initial approaches and will shop with their feet, going elsewhere in search of their needs. I will be amongst them.