UNPLEASANT OR GROUCHY
F. W. Small, shoe buyer and department manager for the Gilchrist Company, Boston, has this to say concerning the customer who is unreasonable in his demands for attention and service: “The grouchy, irritable customer is best served by the salesman who assumes a jovial, apparently unperturbed, light-hearted manner. However, he should always be attentive and courteous, for oftentimes these people are not as bad as they seem. Difficult circumstances, such as ill health and the like, have probably been responsible for their unfortunate manner rather than any wish or desire of their own. If the salesman loses his control and becomes indifferent or uncivil such customers become offended as much or even more so than the average person. On the other hand, if the salesman appears pleased and happy while serving them, although they may not show it at the time, it is invariably a fact that they are encouraged and benefited by having come in contact with an opposite disposition, which they must surely admire. Such a salesman will be singled out by them for all later business, because of a feeling they have that he understands them and their needs better than anyone else.”
It is not an easy matter by any means to accept with a smile continually unpleasant people, but it is good-paying business for the salesman. He can best understand them perhaps by considering them as mental invalids in need of some extra measure of consideration and service. As Mr. Small points out, they are not as bad as they may seem, and will remember every effort to please sometimes longer than will the cheerful customer.
ELDERLY PERSON OR INVALID
It is hardly necessary to say anything concerning the salesman’s responsibility in serving elderly people and invalids. Almost as if by instinct a man or woman realizes that such people are entitled to an added measure of kindness and respect. It is only necessary to remember that whatever may be the peculiarities of disposition, these things have almost without exception been brought about by circumstances and conditions that the individual could not control. Nothing less than the standard by which the salesman would serve his own mother or father should be the measure of his effort to please and serve well.
There are times, of course, when it may seem that an elderly person should be able to think more quickly or to make a decision with less fuss. Perhaps two or three other sales might have been made in less time and with less effort, but who would think of measuring service with a yardstick under these circumstances.
ABSENT-MINDED
Absent-minded people are often met with by the salesman, and might be considered as an annoyance unless they are properly understood. Almost everybody who ever tried to write a joke has taken the absent-minded college professor as a subject at some time or other. The yarn of the old professor who, coming in out of the rain, put his umbrella to bed and stood in the bath tub, proved him to be absent-minded—but he was no fool. While the rest of the world very systematically put their umbrellas where they properly belonged and went comfortably to bed, he was probably thinking five years ahead of the rank and file. This is not an argument in favor of increasing the number of absent-minded people. They are not all college professors and they may not all be deep thinkers, but they do deserve to be treated with every possible consideration on the part of the salesman.
In some stores, where the business is large enough to warrant it, the management has found it to be good business to have salesmen of special ability to serve elderly customers and invalids. This requires a fine degree of salesmanship on the part of the man who is able to tune himself up to such customers and to understand how they should be best served. It is an art worth while cultivating.