Contrary Mary.

Well, well, well.  So there is a television series from Mary Portas focusing on bad service.
I know this is a normally lighthearted, sometimes scathing, blog from the Cosmetics Consultants point of view and that often I have pop at the customers expense, but I think there is a dilemma to be pondered here.

I have posted the link below that leads to an article reviewing the Secret Shopper episode one.
http://gu.com/p/2mgkn

I found it puzzling and not a little bit condescending, the review not the program. Surely, wherever we spend our money, we are entitled to some professional service and for two very good reasons.
Firstly because selling is a profession. You pay for your item and the sales person is paid for their time. I think a transaction that involves money defines the point, otherwise it would be charity and slave labour.
And secondly, high street business spends a fortune on training sales staff, so not providing good service is technically stealing from you boss.

Is Mary  doing a good job then?
Yes and No, in my opinion, programmes such as this expose companies to fundamental problems with staff training. But where can you find an exposee' of customer behaviour? For those of us that take our job seriously, there is precious little back up when a customer defies all training and is just plain rude.

 The backlash of know-it-all customers we received after 'Dom whats-his-face', bargained like a tourist at a Moroccan bazaar all over daytime television, was bad enough.
'What's your best price for this fragrance?'
'I'll tell you what the best price for that fragrance is mate, the one I just bloody told you!'  That is really what goes through a consultants mind as they smile sympathetically. When they say, 'Well you have to ask,'  what we really think is.'No you don't you cheap arse, it's not a fridge. Look how embarrassed your wife is!'
They do this because they cannot define between goods that you can bargain for, antiques, secondhand cars, etc; and goods you can't. LIPSTICK, FRAGRANCE, SKINCARE.

So what, I ask with a shudder that reaches to my nylon clad core, are we to expect from eager watchers of Mary Portas? Will they be telling us our job's? Probably. Will they be expecting discount if they have to wait for a consultant to finish with one customer before they are served? Absolutely!
Nobody has yet shown the kind of treatment, well trained, polite staff have to deal with from the everyday customer with issue's. And they do have issues. One only has to read this blog, full of anecdotal experiences, to see what those of us on the front line put up with everyday.
Yes, we have delightful customers! Interesting women and men that enrich our day with smiles and charm, whose transactions are flawless examples of good service. We have regular visitors, of sane mind and body, who never spit and don't freak us out. Good service very rarely gets acknowledgement and that is a huge problem.Where is the programme about that? Where are the letters complimenting us?   If the public got into the habit of complimenting a good service, then perhaps abrasive customers would not affect us quite so much.

 Maybe, Mary should focus on customer attitude in her series. Perhaps, we should secretly film bad customers. How would exposing the extreme behaviour of individual shoppers change peoples attitude toward staff in the retail and service industries?  When a customer can write a letter or complain, when in actual fact they are the problem , how do staff defend themselves?
Nothing, on any of the training courses I have been on, could have taught me how to deal with the woman who screamed and shouted about not being able to get a refund for something that she had used up completely, then decided to return.

Lesson one to any  customers reading this; we are not qualified mental health nurses.