Seven types of customer?

I've recently become addicted to reading the Guardian newspaper's website book section. They have a 'book blog', and through it I discovered a blog written by an American guy named Matt, who not only works in a book store but is in fact a manager. His blog varies from the usual 'customer drove me nuts' thing to quite boring (in my opinion) stuff about Manga and stats and whatnot. The first post I ever read was entitled 'The Seven Types of Customer' and I totally identified with it, I thought 'this guy's hit the nail on the head!' What I didn't expect (although I really should have after reading this) was the comments, most were 'I work in retail and I identify with you!' but there were a fair few that are downright nasty.

Rocket Bomber

I think the guy has the general customer base of a book store down pat. As he says at one point, a book shop isn't really like any other retail experience, supermarkets and clothes shops don't have information desks, they don't have all their stock listed in a searchable database.

Obviously we don't really have the 'Oprah-ites' in Britain, probably the nearest equivalent would be the Richard and Judy Book Club, although I doubt they command such a zealous following!

FBI's Most Wanted!!

Years ago I worked in a photo lab, in a rather 'well off' area. The customers were, not to put too fine a point on it, snooty bastards, with the odd exception of a nice person here and there.

This one certainly was not. She came in the shop clutching her pack of photos and demanded to see the manager, who was out on lunch. So I as I was on my own I asked if there was anything I could do for her. She told me she'd been in that morning to collect her photos and had just been looking through them to order some reprints. However, she informed me, she was appalled at the state of her negatives. There were "fingerprints all over them", and they certainly weren't her fault, as she "doesn't leave fingerprints!!!!" It took all my strength not to burst into a fit of laughter at this proclamation, all I could do was apologise profusely and wipe some negative cleaner over them to remove said fingerprints, and since she only wanted 5 reprints, I gave her them for free.

Reminds me of 'Seven', when Kevin Spacey's character turns up at the police station to hand himself in and they find he's been grating his fingertips off...

Sale!!

Started the annual clear out sale today, which is basically an exercise in getting rid of ageing stock which is doing nothing other than taking up room on the shelf and attracting dust. It's mostly books you've never heard of, or books about artists or musicians you've never heard of. This does not seem to dissuade the canny bargain hunter. As I was attempting to put some books in the clearance boxes earlier I was actually jostled out of the way by at least two people deliberately, and accidentally with a heartfelt apology by another. The phrase 'flies round shite' springs to mind.

In case of emergency do not engage brain.

There was quite a large queue at one point today, and lots off staff came to the tills to help clear it. Suddenly an alarm went off, it's one that's connected to the fire exits. If anyone leaves by going through the fire exit it usually means they have goods they are not wanting to pay for. It really is a very loud alarm, and quite piercing. A bunch of managers appeared and one entered a code to stop the noise. Less than a minute later it starts again. The woman I was serving tutted and said, "I can understand you need a fire alarm but does it really have to be so loud? It's really made me doubt whether I'll shop here again."

Really? Does she base her shopping decisions on what type of alarm various shops utilise? How very bizarre! I really struggled not to laugh. And I certainly didn't waste my breath explaining that it wasn't a fire alarm.

Some people are just born arseholes.

Young(ish) woman with a baby in a buggy came to my till the other day. She hands her purchases to me and I start scanning them.

Young Mum: Wow, this place is a nightmare if you've got a buggy!

Me: Yeah, sorry, it's a bit cramped in places, isn't it?

YM: No, it's not that, there's no signs on any of the floors!

Me: Oh, there is, there's a directory, at least one, on each floor.

YM: Yeah, but they don't tell you where to go to pay for anything!

Me: Oh they do, they all say 'tills' on them at some point. Maybe we should make it a bit more obvious though.

YM: My god! You've obviously missed out on your customer service training!!

Me: Excuse me? (stunned!)

YM: You are being incredibly rude!!

Me: I'm sorry you feel that way.

YM: I certainly do!

Me: Would you like to speak to a manager about me then? (I was NOT in the mood to be dicked about!)

YM: I'd rather be served by one of your colleagues!

Me: (points at another till) I'm sure my colleague over there will be happy to help you!

So she picks up her stuff and heads towards another till, and the guy behind her in the queue gives me an 'eh?' look and comes to be served.

Young Mum then decides to complain after all, and my colleague calls over the nearest manager, who just happens to be the store manager! He looks over at me, I shrug, he takes YM away from the till area for a chat. A few moments later I see her leave and my manager comes over to me. He asks what happened, I tell him, word for word what was said, and he also shrugs. 'God knows what was bugging her!' he said.

So, I'm slightly confused. Was I rude? Was my tone condescending maybe? She claimed there were no signs, I informed her there were, for future reference. Her point was that 'having no signs' made it 'a nightmare if you've got a buggy'. So, if we had no signs, how would the majority of our customers who do not have buggys cope? Then, after claiming there were no signs, she acknowledges there are, but they don't give you any information. Did I maybe make her feel like an idiot? Or was she just born an arsehole?

And gee, thanks to my colleague who gave her a customer satisfaction voucher away with her! Some rather nasty feedback was left apparently! D'oh! :p