Customer service is more than ringing up a sale!

Today I was doing some consulting in a very pretty tourist area. The store that i am helping said they were in need of visual merchandising to help attract the customer and to gain interest in the product so that they could create multiple sales.

So today I ventured out with a plan of attack. I knew exactly what needed to be done to "create interest and sales" or so I thought. For the 3.5 hours that I was there merchandising the store, the sales associate on the floor( or should I say behind the cash wrap) didn't move. She stayed looking down ticketing merchandise. Not even acknowledging the customers when they walked in yet buy something. The young man that was on, opted to check in shipment in the back room with the door closed, the first time I went back to get his help to move a table he was out the back door, the next 2 times he was on his cell phone. Only once when asked did he come out to help move a table. But while out there never acknowledged a customer. I cannot say that I am surprised because this new generation in retail feels that ringing a customer is what they are supposed to do. That is their job, sales will just come and they will have hours to earn money, to buy new clothes, itunes, or any other trinket that is of value to them. What they don't realize and what their managers and owners better teach them is that if they don't get their pretty little faces out there to say hello, talk up the product and then ring it up, there will be no hours to buy all of the things that they want. But who do you blame, the kid or the manager/owner?

My answer....

The manager/owner.

Please don't complain if your business is failing if you are entrusting your money in the hands of an untrained teenager.

Thoughts....