Night pages: Good vibes
Apr. 22nd, 2013 12:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luncheeStart: 11:27
So I do a bit of work for this mystery shopping company.
It’s overall a pretty easy job, as long as you can suffer through writing reports, and have a decent memory. Most of it is visiting shops under a parent company with many locations, so in that sense, they’re easier shops because I’m dealing with the same scenario and can play the same sort of ‘shopper’. Yes, the report writing is kind of tedious if they’re all the same shops, but what you really get out of it is a better understanding of how they train their staff to deal with customers, and what kind of people are really fantastic at selling you things. Me in particular? I feel the most comfortable buying things from friendly, informative people (but who can explain things to you in layman’s terms and aren’t condescending about it) who can build up a rapport with you naturally, and do not pressure you to buy. I think this type of person is probably the ideal salesperson, but you can correct me if I’m wrong.
If you shop around, you’ll probably find that you want to give the sale to people you like best - but that’s not an option available to most people who aren’t getting paid to shop around. At best you’d probably be happy to part with your money as long as you receive competent service, and you’d probably be buying things only if you really wanted/needed them anyway.
So a thing I learnt about myself when I started my job: I am super easy to influence and will make impulsive purchases under certain conditions. It probably has to do with human psychology - I think I read about a study that was done on how people buy things, and people part with their money when a) they’ve been given really good service and b) when they know they want to buy a type of thing, but are not 100% sure about the exact details of what they want, like clothes or appliances and the like. It was to do with the feeling of debt (ah yes, I’ve remembered now - I read about this in Holly Black’s Curseworkers series, when the main character talks about conning people. It’s a great read by the way - the world building is awesome). If a salesperson spends a lot of time helping you and guiding you without pressuring you for the sale, you feel like you owe them something for being kind to you and taking up so much of their time, thus, even though you’re not 100% sure you want something (if you’re like me) you might end up buying it anyway because you liked how that salesperson treated you.
I don’t think this is a bad thing - well, maybe for your wallet - but I guess what I mean to say is that you need the reminder that you don’t owe these salespeople anything because they’ve been trained up to treat you that way (and when you do get a shitty salesperson, they’re definitely bad at their job - they went through training for it and still aren’t getting it right!)
But I guess it’s kind of like, you think, ‘well, I DO want a blender, and really it’s not like I know anything about blenders, so I need to feel like I can trust this sales person’s opinion, as they’re presenting all this evidence of knowing things about blenders, because it’s their job to know things!’ and that is true in a way, but then you gotta look out for the ones who try to sell you the top of the line stuff and nothing else - chances are they’re taking advantage of the fact that you don’t know much about the thing that you are buying and the trust you’re putting in them to not lead you astray. (Whoops, it’s already 100 words from the end and I’ve not even gotten to what I thought I would write about, which is the story of the new car we bought - see heading for the car type).
So I’ve been to a lot of the same stores in different locations and asked the same types of questions and gotten a lot of different answers about the types of products they would recommend for a particular scenario. (I find it’s really helpful when mystery shopping, which is basically lying to someone, to do what you would normally do when lying, which is to keep some element of truth in there because it lends authenticity to your lie).
The main idea of today’s night pages I’d like to impart is to shop around, okay, make a more informed decision based on more than one expert’s advice, and give your money to people who you like and treat you well, because good salespeople need to be rewarded - they’re the only type you wanna buy from, and you want to start creating that world where only that type of salesperson exists (hopefully their managers and the higher ups take note and cherish them) (Although these days with the internet and everything it would be easy enough to go home and send off a feedback form/email/whatever letting the company know that X salesperson was great to you) (But let’s face it the majority of ‘feedback’ is really only used when people want to complain about shitty service, not great ones).
end: 11:55
once over: 12:00
So I do a bit of work for this mystery shopping company.
It’s overall a pretty easy job, as long as you can suffer through writing reports, and have a decent memory. Most of it is visiting shops under a parent company with many locations, so in that sense, they’re easier shops because I’m dealing with the same scenario and can play the same sort of ‘shopper’. Yes, the report writing is kind of tedious if they’re all the same shops, but what you really get out of it is a better understanding of how they train their staff to deal with customers, and what kind of people are really fantastic at selling you things. Me in particular? I feel the most comfortable buying things from friendly, informative people (but who can explain things to you in layman’s terms and aren’t condescending about it) who can build up a rapport with you naturally, and do not pressure you to buy. I think this type of person is probably the ideal salesperson, but you can correct me if I’m wrong.
If you shop around, you’ll probably find that you want to give the sale to people you like best - but that’s not an option available to most people who aren’t getting paid to shop around. At best you’d probably be happy to part with your money as long as you receive competent service, and you’d probably be buying things only if you really wanted/needed them anyway.
So a thing I learnt about myself when I started my job: I am super easy to influence and will make impulsive purchases under certain conditions. It probably has to do with human psychology - I think I read about a study that was done on how people buy things, and people part with their money when a) they’ve been given really good service and b) when they know they want to buy a type of thing, but are not 100% sure about the exact details of what they want, like clothes or appliances and the like. It was to do with the feeling of debt (ah yes, I’ve remembered now - I read about this in Holly Black’s Curseworkers series, when the main character talks about conning people. It’s a great read by the way - the world building is awesome). If a salesperson spends a lot of time helping you and guiding you without pressuring you for the sale, you feel like you owe them something for being kind to you and taking up so much of their time, thus, even though you’re not 100% sure you want something (if you’re like me) you might end up buying it anyway because you liked how that salesperson treated you.
I don’t think this is a bad thing - well, maybe for your wallet - but I guess what I mean to say is that you need the reminder that you don’t owe these salespeople anything because they’ve been trained up to treat you that way (and when you do get a shitty salesperson, they’re definitely bad at their job - they went through training for it and still aren’t getting it right!)
But I guess it’s kind of like, you think, ‘well, I DO want a blender, and really it’s not like I know anything about blenders, so I need to feel like I can trust this sales person’s opinion, as they’re presenting all this evidence of knowing things about blenders, because it’s their job to know things!’ and that is true in a way, but then you gotta look out for the ones who try to sell you the top of the line stuff and nothing else - chances are they’re taking advantage of the fact that you don’t know much about the thing that you are buying and the trust you’re putting in them to not lead you astray. (Whoops, it’s already 100 words from the end and I’ve not even gotten to what I thought I would write about, which is the story of the new car we bought - see heading for the car type).
So I’ve been to a lot of the same stores in different locations and asked the same types of questions and gotten a lot of different answers about the types of products they would recommend for a particular scenario. (I find it’s really helpful when mystery shopping, which is basically lying to someone, to do what you would normally do when lying, which is to keep some element of truth in there because it lends authenticity to your lie).
The main idea of today’s night pages I’d like to impart is to shop around, okay, make a more informed decision based on more than one expert’s advice, and give your money to people who you like and treat you well, because good salespeople need to be rewarded - they’re the only type you wanna buy from, and you want to start creating that world where only that type of salesperson exists (hopefully their managers and the higher ups take note and cherish them) (Although these days with the internet and everything it would be easy enough to go home and send off a feedback form/email/whatever letting the company know that X salesperson was great to you) (But let’s face it the majority of ‘feedback’ is really only used when people want to complain about shitty service, not great ones).
end: 11:55
once over: 12:00
