Yelling, frustration, confusion, and annoyance can all be part of selling and unfortunately, sometimes they are directed at the salesperson. This was my experience while working at a sausage sandwich stand but thankfully, things don’t always end up the way they started. Here’s how the story goes.
It was a blistery fall day at Booth’s Corner Farmer’s Market in Marcus Hook PA. and we were as busy as ever. As I hurried to help the next customer, I asked an elderly man, “Have you been helped sir?” Apparently, he thought I said, “Can I help you sir?” and replied, “Yes.” And so the confusion began. Thinking that he had already been helped, I moved to the next customer. Mid-way through taking her order I realized my fatal mistake. The elderly fellow whom I had unintentionally skipped was looking at with wide-eyed with disbelief. “I can’t believe you just did that,” he said. “You saw that I wasn’t being helped and you intentionally helped the next person.” I apologized and told him that it was a complete accident but he wasn’t appeased. He continued berating me for the next few minutes until I was able to take his order.
After he got his food and sat down, I thought everything would be ok but I was sorely mistaken. He sat on one of the bar stools in the nearby seating area, but instead of eating his food he sat sideways in the bar stool and gave me the death glare for the next five minutes. To make matters worse, I looked up at one point with a huge smile on my face and made direct eye contact with him. Of course, he didn’t know that I wasn’t actually laughing at him but simply smiling at a comment made by one of my co-workers. He got out of his seat, walked over to the counter, and said, “I see you back there. You think this is funny. You purposely didn’t help me, and now you’re laughing at me.” I apologized and tried to explain the situation but he wouldn’t hear it. By this time matters were getting out of hand so as soon as I had a few moments I walked out to the counter where he was sitting. I tried to explain the situation as clearly as possible, telling him that I hadn’t intentionally skipped him in line and that I wasn’t actually laughing at him. I finished by telling him that I was genuinely sorry for anything I had done wrong. This seemed to calm him down a bit and he grumbled a begrudging “Thank you” as I walked away.
Obviously sales doesn’t always go as planned. However, I think the lessons to learn from this story are of attunement and humility. Going out and apologizing to a furious customer that day certainly wasn’t the highest thing on my bucket list, but after I got over myself and showed a little humility, the situation looked a lot different. During a sale it’s important to understand where a customer is coming from, and what they are looking for before trying to sell to them. Humility and attunement make that possible.
BoweryJE22
Wow that just seemed like a nightmare! I can share a similar story in that when I was working for my dad in the summers we would get a neighbor or someone nearby the place where we were installing a landscape constantly commenting and complaining that we were on their property. Moral of the story is that we had to be super clear, and more importantly respectful, in our interactions with these home owners because they could be potential customers. Very well done in this situation Jon!
that’s such a tough situation. it’s a tough situation regardless with a unhappy customer, but especially when they were unhappy based off of confusion. The worst part is sometimes apologizing is all you can do and they still don’t like it.
That’s an excellent story about misunderstandings and how though it wasn’t necessarily anyone’s fault, you had to humble yourself and make amends. I’v had similar situations in selling. I once had a foreign woman freak out at me because I asked her for her birth date when she was using a check to pay for some items. It was standard policy when a customer uses a check. However she thought it was the most inappropriate question to ask and began yelling at me and asking to see my manager and all this other nonsense. I had to try and remain calm and explain to her our policy and that I was not attempting to be rude in any way. She also yelled at my manager and i’m not sure situation was every resolved, she really wouldn’t hear us out and then ended up leaving saying she would never shop there again. Misunderstandings are one of the many difficulties that accompany sales. Overcoming this often takes patience, humility and understanding.