Last fall, I noticed that my favorite pair of shoes were starting to fall apart and determined that I needed to find myself a new pair. I waited until the fall break four day weekend so that I would have plenty of time to look around the Grove City Outlets to find a pair that worked for me. I wanted a new pair of running shoes or cross trainers to replace my pair which had begun to fall apart. The greatest challenge though, would be finding a pair which felt comfortable on my feet because the arches of my feet make many shoes excessively uncomfortable to wear. As I looked through many of the shoe selling stores within the outlets I was often approached by generally friendly salesmen and women who helped me find the shoes I picked out in my size. Most of the shoes fit but were generally uncomfortable. However, their help made me realize that I was far too focused on what I wanted my ideal shoe to be. In the next store I entered, I approached the first sales representative I encountered and told him how I was struggling to find new shoes. He then proceeded to ask me a few questions about what was important to me for the new pair before bringing out a pair for me to try. To my amazement, the shoes felt great on my feet and looked great too. I was so surprised to see how the salesman was able to find the perfect pair of shoes for me after just asking me a few simple questions. This experience is proof to me of the concepts we’ve been discussing in class regarding just how much sales has changed and how most salesman today have the customer’s best interest in mind.
BoweryJE22
This is great to hear a positive experience about a salesmen showing interest in the customers needs, then working to help the customer through that. In many of my past experiences where I was buying shoes and I had questions, I found that the salespeople really didn’t know what they were talking about and also were not very focused on me as the customer. However, in this case the salesman was educated on his product and did his job correctly, and in the end he was able to make a sale.
While reading this, it made me think of Coach D’s talk that he gave to us. He said that it is important to ask questions and know what the buyer wants, and that it should be about them the buyer, not you the seller or the product. This salesman did a great job asking questions it seems to me.