My Experience with Positive and Negative Styles in a Retail Setting

     For the first two summers after I graduated from high school, I worked for a family fun center. As far as first job experiences went, I honestly could not have asked for much better: the business was well managed, my coworkers were fun to be around, and the work was really not that difficult. If I’m being honest, the hardest part of the job was probably interacting with the customers. During my time in retail, I found that in order to be successful with this part of the job, and to sell to the customer well, a positive style of thinking was absolutely necessary. 

    Let me preface this with saying that the vast majority of the customer experiences that I had at this job were perfectly fine. But every once in a while, a bad customer experience was inevitable. Now, a lot of other people (myself included at points) were very quick to blame the customers for said bad experiences. Sometimes this can be a correct assumption to make: some customers are just bad customers and there is nothing you really can do about it. But in my experience, sometimes the worker will overlook his or her own errors in the situation too. Doing this, however, pins unwarranted blame on the customer and is a very pessimistic frame of mind to have.

     In order to grow from bad customer experiences, it is important to have an objective view of the situation. Examining the experience from all angles can help retail workers to grow in their roles; I know that I was able to become a better employee by viewing my bad experiences like this! Thinking in a positive style can also help you as an employee to sell to the customer better. I am sure that because I was able to improve my customer service skills, customers walked away from the interaction happy and were more willing to return again! Overall, thinking in a positive style is important across many different job-related roles. It simply is a good life skill to have and, while not always the easiest mindset, will lead to the refinement of customer service and people skills in the long run.