When husbands, boyfriends, and sons go shopping for womanly gifts, it's like shooting fish in a barrel for store clerks—these guys usually want to get in and out of the store as quickly as possible, and either they'll decide in a snap what to buy or they'll happily take your advice on what makes for the best gift. Either way, it's easy money with little hassle. Somehow, though, Kohl's jewelry counter clerks missed this bit of retail advice—here's how they lost a $300 sale from a guy who was ready to buy and bolt earlier this week.
I usually don't bother to go ahead and Google for an email address, however after leaving your store on Powers Blvd tonight with $500.00 still in my pocket I felt like Kohl's was missing the boat on their male shoppers in general.
I'm 35, in sales, two kids, wife etc, and am basically the kind of male that goes into a store if its a holiday, potential disaster, or I'll be leaving with some electronics or golf gear.
Tonight I was going into your store with the thought in mind that I can pick up a nice set of earrings or something between 200-400 dollars for this Sunday. As I walked in at about 6:40 or so, I made the quick right, walked around the counter and decided that we're going to end up spending about 300 on a pair of earring that I thought the wife would enjoy. Now I don't know about you, but for me this kind of decision takes about 2 minutes (Please don't let my wife know this, as she would misinterpret my ability to quickly choose something for her as not caring enough)
So I looked up and around to locate the counter person so that way I could make the purchase, and quickly exit the store before I got caught between a crowd and a sale (This did happen to me the time I brought my daughter into your store to get a new coat because she lost her old one. I accidentally was standing in the aisle waiting to pay when had to push my kids to safety because a restocking of some items was going on in the ladies dept.)
Anyway, back to the jewelry/earrings - I am watching the counter person empty out and count up her drawer (It's about 6:55) and it turns out she can't her me, or the other two gentlemen at the counter at that time. Now I am all for hiring people w/ handicaps but I do not believe this counter person was deaf, however I am unable to prove that due to her not flinching as the gentleman next to me was surely heard by someone 50 ft away.
After this, I just left.
Now, I have ran a dollar store for two years out of school for my family, I even worked for Lord and Taylors before they turned into just another store, and I can't help but feel that if employees where trained or reminded before holidays like xmas or mothers day that people like myself would be coming into the store, usually they will have the $$ to spend and where just to come right up and say something like "Hi, do you need some help finding what your wife wants?" that you'd be doing your shareholders a favor.
A 35 yr old male who doesn't enjoy shopping has the attention span of a 3-year-old when he is buying something that he normally wouldn't. If you could somehow capture them as they walked though the door or wandered the aisles you'd do even better. If there is a store that does that for you that's reasonable please let me know, I still have my $$ in my pocket tonight.
This Mother's Day story is a bit of a mixed-bag—ProFlowers clearly failed to deliver the arrangement they sold to M., but they refunded him the entire amount of his purchase when he contacted them about the issue. It's a "fail" for execution, but a perfect example of how to own up to and correct a wrong for your customer.
