STRESS, Why Salesmen/women should be ashamed of themselves.
By dzedekski101
@dzedekski101 (92)
United States
July 6, 2008 12:51pm CST
My wife and I were going to the furniture store to buy ourselves a new bedroom set. Low and behold whenever we go to a furniture store, we are attacked by salesmen like hyenas looking for MEAT. It was quite interesting.
We first stopped at Raymour and Flanigan. We thought that they would be having some good 4th of july deals. When we walk in, I could have counted at least 30 of them standing at the door, drinking their cofee, and all of them looking at us at the same time. Then it was sort of like "who can introduce themselves first" kind of game. And they all stampeded towards us. I was scared that we would be stampeded by all them, to be honest. But I love my wife, for alot of reasons including this; She said please let us look, and they kept on bombarding her with brochures. Then shes like, I dont want any of this garbage, and she walks away with her back to them pulling my hand with her. I was happy, but I sensed them lurking in the shadows, waiting for their kill. Lol. The prices were outrageous, the bedroom set including a armoir, bed, dresser, and nightstand was $5500! She was so mad when the salespeople started coming back to her saying that " They could work out a package"; And so it came to the conlusion that we left.
Then we went to this seconf store, called American Signature Furniture. I loved it there, very calm enviroment and no salesperson bothered us whatsoever. Then when we had picked out our set, we found this very pleasant salesperson that knew that we were interested and helped us purchase it and answer any questions that we had. We purchased the whole entire bedroom set for $1200. It included King bed, matresses, armoir, dresser, nightstand, and a rug that my wife wanted. But still it was MORE THAN HALF THE PRICE!! I loved it.
But I still have that notion that Salespeople should be ashamed as to the amount of stress that they cause their customers. Especially at Raymour and Flanigan. Has any one come across this situation as well?
2 people like this
2 responses
@mmiller26 (1930)
• Canada
6 Jul 08
The sales people have no choice in the matter. It all comes down to company policy and what the company wants them to do. I'm sure they'd rather not be pressuring you and breathing down your neck either.
For example, my dad used to work at this car dealership that was all pressure sales. If someone came into the lot, they all had to jump out of their seats and run out there and get in people's faces. If they didn't make a sale, they had to go back inside to the manager's office and explain (as if they were a child) why they didn't make the sale. If they didn't make a certain amount of sales each week, they were put on probation and eventually fired. So there was this huge pressure on the sales people to get the sale no matter what. Sales is stressful to sales people too!
My dad decided to go looking for another job selling cars in the same town. He found a great job, and when he went back to the other dealership to give his two week notice, they dismissed him on the spot, told him to get his stuff and go. Now he loves his job. People are allowed to come onto the lot and look around for as long as they like, and the sales people only come out if it looks like people have a question or want to take a car for a test drive. They offer coffee and popcorn and basically just stand around and shoot the breeze with customers, and if they make a sale, great! If they don't, well, better off next time. But you know, people are coming in droves to the no-pressure lot and are avoiding the high-pressure one at all costs, to the point where my dad's making more in commissions now just hanging around the office than he did going out and harassing poor people.
So feel bad for those sales people and get angry at the company that forces them to do it. They don't want to be there doing that, and they shouldn't have to just to make a buck. A lot of electronics stores like Best Buy have gone to no-commission sales, so there's no advantage to the floor sales people getting in people's faces. Now they're only there to answer questions and direct people to the product they're looking for. I'm sure their sales have gone up because of it.
