ARTHUR!
Posted by Heidi Wurpel
I recently had a rather frustrating consumer experience as I was shopping for a new mattress. I thought it might be helpful to create a "case study" of my experience to explore ways in which the situation could be improved.
Industry: Retail, National Chain, Mattresses
Services (Needed): Research, marketing, employee communications
Situation: In pursuit of a good mattress, I drove around Portland, Scarborough, and South Portland to various stores carrying one of the "Big Three" mattress brands (Serta, Sealy, Simmons). I began the process of trying the mattresses I knew I might be interested in. Through my shopping experience thus far, I had a specific level of quality mattress in mind, I knew the materials and I wanted the bed to be made from. I also knew what price I could get online and the price for comparable mattresses at every competitor in town. I was in short, a very knowledgeable consumer ready to purchase if the price was right.
I was pleasantly surprised when on my last stop of the day when I walked into a large, national chain, mattress retailer (the subject of this case study) and discovered that they carried all of the major brands plus a great selection of lesser known ones. A first impression of "I should have just come here first; what a great selection of mattresses!" is a very positive customer reaction; however, this is where the positive reactions end.
I quickly noticed that the walls were in dire need of a paint job, the carpet clearly hadn't been swept in awhile, merchandise was thrown about and shoved into corners, there were metal bed frame fragments and springs half sticking out from under the beds that I literally tripped over, and the mismatched rolling office chairs at the sales desk were very run-down. Most furniture stores understand that people purchase aspiration - not this place! The décor was clearly off-brand and did not send a restful, "Sleep here" message.
The one salesman allocated to the entire large store finished trying to (unsuccessfully) close a sale with the gentleman who was in before me and came my way. I will call him "Willy" for the sake of anonymity and with an intentional nod to Arthur Miller's great Death of a Salesman character.
During the conversation, Willy violated many cardinal sales rules. For the sake of brevity I will simply list Willy's many mistakes rather than recount the experience (despite the fact that much of the humor gets lost). His "sins" consisted of not listening, attacking the company's pricing strategy, not recognizing the power of silence, and providing unhelpful or even incorrect information. However, the highlight of the conversation was at the end, when he began bad-mouthing his co-workers.
You may be asking why the blog seems to be about Willy but is named "Arthur!"? At the sales desk - when he could have been selling me a mattress - he started what became about a five-minute tirade about his co-worker "Arthur" and how he: steals his sales, switches beds on customers, "doesn't listen - just tries to get customers to buy the bed he wants them to buy", and lies to customers. Willy quickly went on to say that I should only come back when he was there and that I should call ahead first to avoid Arthur and that I should try and "avoid all young salespeople" (I am 28 years old) stating that you couldn't trust them. It was a real Seinfeld/ "NEWMAN!" sort of rivalry and the worst "close" I have ever seen. He practically shouted me out the door warning me about "ARTHURRRRRR!"
Results (actual): The customer before me did not purchase a mattress; I did not purchase a mattress; I told my friends about the awful, albeit funny, experience at this retailer; I'm telling you about my experience I this blog.
Methods (that Crescendo would use to help improve Results): This retailer could clearly benefit from Crescendo's help. If brought in, I would first do ethnographic research (visit many of their stores and observe customers' experience in a specific way to gain data points and identify patterns that could improve processes and operations), work closely with the company in marketing to conduct a brand assessment and offer a plan for improvement of the brand experience (décor, point of service materials, merchandising, sales signs, social media strategy , etc.), and last but not least: work with the company on improving its employee communications. A program that clearly communicates company policies such as pricing (along with rationale) and one that is focused on improving relationships among employees could do wonders.
The results would likely look much different with some of these programs in place.