{"id":8646,"date":"2022-06-12T11:47:02","date_gmt":"2022-06-12T15:47:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/?p=8646"},"modified":"2022-06-12T22:53:16","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T02:53:16","slug":"ersatz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/?p=8646","title":{"rendered":"Ersatz"},"content":{"rendered":"

a customer the other day\u00a0 needed to come back with a\nparticular color for her dinged-up cabinets. She agreed to do that; then told\nme she would wait until I was on duty again, as she didn’t want anybody else to\nwait on her. At first I was touched by the sentiment – in fact, I gave her a\nhug. Well, that’s probably a big fat NO..No for HD associates, so my first\nthought was, “Well, won’t be long before I get fired.”<\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n\n\n\nBut then I had a second emotion on my way home: guilt. I am a fraud. I act\nas though I care about the needs of my customers, but do I really? Or is this\njust about ginning (sp?) up interactions that lead to anecdotes for my book?\n\n\n\nI went home and mentioned my feelings to both Ray and John. Ray, Lee Ann and\nJopie are visiting, taking care of Florida business en-route to relocation. But\nI digress. Anyway, I mentioned it to those two guys. Ray’s response was what\ndifference does it make what your motive is if you give good service and the\ncustomer is happy? I agreed that was true. Later on, as John and I were\nwatching Adam Sandler’s movie The Hustle<\/em>, I shared those feelings with John. He\nreminded me: everything is copy. So my feelings about feeling guilty for not\nbeing a true “HD” person are just another chapter – or maybe a\nsubchapter – in the book. Wow.\n\n\"\"<\/a>\n\n\n\nNow let’s think about that for a minute. The implications are obvious.\nEVERYBODY that works at HD is effectively doing what I’m doing. Does M the\nElder care about his customers? Most assuredly not – and he doesn’t really try\nto hide that fact. Does M the AM (parse that one out for yourselves) care, or\ndoes he just want more profitability (there’s your hint as to what an AM is).\nSo really, it’s ALL just performance art. Huh? Yep – performance art. What the\nf is that? Another aside – my friend Margie just wrote a whole piece about\nswearing<\/a> – really cool..I should put a link to it if she agrees. Update: she did. Click on the word ‘swearing’.\n\nBack to the point. Wikipedia says “Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition\ncreated through actions executed by the artist or other participants.” So\nwe’re in a tableau. Question is: who’s the artist, what’s the art, and who are\nthe viewers? Oh my, pithy questions that deserve more examination.\n\n\n\nSo when you go to the paint department, you the customer are the viewer of\nperformance art. My associates and I are the performers. The book will document\nthe event, so I guess that makes me the artist?\"\"<\/a>\n\n\n\nBut it’s really more basic than that. You the customer want a nice paint\ncolor, and want someone competent to help you achieve that end. We the\nassociates and managers want to sell you the paint and brushes and rollers and\ntarps – you get the idea. We want to add profit to the HD ledger and retain our\npositions. So let’s get legalistic now. It’s a contract. We make an offer (the\npaint), you accept the offer (carry the can to customer service), you give\nconsideration (put the cost of that paint on your HD credit card). A contract,\nexecuted hundreds of times a day between willing buyers and sellers.\n\n\n\nBut wait – there’s more. At a training earlier in the week, it was stressed\nthat we must ‘upsell’. What is that? That’s where we sell you the customer a\nhigher grade of paint that is more profitable to the store. Well, now – haven’t\nbeen told that before. Why? Because the profits were there doing things the way\nwe were before. What’s changed? Covid is over, the season is over and inflation\nis likely going to depress sales. So the suggested solution is to upsell. Can I\ndo that?\n\n\"\"<\/a>\n\n\n\nReflect back on my second really nasty confrontation with a customer who\naccused me of doing just that – upselling her when she didn’t need what I was\nselling, even though she had specifically requested it. So there’s the dance –\nknew there was one. An empathetic (or empathic) customer will know when they’re\nbeing upsold. I always do, being one. When I encounter it, I recoil and\ngenerally do not return to the scene of extortion. So that means every encounter\nmust be quickly evaluated to see if the additional profit is worth the risk of\nalienating a customer who will know we’re trying to sell them something they\nmay – or may not – need. A dance. My co-worker I made a comment yesterday afternoon that M\nthe AM would likely fire him because he was selling too much low-priced paint.\nHe is sensitive, but not empathic. However, he’s had enough experience to know how to\ndo the dance. Not sure about the others. Time will tell.\n\n\n\nThat’s all – gonna go ask Margie if I can link to her article. If she says\nyes, you’ll see a hot button above. Later!\n\n\n

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a customer the other day\u00a0 needed to come back with a particular color for her dinged-up cabinets. She agreed to do that; then told me she would wait until I was on duty again, as she didn’t want anybody else … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8646","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8646"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8655,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8646\/revisions\/8655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8646"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8646"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.planetsusan.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8646"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}