Defuse Your Frustration Hot Buttons with Teens

Teen shoppers are wonderful to have in our stores.

• Typically, their housing, food, and medical expenses are covered, so they’ve more discretion in spending what money they have.
• Historically, parents will trim their own expenditures before cutting back on what’s spent on their children. So as the economy recovers, growth in teen spending should be faster than growth in parent spending.
• Teens have somewhat greater tribe mentalities and greater use of social media. They’re highly concerned with what their peers think of them, but at the same time, want to have a distinctive group of peers with whom they’re in constant contact. Buying merchandise and then spreading the word on the internet come naturally.

     But teens can also bring out the worst frustration in retailers. All adults have gone through being teenagers, yet still can find themselves viewing adolescents’ behavior as weirdly foreign. Development psychologists explain this by saying the conflicted brain adjustments during the teen years are so uncomfortable that, as we finally enter adulthood, we promptly start to seal over our memories of the conflicts.
     Using the advice of those psychologists, defuse our hot buttons when dealing with irritating and unruly teens so that we ease the frustration rather than escalate the unpleasantness.

• Teens place extraordinary importance on looking good in front of their shopping companions. In most developed cultures, those companions are more likely to be other teens than family members. To the degree that you can, address the individual teen rather than speak to the group of teens when upset starts brewing.
• Be decisive without being disrespectful. Avoid repeating yourself using identical words. Instead of, “Get out of here, get out of here,” a security officer should say, “You must leave now. I’m directing you to go to a different area.” The exact repetition of wording serves as a signal to the retailer that a hot button has been pressed. It also signals the adolescent brain of weakness in an authority figure.
• Offer options and ask the teen for suggestions on how to resolve the situation. The first reply might be completely unrealistic, but then carefully listen for ideas that allow you to form an alliance with the teen consumer. After all, this unruly adolescent could become a lucrative shopper in the future.

For your profitability: Sell Well: What Really Moves Your Shoppers

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