A project conducted by Prosper Technologies asked a group of consumers to each write in the name of a store they judged to be providing bad customer service and then write what led them to that judgment. Prosper Technologies used content-analysis software to classify the responses.
Here are the top four categories:
- Rude, impolite, unfriendly staff. This was the most common type of complaint overall, although for older shoppers, it took second place to “Problems getting help.” Among young adults, almost 30% of shoppers complained that the person at the cash wrap was chatting on the phone or with another employee while ringing up the sale or was otherwise rude.
- Problems getting help. Shoppers are attracted to stores and away from e-commerce by being able to talk with polite salespeople and then by getting personalized help. Other research indicates that consumers are willing to trade away easy access to help if they can get substantially lower prices. But they don’t like it.
- Staff who aren’t knowledgeable. When customers know you’re out-of-stock before your sales staff do, the customer might think the sales staff are dumb bunnies. So it’s of concern that more than half of sales associates say that mobile devices and online shopping tools are allowing customers to be better informed than the sales staff are about a store’s inventory levels.
- Long waits to pay for the merchandise. Adequate staffing helps avoid this one. In addition, Harvard Business School research finds that mirrors in waiting lines make the time go faster, since people will get involved in looking at themselves. Merchandising the waiting line can also help for the same sorts of reasons. Young adults were notably less likely to complain about this one than other age groups.
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