The Jerk Store

One of the common topics on this blog is my lack of sales skills. I simply don't possess that killer instinct to talk people into buying my product. But, more and more I'm discovering that it may not be a bad thing because it could just be I'm not mean. It seems to me that the hot new sales tactic is to make the customer feel like a jerk, which in and of itself is kind of a jerky move. I first noticed it at Christmas time when I was walking through a mall, passed a row of kiosks while desperately trying to avoid making eye contact with the people working there because eye contact is an open invitation to hear their sales pitch and I was not in the market for slippers that looked like sneakers, a decorative cellphone cover or a framed picture of Fenway Park. But, one of the women working at the spa kiosk that is in every shopping center in the world popped out into my path and asked me how I was doing today. Full of Christmas spirit I answered her with, "Not interested. Thank you." She replied with, "Well, I didn't ask you if you were interested, I asked how you were." Now, you can argue that technically she was correct and I immediately felt like kind of a dick for blowing her off without even thinking about it. I'm sure she felt very proud of her little comeback in that moment.

Something similar happened tonight. I was eating dinner when the phone rang. The caller ID said "Private Caller" which made me pause because occasionally that turns out not be a telemarketer. (Had it said "Unavailable" I would have gone on ignoring it, knowing full well this is election season and those bastards love to call at dinnertime.) But, I answered the phone and was greeted by someone looking for donations to a local political campaign. When I replied that we were having dinner the woman said, "Oh, so you don't want to talk to me?" Now, this probably shouldn't have made me feel like a jerk because she called me unsolicited and I was eating dinner at the time. Nothing about this timing was of my choosing. I mean, I wouldn't have talked to her under any circumstances and definitely wouldn't have given her a donation even if there had been a gun to my head, but I thought it was unnecessary for her to use that 'what are you so busy doing that you can't spare two minutes?' tone with me. Yet, that part of my brain which knows this woman is campaigning for something she actually believes in and that she should be admired for that passion couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed that I wasn't willing to listen to her spiel.

Look, I'm sympathetic to almost all telemarketers because I think they would tell you this wasn't the life they envisioned for themselves. No one writes "When I Grow Up" reports as a child which end with them sitting in a cubicle working their way through the phone book and trying not to get yelled at so loudly that their ears bleed. So, they aren't much happier about cold-calling you than you are about having the phone ring as soon as you sit down for dinner. They must get chewed out and hung up on countless times a day, all while a supervisor stands over them and reminds them they have a quota to meet. Under those circumstances I can hardly blame them for taking a jab at someone as soon as they realize there is no chance of completing a sale. It's probably the only time they win all day long. That being said, you should notice that in both occasions the zingers were not enough to make me change my mind. In fact, the longer I have to think about them the less I guilty and more annoyed I feel. Had that woman not hit me with attitude there was a chance I might have told her to call back a better time. Sure, those chances were incredibly slim, but they still existed. Instead in about half a second I went from feeling bad about not listening to their sales pitch to resolving to never give money to that person's campaign, ever. (The only reason I'm not mentioning the candidate by name is that I honestly don't remember it.) At this point if it comes to me on election day you can be damn sure I'm planning to vote for the other guy.

I'm sure people who make their living through sales are always trying new techniques and this is just another attempt to be different. I guess their thinking is that if customers suddenly feel like the salespeople don't need them because the next person will surely be smart enough to jump on this amazing deal they may change their minds. I assume it is the same basic instinct which makes dangerous guys so appealing to teenagers girls. But no matter how successful it may be in the short-term, I would like to suggest they move on from this particular technique as quickly as possible. Even if you can occasionally rope someone back in by making them feel like crap, it is not exactly the way to build any type of customer loyalty. After all, you never hear anyone say, "Oh, I love that place. The service is awful." If anything, they won't come back around at all and then you'll have no shot at shaming them into a second purchase. And I really wouldn't suggest it for people on the phone when the client can easily hang up because they didn't ask for your service to begin with. It is entirely possible that I am reading too much into this because if it was really a successful strategy the first woman would have had a store, not a kiosk and the second would be working on a national campaign instead of a local one. But it would still be better to stop this trend before it goes too far.