I have often toyed with the idea of installing a cell phone jammer in my shop, but of course I am relying more and more on it for business purposes. Maybe I'm part of the problem. Cell phones are a useful tool, but I find them more and more annoying over time.
[dropcap] H [/ dropcap] I'll bet something happened to you all: you're in the middle of a sales pitch trying to get a customer to part with some of their hard-earned dollars and you're making great strides when you hear a musical interlude, whistle, or other annoying sound effect coming out of his (or her) pocket.
It's his portable communication device, or as we call it, a harassment unit. Now you need to stop in the middle of your presentation and watch him cool off, suddenly distracted by the outside troubles that suddenly invaded your business endeavors via his cell phone. You may never go back to where you were in the sales process, as the customer's focus is now far away and they seem to have more important business than buying a motorcycle from you here today.
And of course, customers also use the cell phone to browse other stores' inventory and check the prices and availability of the unit they are looking at. Or try on a helmet or jacket while you search online for better deals on the same items.
All of this has been discussed by people wiser than myself. In my shop, we try to appeal to the immediacy of getting the goods right here, right now. Kill them with service, kindness and smiles. And I hope the helmet they saved $ 50 online with comes to them in the wrong color.
Employees browsing their cell phones for entertainment have also become a problem, from games to the latest step hits on YouTube. And it's almost impossible to monitor something that's so small and easy to hide.
That brings me to the problems I found at AIMExpo when I was there. The first day wasn't that bad, but over time I found that many of the booths were occupied by individual employees who in the past have been willing to tell you about their latest and greatest product. However, by the second day I found that a lot of them were on their phones texting someone (to be fair, they could have texted a prospect about a large order, but I kind of doubt it) and sweetie Watched cat videos. or some exciting sucker.
Several times I went into a booth, read through the entire booth, picked up or petted several items, some of which might be sold in my store, but the operator in that booth was too busy looking at the phone screen and closing everything doing what was more important than talking to me. I always left without invading your privacy. I swear I could have gotten away with thousands of dollars in products and they never would have known until they packed.
These were booths paid for by a company that went out of their way to organize, set up and staff themselves to sell their product to the hundreds of potential customers attending this fair, both wholesale and retail at retail. Perhaps the person at the booth owned the business and it had made so many sales that he decided to idle for the rest of the show. However, I've found that entrepreneurs who build businesses to sell their creations have a laser-like focus on their products. They made many sacrifices to bring them into the world, they work hard and are consumed with success, so I don't think those who ignored me were the owners of the company.
It's all just sad and I don't know what to do about it. Maybe someone out there has a solution. Maybe it's just the way of the future and I should just get used to it.
Or maybe I just get one of those cell phone jammers. And carry it around with me wherever I go.