What would you want retail salesmen/women to know?

[Scryer_360]

I've worked for Best Buy now for a few years, and tried to pull together what knowledge I can of audio to get the best systems for my customers (partly noble intentions, part I didn't want any returns). But of course, as new people come in and old salesmen leave for better jobs, the knowledge base always seems to stick to what comes in from manufacturer literature.

Training EVERYONE to know what should be known not only takes forever, but generally they don't get it: too much to learn to hold a part time job.

So, if you walked into a chain electronics store, what would you want the salesman to be able to tell you? No suggestions on cabling please, can't avoid that part of the sales pitch, but anything related to speakers and receivers the most.

So far, I'm trying to drum these into their heads:
1. Receiver matters, but not at the expense of good speakers. A good receiver cannot make bad speakers sound good, but most any receiver can output decent sound if hooked up to good speakers (not necessarily true, but generally, it will work).
2. Speaker wire needs the right gauges for the right lengths: don't just drum out the most expensive stuff every time, but NEVER recommend too weak a gauge.
3. Know your connections: if the receiver has HDMI, it doesn't mean it will accept audio at the receiver's HDMI ports (like the Harmon Kardon AVR 154).


Anything else, you think?

 

[highfigh]

Probably more than product knowledge, people in sales need to know how to listen, how to ask the right questions and learn how to draw information out of customers. Too many in sales need to stop talking and pay attention to what the customer is saying or how they're reacting to things. Corporate training is usually more for teaching how to sell and what generates the most profit. The product training is generally too little to really do much good and since they aren't specialty retailers, big box stores don't concentrate on that as much because, as you said, old (experienced is a better word) sales people do move on and since training costs money, spending too much on it yields diminishing returns in many cases.

Learning about how the speakers interface with the space they're used in will help a lot. However, talking in overly technical terms tends to turn customers off and the ones who are extremely interested in tech-speak will often end up costing you sales. Knowing and selling the products which will be more user-friendly, how to control them with a minimum of button presses, tend to be more dependable/less glitchy and have features that will be useful in the future will get more referrals and return business than just about anything else. More than anything, selling is problem solving- the customer has system needs and your job is to find solutions that work well.

One problem with some of the "best" sales people is that they know more about how to close a sale than what they're selling. This tends to be great for their company and career but not so great for their customers. These people are "box pushers" and aren't always particularly interested in what they're selling.

Having worked for specialty dealers, I don't go to a chain for product knowledge as much as for price but I probably ask at least as many questions as the sales person and by doing this, I can find out who knows what they're talking about.

 

[Scryer_360]

Thanks for the response highfan, but I think you missed what I was trying to get at.

I do like what you said about how speakers interface with the space. Customers usually never understand technical speak, I agree, but that doesn't mean we cannot understand if for them.

And yes, we cannot use overly technical terms with customers: if customers understood and knew what audio consists of, I highly doubt we'd of lost Hi-Fi shops around the country like we have. At Best Buy, we know we cannot rattle off tech speak (typically we do use some at the beginning of the pitch on a product, but never more than a preamble to it). What I am looking for here though is what you think chain store associates should know that would allow them to either
a)
help customers who are clueless get a decent audio system (short of just recommending they read audioholics for an hour before coming in)(not that I haven't done that before with a customer, just exceedingly not often), and b)
if you walked in, be able to answer some of your questions about what that store stocks and if it'd be of any use to you.

 

[Phil Taylor]

I don't place a lot of faith in the salespeople at box stores for many of the reasons you list. Seems like you may be the rare exception to the rule and I commend your efforts.

One of the first things I ask folks is what they will be viewing/listening to and also for the dimensions of their room including furnishings, existing floor and wall treatments. I also ask their budget so as not to recommend components out of their price range.

I know you mention the cable salespitch but I also strongly recommend not paying retail for cables as the markup is obscene (probably why you avoid that) especially the "M word" brand. I was on an install yesterday and the gentleman was short an HDMI cable so he ran down to the local Circus City that is closing and came back with a $129 6ft cable that was marked down to $80 - after 20mins of troubleshooting, swapping cable boxes and TV inputs we found it was a bad cable - no signal at all. We swapped it with a $20 cable from his upstairs game room and it worked fine.

I would like salespeople to actually understand the terms they are using and how specs can be manipulated to make a component with lesser actual strengths appear better than it is. Don't get me started on my RMS vs. PMPO power rating rant... 1080p vs. 720p is another issue - I was in one of your Best Buy stores last week to buy a BR disc and checked two Panasonic plasmas a 720p directly over a 1080p both 42" and from under 5ft there was a marked difference but further than that and the difference was practically imperceptible - mind you that's 42" - the larger the screen the more apparent the pixel difference. Salespeople shouldn't push 1080p simply because it's the latest buzzword - there are very few 1080p video sources available with Blu-ray being the most readily available of course. Asking the seating distance should be part of the initial discovery of how the system will be used.

Also you should make your visitors understand that source material and its quality is highly relevant regarding the quality of the output - GIGO. Their new HDTV will not show its true capability until it is fed a proper signal and next to Blu-ray my local network's OTA HD is better than cable or satellite HD due to bandwidth and compression issues. Although my Panny plasma does quite well handling SD material I've seen cable HD look nasty on some HDTVs - the most recent a Toshiba 1080p LCD just yesterday.

I could go on for a lot longer but my son wants to go bike riding on the trails so that should give you a few of my thoughts - hope it helps.

 

[adwilk]

As a manager in a so called big box store in a different industry in a past life, my advice is simple...

Just make sure that whatever information your sales staff knows is accurate. At the end of the day, that really is whats most important. Its probably not imperative that they understand all the subtleties of the industry... after all that would probably put them beyond the big box job. Thats probably the biggest problem with the big box stores... On the flipside, a lot of the staff gets a bad rep unfairly.

Customer Service and customer expectations are paramount. The number 1 thing you and the people working around you can do is listen. I dont know how many times i've seen salespeople fabricate their own objections via verbal spewing. As with any position, be it at best buy or the highest end salon shop, knowing as much about YOUR business as possible will always yield the best results.

Its an interesting question you pose though. Customers dont expect the staff to have all the answers, but certainly an applied knowledge of most everything in the department shouldnt be unreasonable. In any case i think the most important thing is that the salespeople check what they thought they knew at the door and pay attention. Misinformation is rampant.

 

[jostenmeat]

Training EVERYONE to know what should be known not only takes forever, but generally they don't get it: too much to learn to hold a part time job.

So, if you walked into a chain electronics store, what would you want the salesman to be able to tell you?

Some of my opinions... please take my ramblings with salt, if you please...

your query in order to better your trade is a noble cause. Any biz with high employee turnover is always a challenge. Now I'm sure you might be asking about customers who know absolutely nothing, and have the smallest of budgets.

However, in the case that they have a decent disposable budget (as could be the case with anyone interested in electronics), sometimes I think that letting the product speak for itself can make things easier. As this is Audioholics, and not Videoholics, I have to point out how BAD the listening setups are at big boxes. My advice would be design any available room as well as you can for ONE pair of speakers. Choose an affordable pair to put there. When that affordable pair sounds better than anything they've ever heard, all of a sudden they could be interested in the pricier models.

When NOTHING sounds like its going to leave the local theater in the dust, its no wonder they might want whatever is cheapest.

I've not bought a car in forever, but every few years I might test drive a few. Its REALLY NICE when the salesman is not pushy, and simply lets the car speak for itself. If the car is nice, people will want it I suppose. I found these same differences between salesmen in the audio world as well. I do not like returning to hi-end salons where they are pushy. I prefer it when they enjoy that I am enjoying their product as much as I might be.

No suggestions on cabling please, can't avoid that part of the sales pitch, but anything related to speakers and receivers the most.

I read what you said, but I still cannot help myself. Lose the over-priced cables. Yeah, you get to rip many, many, many people off for the first time, but I would LOVE to know how many customers you alienate forever when they learn of their mistake. This happens to be my case. I was goaded into a Monster HDMI cable... and in the end I caved, and bought the cheapest Monster... which is still 10x more than I should've paid. The salesman, a manager, was trying to push a $300 cable!!!

I have since learned so much, that I am sure I dwarf this Best Buy manager's knowledge in AV. Every single time I pass by that store, I have a sour taste in my mouth. And I pass that store very frequently.

I've helped build many multi-thousand dollar systems, just at on-line forums. Many of these I've advised single-handedly. When they come to trust me, with my financially prudent decisions on cabling, remotes, racks, do the purse strings actually open up when they think their dollar is actually going further than they hoped. The point is that they end up spending more . . . when in fact I offered cheaper alternatives . . .

^I just wanted to talk about the other possible side of the coin, so to speak.

I've been to a couple of B&W dealers. The higher-end store of the two had a salesman that was a really cool guy. He was a drummer on the side, and was working on a recording with his group. He loved the stuff, passionate, and he would even leave for lunch and entrust me to the store all by myself, swapping out speakers on my own.

Even HE tried to push a package of Audioquest cabling to the tune of over $1k. Now, I actually think he believed it was important! Needless to say, as much as I loved his product, I only visited that store twice.

The low end store's salesman was very, very happy to listen to my recordings, albeit in a much inferior room. It beat talking about TVs all day long I suppose.

So far, I'm trying to drum these into their heads:
1. Receiver matters, but not at the expense of good speakers. A good receiver cannot make bad speakers sound good, but most any receiver can output decent sound if hooked up to good speakers (not necessarily true, but generally, it will work).

Then there's speaker placement and listener placement, which doesn't have to cost a dime. Granted, perhaps too much for a disinterested teenager to learn about.

2. Speaker wire needs the right gauges for the right lengths: don't just drum out the most expensive stuff every time, but NEVER recommend too weak a gauge.

See my rant above.

3. Know your connections: if the receiver has HDMI, it doesn't mean it will accept audio at the receiver's HDMI ports (like the Harmon Kardon AVR 154).


Anything else, you think?

True that. We really are talking simple aren't we . . .

well, one other thing that might work, or not, is simply offering a great deal. That's what my main dealer did, gave me an offer I could not refuse. He might have made more money off me to begin with, but instead he has a steady customer who has since visited and bought product on multiple occasions.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I've worked for Best Buy now for a few years, and tried to pull together what knowledge I can of audio to get the best systems for my customers (partly noble intentions, part I didn't want any returns). But of course, as new people come in and old salesmen leave for better jobs, the knowledge base always seems to stick to what comes in from manufacturer literature.

Training EVERYONE to know what should be known not only takes forever, but generally they don't get it: too much to learn to hold a part time job.

So, if you walked into a chain electronics store, what would you want the salesman to be able to tell you? No suggestions on cabling please, can't avoid that part of the sales pitch, but anything related to speakers and receivers the most.

So far, I'm trying to drum these into their heads:
1. Receiver matters, but not at the expense of good speakers. A good receiver cannot make bad speakers sound good, but most any receiver can output decent sound if hooked up to good speakers (not necessarily true, but generally, it will work).
2. Speaker wire needs the right gauges for the right lengths: don't just drum out the most expensive stuff every time, but NEVER recommend too weak a gauge.
3. Know your connections: if the receiver has HDMI, it doesn't mean it will accept audio at the receiver's HDMI ports (like the Harmon Kardon AVR 154).


Anything else, you think?

As some already mentioned, honesty is the best policy. Snake oil, mythology, voodoo speak is out. False comparisons by Monster cable products should be out the window. False TV calibration comparison claims needs to go. Bait and switch needs to go. I know that some may be out of your hand but you can tell the truth to the customer non the less.

 

[highfigh]

Thanks for the response highfan, but I think you missed what I was trying to get at.

I do like what you said about how speakers interface with the space. Customers usually never understand technical speak, I agree, but that doesn't mean we cannot understand if for them.

At Best Buy, we know we cannot rattle off tech speak (typically we do use some at the beginning of the pitch on a product, but never more than a preamble to it). What I am looking for here though is what you think chain store associates should know that would allow them to either
a)
help customers who are clueless get a decent audio system (short of just recommending they read audioholics for an hour before coming in)(not that I haven't done that before with a customer, just exceedingly not often), and b)
if you walked in, be able to answer some of your questions about what that store stocks and if it'd be of any use to you.

I don't know what I could have missed. I didn't say that knowing the techy stuff should be avoided, I said that sales people don't need to talk that way to customers. Some won't take the salesperson seriously if they don't blurt out every spec in the book and personally, I think customers like that will waste more time than anyone else. Sure, they'll buy something, sometimes, but the leadup can be awfully long. I answered a) and b)- I just didn't lob a floater.

A salesperson can't actually address the customers' needs unless they know the equipment. To really know the equipment, some knowledge of the technical end is necessary. It's impossible to recommend a speaker placement correctly without knowing something about how to determine the right way to go about it. Maybe .1% can accidentally be correct but I think that's on the high side.

"And yes, we cannot use overly technical terms with customers: if customers understood and knew what audio consists of, I highly doubt we'd of lost Hi-Fi shops around the country like we have."

I agree to a point- if more customers actually knew about audio when they went out shopping, these places would never have survived in the first place. Going to Sears for a stereo is just for convenience and so far, I have never talked to anyone at a Sears store who knew more than a little about the equipment. Some at Best Buy have decent tech knowledge and I would guess that most went there because they could make more money than at the little shop they worked for previously. Then, BB dumped everyone and made them start out like new hires, which cost them a lot of experienced people. Circuit has never impressed me. We don't really have much in the way of other chains here, it's mostly small/medium local dealers. I worked for American TV and most were more concerned with pushing boxes than being correct when they sold equipment. There was a constant battle, especially between the car audio sales and installation departments because the sales end always promised what was either not possible, practical, or that it would be included. The home stereo guys weren't much better. I used to pick their brains all the time and it was a constant uphill battle.

As far as cabling, extended warranties, pushing boxes vs selling what the customers actually need- with the amount of traffic that has been common in chain stores, if you really want to cement relationships with customers and take the time to really set them up with a system that they'll brag about/be incredibly impressed by and make them get all gushy inside, I suggest moving on to a specialty dealer. Chains are there for one reason- to make a lot of money and they make more on a $1000 system plus all kinds of spiffed accessories and an extended warranty than on a $5000 system without all of that stuff.

 

[highfigh]

Lose the over-priced cables. Yeah, you get to rip many, many, many people off for the first time, but I would LOVE to know how many customers you alienate forever when they learn of their mistake. This happens to be my case. I was goaded into a Monster HDMI cable... and in the end I caved, and bought the cheapest Monster... which is still 10x more than I should've paid. The salesman, a manager, was trying to push a $300 cable!!!

One thing most people who don't know anyone who has worked for a chain store (or worked for one) is that salespeople who refuse to sell the things management wants them to push, won't last long. Far more are fired because they wouldn't toe the company line and sell all of the things that make the most money than the ones with bad attitude, are chronically late, take too much time off, have drinking problems that affect their performance or have multiple customer complaints.

 

[Phil Taylor]

One thing most people who don't know anyone who has worked for a chain store (or worked for one) is that salespeople who refuse to sell the things management wants them to push, won't last long. Far more are fired because they wouldn't toe the company line and sell all of the things that make the most money than the ones with bad attitude, are chronically late, take too much time off, have drinking problems that affect their performance or have multiple customer complaints.

That's why when I rarely go into a box store (usually just to look at new model TVs) I don't talk to the salesfolks much. Not to be pompous but I know more about what they're selling than they do - just stating facts. You better watch your back - sounds like you are caring more for your customer's satisfaction more than your manager would prefer - hope you don't get canned. Maybe you oughta show up late, grumpy and drunk too a couple of times a week just to be on the safe side.

 

[highfigh]

That's why when I rarely go into a box store (usually just to look at new model TVs) I don't talk to the salesfolks much. Not to be pompous but I know more about what they're selling than they do - just stating facts. You better watch your back - sounds like you are caring more for your customer's satisfaction more than your manager would prefer - hope you don't get canned. Maybe you oughta show up late, grumpy and drunk too a couple of times a week just to be on the safe side.

I don't work for a chain but I did manage the 12V department at one of the stores for one. That's the only chain I have worked for and it's going to stay that way. The examples I gave were from that place, though. The rest are from my experiences shopping at other chain stores and to be honest, I'd like things to go back to the way they were in the past where the majority of people selling this kind of equipment know what the he!! they're talking about. Sales people used to care about being honest and answering questions correctly. Once they hear that someone can make good money selling this stuff, all they care about is that carrot hanging in front of them and when someone asks them "What's the best you have?", the first thing they consider is what they have that has a high margin and pays a spiff.

 

[davidtwotrees]

Possibly this is attributable to the fact that salesmen used to be able to make a living selling things. I mean a living that would pay for a home and a family. Of course they were good-that's what they did for a living. Are the sales folks at Best Buy able to support a home on what they make? Or are you dealing with part timers who aren't seeing this as their livelyhood, just a temp job?
Also, my dad always claimed that the trades went downhill because originally, only the smartest and wealthiest people went to college. This left a fair amount of pretty sharp people to fill the everyday jobs.......now, everyone seems to go to college.

 

[highfigh]

Possibly this is attributable to the fact that salesmen used to be able to make a living selling things. I mean a living that would pay for a home and a family. Of course they were good-that's what they did for a living. Are the sales folks at Best Buy able to support a home on what they make? Or are you dealing with part timers who aren't seeing this as their livelyhood, just a temp job?
Also, my dad always claimed that the trades went downhill because originally, only the smartest and wealthiest people went to college. This left a fair amount of pretty sharp people to fill the everyday jobs.......now, everyone seems to go to college.

I know someone who makes about $100K selling this stuff- you don't consider that "making a living"? He doesn't work for a chain, though. I seriously doubt anyone at BB, CC or any other chain makes that much, even the store manager. The way BB canned all of the full-timers who were making decent money and made them sign on (if they wanted to) as new hires pretty much eliminated any loyalty to the company. Also, a lot of companies are hiring only part-timers because they don't have to pay for benefits.

If anyone wants to sell this kind equipment and make a living at it, working for a specialty dealer, custom integrator or contractor is the only way to really learn the technical end, how to intelligently design a system, how it goes together and how to control it. A chain store is a way to get into the business but unless someone wants to move up that food chain, it's not the way to do what it sounds like the OP is looking for. Once someone is in the business long enough and they make enough good connections, the possibility of working for a rep firm or a manufacturer is there. It all depends on what someone wants to do.