In my adventures in the realm of retail, I have pretty much narrowed down a comprehensive list of customers that one will encounter. I would like any one of you reading this who has ever shopped anywhere ever to read carefully and determine where in the list you belong. One should also note that these categories aren’t mutually exclusive.
The Pretender: This particular breed aggravates me for several reasons. What this person takes advantage of (but doesn’t deserve) is the customer’s treatment. You see, as we all have heard at some point, “The customer is always right.” For argument sake, let’s assume this is true (it’s not by the way). Well as far as I am concerned, you are NOT a customer until you buy something, period. Until you actually buy something, you’re a shopper, not a customer, and there is a difference. The problem is, because of the politics that occur behind the closed doors of a business, you are granted the customer’s rights and immunities strictly for the potential that you (maybe) will become a customer. So what does this person do? Simply, they pretend. This person acts as if they’re going to make a purchase, for various reasons. Some like the feeling of being a customer. Some just want information and figure they’ll just waste a salesman’s time. Again, this person is NOT a customer, and luckily for them, the business still treats them as if they are.
The Caveman: Sometimes these aren’t all bad, but the caveman can be a very draining to deal with. The caveman doesn’t know anything about anything, it’s a wonder he even knows about stores. Whatever the caveman is interested in, he simply is more intrigued that the technology exists to produce the item of interest than what it does. What’s good about the caveman is that the level of shock sometimes will have him or her throwing their wallet at you. The bad is sometimes they’re just trying to learn more about this amazing new invention. Dealing with this can be very tricky, if you touch on the wrong topic, you’ve opened a can of worms. You may mention a technology or use of the item that overlaps with something else. Now you have to explain more.
The “Educated Consumer”: You can tell from the quotations that the consumer in this example is far from educated. The “educated consumer” is fully loaded with more useless knowledge than an Antarctica history teacher. They have studied long and hard all the buzz words that exist in the world, and also feel as if they know things about the business and are on the inside track…they’re not. The “educated consumer” for example knows that when buying a budget brand item of just about any genre, they’re much smarter, the foolish ones paying a lot of money for Vercace or Sony are just paying for name. Or maybe that’s what they tell themselves to justify being cheap? In either case, this breed will tell you you’re wrong on topics you know in your sleep.