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  • #16
    Quoth Broomjockey View Post
    I want a store where my customers trust the opinion of the staff, where they'll go to know they aren't being ripped off just to satisfy the bottom line. Customer satisfaction is the goal. Happy customers return more often and spend more. Besides, if the crap breaks in the warranty period, I lose money on replacing it. Especially if it KEEPS breaking.
    That's *exactly* how I see it.

    There's a hobby shop across town...that isn't afraid to say what they think of certain "lesser" brands, especially model locomotives. Quite a few of the cheaper makes...really are shit. "Shit" includes most 1970s Tyco, Bachmann (except for their Spectrum line), Model Power, Life-Like (before the Proto lines)

    They don't run well to begin with, and are usually made as cheaply as possible. (These engines are usually sold as part of a set. Because of that, they're made cheap to keep the price down.) Instead, they'll recommend makes like Athearn, Atlas, Kato, etc. Sure, they cost more, but, IMHO, it's worth it. The smooth running, added details, and in the case of Athearn...sturdy construction, more than makes up for it.

    That shop has a vested interest in keeping their customers happy. They want repeat business. They don't want to lose a customer over a shitty product. That's why they've gotten the lion's share of my business over the past 16 years.
    Aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. --Enzo Ferrari

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    • #17
      So if the employee KNOWS that the item YOU are buying won't last long...you would want them to stay quiet so that you buy that one and then a short time later, buy another?

      I didn't mean too much by it.

      It's just that the OP represents the store.... the cheaper part might be better for the customer in some cases. (birthday gift for punk down the street)

      You can present the features/benefits of each part without saying one is crap and the other is great.

      "The gold standard of controllers is the <insert OEM part>, it is famous for reliability and ease of use"

      "We also carry <insert cheaper part> which costs less money, but at the expense of durability....even so, some folks prefer it's affordabilty over the OEM one"

      You get the idea? You can accomplish the goal (sell the OEM one) without throwing the store under the bus by telling the customer that you stock crap which ends up making the store lose credibility.

      The OP asked if he was right in doing something, I provided my opinion... thats all.

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      • #18
        Quoth jiarby View Post
        You get the idea? You can accomplish the goal (sell the OEM one) without throwing the store under the bus by telling the customer that you stock crap which ends up making the store lose credibility.

        The OP asked if he was right in doing something, I provided my opinion... thats all.
        Except the OP never said anything beyond mentioning that the third party controllers don't sell well. So by your very clarification, you shouldn't have a problem with what they've done.
        Ba'al: I'm a god. Gods are all-knowing.

        http://unrelatedcaptions.com/45147

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        • #19
          I would happily give personal recommedations on the quality of an item a person wanted to buy, if I thought that the item was not actually worth the money paid for it.

          I've bought cheap off-brand controllers before, but I wasn't expecting them to last a long time, so I knew what I was getting. Strangely, every one of them has been pretty solid, even though most were bought used.

          ^-.-^
          Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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          • #20
            Quoth jiarby View Post
            I didn't mean too much by it.

            It's just that the OP represents the store.... the cheaper part might be better for the customer in some cases. (birthday gift for punk down the street)

            You can present the features/benefits of each part without saying one is crap and the other is great.

            "The gold standard of controllers is the <insert OEM part>, it is famous for reliability and ease of use"

            "We also carry <insert cheaper part> which costs less money, but at the expense of durability....even so, some folks prefer it's affordabilty over the OEM one"

            You get the idea? You can accomplish the goal (sell the OEM one) without throwing the store under the bus by telling the customer that you stock crap which ends up making the store lose credibility.

            The OP asked if he was right in doing something, I provided my opinion... thats all.
            I like the way that jiarby put on the sales job. At the tax office we have a few bank products whereby the preparation fee is withheld from their refund (those who are getting a refund, needless to say), all but one is a major ripoff. I don't use that word to describe it (unless to agree with a customer who says that ). However, I push the plusses and minuses of each and try to steer them to the least of the evils.
            I'm trying to see things from your point of view, but I can't get my head that far up my keister!

            Who is John Galt?
            -Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

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            • #21
              When I worked at the Bullseye, I had no problems at all with saying that the cheap brand of electronics was just that: cheap, with all the different meanings that word could mean. Then just give the customer a minute to think about it. If they asked my opinion directly, I'd honestly answer that I wouldn't buy it, I'd go for the next better brand to get a bit better quality. That brand was inexpensive, and it was also shoddy. It was good if you didn't care about quality (a lot of people bought it anyway with "It's just for the kids' room"), but if you did, you should really spend the little bit extra on a brand you recognize and trust.
              It's little things that make the difference between 'enjoyable', 'tolerable', and 'gimme a spoon, I'm digging an escape tunnel'.

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              • #22
                When I was a video rental peon, I'd always tell my customers when a movie was terrible.

                What made it worse is we'd get all these super heavily promoted films where the trailer is cut to make it look like a totally different movie than what it really is, then we'd get hundreds of copies, and told to push it.

                For instance, 'Sideways' and 'Spanglish', both had previews made to look like they were slapstick, laugh a minute, low-brow comedies. We got in 180 copies of Sideways, the most we'd ever gotten for any single movie in the store's history, and every single person who watched it hated it.

                My specialty was knowing all the obscure, direct to video, only 1 copy for rental films that no one has ever heard of, and finding the rare hidden gems. I'm very proud of the fact that I only ever had one complaint about a movie I'd recommended for someone, and that particular case was an older woman who agreed the plot and acting were both excellent, but she didn't like the film because there was too much swearing.
                Aliterate : A person who is capable of reading but unwilling to do so.

                "A man who does not read has no advantage over a man who cannot" - Mark Twain

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