Comments on: Kill Your Customer: Classic Customer Disservice

By: Rick Wilson DMD

Rick Wilson DMD — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:09:21 +0000

Thanks Tom. Utterly unecessary is good. Very good.

By: Tom Bentley

Tom Bentley — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:26:32 +0000

Rick, you’ve inadvertently come up with a stellar design idea: wainscoting on stools! How elegant, how distinctive, how utterly unnecessary. I look forward to seeing them in the next Pottery Barn catalog.

By: Rick Wilson DMD

Rick Wilson DMD — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:46:00 +0000

Tom, I don’t mean to go off on a tangent like I do on that OTHER thread- well, yes I do, but anyway- one of my super-talented repair guys had taken two of our actual dental stools just last week for re-upholstering. So of course I used that line on him as well… Hey, I HAD to see what they’d look like, right? So a sample is a perfectly reasonable request.

Now for the wainscoting refurbishing…

By: Annie Dennison

Annie Dennison — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 18:11:29 +0000

Tom, that’s a myth about us psychologist-types that we’re always turning the psychologizing ear on others.

Sometimes we’re not even listening.

By: Tom Bentley

Tom Bentley — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:45:01 +0000

Bernd, yes. Of course an engineer would figure out a simple solution: have small folding chairs, easily stored, easily available, in a few niches in the stores. Perhaps you should go into the save-the-bookstores consulting trade?

By: CoCreatr

CoCreatr — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 14:21:37 +0000

A polite move for a pro salesperson would be to …

… offer a chair. Whiz out a camping foldable tucked between shelf crevices, if nothing else, would leave a positive impression about this chance. I do anything within reason to retain a customer.

By: Tom Bentley

Tom Bentley — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:08:36 +0000

Rick, your arguments are compelling indeed—I think Amazon shareholders are shaking in their electron-enabled boots. We may have to make an adjustment or two to the stools for OSHA though: seat belts. But they can be stylish as well.

As for the stool samples statement, I can’t even dignify that comment with a comment (mostly because my dignity is at the cleaners).

By: Rick Wilson DMD

Rick Wilson DMD — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:35:19 +0000

OK- we’re really on to something with these tooth-pulp-shaped-three-legged-barstools for bookstores. The advantages:
-Allow patrons to hang out awhile without being shooshed away by staff.
-Yet Teetery enough that they won’t browse TOO long, or camp out, or come to think of the store as their personal hotel room.
-Attract singles mixing.
-Adaptable to alcoholic beverages or the caffeinated varieties.
-Purple Cows fer sure, especially if they’re actually purple three-legged barstools.
-Finally, gives the sales force the excuse to say, “We have a grand plan to recharge the brick-and-mortar bookstore business in the face of competition from the online and eBook models. Allow me to show you our stool samples…”

By: Tom Bentley

Tom Bentley — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:09:56 +0000

Annie, bookstore bars are a fine idea, though the water rings on the new publications might be a problem. Having worked in a bookstore cafe before, adding alcohol to the mix might bring the poet out in many a patron (literary taste beware!). But I’d certainly spend some time in Books ‘n Booze.

Hey, do you psychologists ever take a break or are you always (draw back in fear) psychologizing?

By: Annie Dennison

Annie Dennison — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 15:49:41 +0000

Well, not until you suggested it, Tom.

Actually, some would say that being a psychologist prepares me nicely for a career of nudging people to use intuition, rather than rationality, to find meaning in stories.

Why don’t chain bookstores install the barstools and reinvent themselves as the new/old place for singles to mingle?