Click here to read the free whitepaper!  

Click here to read the free whitepaper!  

Most retailers drill it into employees’ heads: The customer is always right. Except — we all know that sometimes that is just simply not the case.

Customers can make all sorts of errors in judgment that damage their faith in your products: They can misunderstand what a product is capable of, what kind of solution they need; or they may have fundamentally wrong ideas about how businesses function and what a fair price for a product is.

But even when they’re really, really wrong, retailers have to figure out how to make the situation right — at least if they want to keep the doors open.

In his new book, Retail Truths: The Unconventional Wisdom of Retailing, retail insider Chip Averwater advises retailers that when faced with a customer who is wrongly convinced he or she is right, it’s usually smarter to swallow your pride and make the perceived “wrong” right.

The book covers over 400 real-life lessons on retailers that did just that, including ideas to  improve selling practices, pricing strategies, employee management and what to do with otherwise great customers who can sometimes be difficult.

Among the advice in the book:

Retail doesn’t get rave reviews. Most shoppers agree that the typical retail experience isn’t good. Many say they hate to shop because of crowded stores, inadequate parking, lack of service, etc. Whatever the reason for any perceived short-coming, Averwater says retailers should accept up front that you’ll get little sympathy from customers. Their patience is thin, their budgets are stretched, and they are increasingly conscious of their power to take their business elsewhere.

Be-backs don’t come back. When a customer says, “I’ll be back later to purchase this!” they usually won’t. Sales personnel should recognize that’s usually an excuse to leave without seeming rude. Even when customers say it truthfully, chances are they’ll forget about it or discover another option. Instead, employees should be trained to try to keep the conversation going by sending information to the customer, getting more info on the shopper, or offering to call when the product goes on sale or has a promotion.

Happy customers come and go; unhappy customers accumulate. Except for a small percentage of die-hard customers, most happy customers don’t stick around for long. Even after a retailer has proven to be trustworthy, it’s still competing against many other options. But dissatisfied customers have long memories and will always look for chances to warn other people away from a place where they had a bad experience. They’re expensive enemies to have — which is why it’s worth actively looking for ways to make amends with them.

Complaints are signs your customers want you to do better. No retailer likes to receive complaints, but when a customer complains, they often are speaking for many other customers who felt the same way and just never came back. Retailers shouldn’t write off complaints as flukes or one-time incidents. Instead, encourage customers to share their complaints so you know what areas need improvement. Plus, it shows customers you’re interested in their insight and want to make things right.

Balancing negatives like turning down a request or giving criticism with the goals of creating a satisfied customer and a motivated employee requires so much tightrope walking that retail managers may sometimes feel more like professional circus performers.

Advice for how to handle some of the most common difficult discussions in retail are discussed in the book Power Questions: Build Relationships, Win New Business, and Influence Others by Andrew Sobel and Jerold Panas. Below are examples of the kinds of situations you may have to handle — and advice on how to gracefully leave everyone involved feeling good about the situation.

1. A customer demands a discount.

Asking for a discount means the customer wants to buy, but saying “no” outright will end the conversation fast.

Instead, Sobel advises asking why the customer thinks the price is too high or why they need the discount. Depending on their answer, you might be able to make a counter-offer (free shipping, or a volume discount for guaranteed future business) that preserves more profit while making the customer feel they got a good deal as well.

2. A conversation goes off the rails.

Something went wrong, and now a customer (or another manager or employee) is upset and confronting you about it.

Hit the reset button. Instinct may be to just keep talking to try and dig out of the sand trap, but Sobel said it’s better to simply ask to start over. That lets everyone shift their focus from what went wrong to how it can be fixed. Better yet, it usually defuses anger and other emotions quickly.

3. A customer asks, “What’s different or special about your company?”

Repeating the standard company line probably won’t get you far — and the customer has probably already heard it. Another option is to ask them what their prior experience with the company is, or what area they’re most interested in.

That gives you a chance to assess what it is they’re most concerned about (prior bad experience, concerns about quality, etc.) and address it directly.

4. An unhappy customer calls you to complain.

The most important thing when faced with an unhappy customer isn’t to solve it immediately — it’s showing that you care about what went wrong, why they’re upset and you want to make it better. Some suggested responses from Sobel:

• “Thank you for raising this with me. Can you tell me any other facts or background information about what happened?”
• “Can you say more about that?” (This demonstrates your interest and helps explore the problem more deeply.)
• “How do you think things got to this point?” (This may uncover the origins of the problem, including things the customer may have done to exacerbate it.)

Once you’ve gotten more information about what went wrong, then you can apologize and start to make it right.

Bath salts, if you don’t recall, is the street name for the somewhat loosely defined synthetic drug that authorities have blamed for a number of bizarre incidents lately, including the Miami “face-eating” attack.

The drugs are so new, that in some communities they aren’t yet illegal. In others, they’re simply sold illegally under names such as “bath salts,” “spice,” or other items that they physically resemble.

Because bath salts have varied ingredients and are far from uniform in their chemical makeup, they can have unpredictable effects in those who take them. Which is apparently how Avery’s son wound up in the ER after taking too much of the substance.

Once his son had recovered, Avery went back to the shop demanding to know how the shop could justify selling such a dangerous item.

It seems he wasn’t happy with whatever response he received, because his next step was to smash the store’s front door, glass display cases and some products on display.

Avery says he doesn’t regret what he did even though he’ll face multiple criminal charges regarding the incident.

Back in December 2010, Deschanel, current star of “The New Girl” television show on Fox, filed suit regarding an oral contract with shoe maker Steve Madden to use her name and likeness to promote a line of shoes. Eventually it was discovered that Steve Madden had an agreement with another shoe company, Candie’s, to distribute a line of “Candie’s Zooey shoes” through Kohl’s. Deschanel was never paid for the endorsement.

Eventually, Kohl’s settled with the actress for $100k. But now the lawyers who handled the settlement are suing the retailer for $600k in fees that they claim they weren’t paid.

In an ironic twist, the firm, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, claims it began working on the case before a formal written agreement about its services had been settled on with Kohl’s. (Sheppard Mullin took over the case from the firm that had been handling it to begin with.)

But Sheppard Mullin claims it sent its hourly rates to Kohl’s in writing and also reached an oral agreement about rates with the company. For its part, Kohl’s says it won’t pay the fees because at six times the value of the actual settlement, they’re disproportionately high.

Click here to read the free whitepaper!  

Click here to read the free whitepaper!  

You probably don’t think much about the cardboard and other garbage that your store tosses every week. But for enterprising crooks, it’s a lucrative income stream.

Scavengers in many parts of the country are picking up the bales of discarded cardboard stores set out for recycling. But while most people only take a few store boxes when they’re moving, the scavengers sell them to line their own pockets.

The practice is known as “cardboard poaching,” and it can bring in far more money than would be obvious at first glance. Nationwide, it’s a multimillion-dollar enterprise, much like scrap-metal theft.

Cardboard poachers armed with nothing more than a small moving van or similar sized vehicle can pick up about 1.5 tons of cardboard in just a few hours by casing bundles left on sidewalks or loading up behind a big-box store like Wal-Mart. When the cardboard is sold to recyclers, the poacher nets about $150. Several runs a week generate decent income for not much time or resource investment.

In one recent case, a poaching ring in New Jersey was busted after it stole 900 tons of cardboard with a “street value” of over $100k in just three months.

It may seem like a victimless crime, but it’s actually costing recyclers huge amounts of money. Most law enforcement officers say they believe organized crime is behind a lot of the thefts. In New York City alone, the lost revenue to recyclers is estimated at up to $10 million per year. And retailers end up paying for legitimate recycling services to pick up waste that’s no longer there.

Clamping down on the rings is tough because they’re loosely organized and need little more than a truck or van to operate.

Fight warm weather lethargy with motivating requests. Commands never motivate, requests almost always do. Try to phrase tasks and responsibilities in such a way that employees can stay enthusiastic about them. There’s a big difference between “get all the inventory out by the end of the day” and “Let’s get this display finished by 5 pm.”

Make this the Summer of Why? When an employee has his or her own way to do a task, don’t automatically point out the “correct” way of doing it. Instead, ask why he or she does things the other way — there may be a good reason for it, and if there’s not, it’s still a good teaching opportunity.

Highlight superstars. It costs nothing but a little time to tell an employee he’s done a good job. Find ways to make sure employees know their good work was noticed, and they’ll find ways to repeat it.

Don’t let yourself fall into a slump. Your actions represent your real values, and employees will notice if what you and other managers do doesn’t match what you expect them to do.

Don’t give your employees a reason to make a post-summer exodus. Employees don’t quit their jobs; they quit their managers — it’s the main reason for employees switching jobs, more so than working conditions, higher pay, better opportunity, etc. Keep communication lines open so employees know they can come to you with concerns — and actually be heard.

Need more motivation ideas? See the part one of this post here.