The first place was nice enough, and the sales clerk quite friendly. But there was an air of sterility about the place - perhaps an atmosphere towards sales that has become standardised through the large, impersonal supermarket model - everything is brightly lit, all of the products are on display in neat rows so that customers can come in and browse easily, without the need for interruption (or human contact). If we need help, we can ask, but what we see is what we get. If we like something, we buy it, if the shop doesn't have what we're looking for, come back another time. Much like the supermarket, shopping had become a solo trip through consumer-land, where the products alone should be sufficient to secure our interest.
At this point, I must add that finding glasses for me is an extremely difficult endeavour. I have a strangely small shaped/sized head meaning I need really tiny frames (my current pair is from the children's section, seriously). So I suppose I am a little more susceptible to the need for good service in this department. But nevertheless, service in the second store was so strikingly different to that encountered in practically any store I've entered, regardless of the product.
Owned by a young mother, the store has only been open for about six months. Upon walking in, my husband and I were a little taken aback - were we walking into a store, or into someone's living room? The centre piece was a couch, and then a table with chairs, while the glasses - the items for sale - were all tucked away on hard to get to shelving at the back. They were displayed in quite a decorative fashion which looked really nice, but which didn't match that ease of access to the glasses in the first store we visited - access required assistance.
The second thing we noticed was the bright, friendly face of the young woman who came to serve us. As usual, I explained my small-face predicament, as well as the details of what I was looking for (even though I know normally beggars can't be choosers...). She went straight away and brought me back a few different pairs, and each time I tried them she looked closely and gave her opinion. When it came down to two different pairs, she looked a while and said, "you know, these ones, they just become a part of your face." Okay, so it could just sound like a good sales technique. But she seemed to care about finding the right pair, which matters when you need to wear glasses often and don't want to make a fashion statement about them (i.e. just want to be able to see). So those were great words to hear.
When I inquired about her interesting and unusual range, she confided (with much passion) that she worked really hard to find things that were a bit unusual, in the hope that people could come and find products suited to them. She also tried to sell smaller brands that were a bit harder to find. I guess she was trying to go against the tide of mass-production. Irrespective of this business model, her prices were reasonable - in fact, better than the big brands you find everywhere. What impressed me more was the time she seemed to devote to this task - not because there was a major demand for it but because she was so passionate about it, and because she really wanted to try and provide more creative products for her customers.
I think it's rare to find someone so passionate about their work in any field, and also to see how this translates to her desire to serve her customers in every way - not only by trying to offer original products but also in her quest to create an ambience where everyone feels at home. She explained how that feeling we got when walking in was intentional - she wants her customers to be able to sit down and relax and for her to serve them, rather than that help-yourself-all-you-can eat supermarket model (my words, not hers). And then it dawned on me that perhaps we had simply gotten accustomed to this impersonal model - I am used to walking in and out of stores, browsing around, with barely even a "hello" to the sales clerk. When the relationship between the sales clerk and the customer is reduced to a simple economic transaction, there is no need for more than a hello, really. But when we set up shop in our own neighbourhood, when our main clients are our neighbours and inevitably friends, we have a different way of doing business. We conduct our service in a way that privileges building relationships rather than just exchanging goods. We try to offer quality over quantity and the best service possible. Even the spatial layout of the commercial space differs - the furniture arrangement clearly reflects the primacy of relations before sales, or at least as an integral part of the transaction.
I also inquired as to why she had decided to open such a specialist store here in the suburb we live in, which is hardly a hub for shopping. She explained, simply, that she lived nearby and that her children's school was opposite, so she wanted to be able to spend more time with her family. She admitted that sales in Paris would certainly be more profitable. But that wasn't the main thing driving her. Casually, she asked us about our lives, too. I think this natural conversation and this openness in which she felt at ease to put her family values on the table (along with the glasses) was welcoming, as was the passion she clearly held for her job. I mean, there are probably not that many people that take such a keen interest in glasses. But luckily there are some! We need such passion for all the diverse goods and services that we depend on in the world. And I can't help feeling that if more people felt that passionate towards their work, and treated it like a service, the way we conduct these transactions would transform into some kind of meaningful exchange. Additionally, the more that we see a greater coherence between our family and work values, as well as towards those within our community, the more these locally-embedded types of models might prove to be great approaches to 'doing business', not only reinforcing the relationships between members within a neighbourhood, but also increasing and diversifying the range of employment opportunities available locally too.
Once again, I appreciate how 'space' and the way it's defined reflects the types of relationships valued within a place. While I've tended to contemplate this at the level of the neighbourhood, or of the entire city, it's just as interesting to consider how this functions in the space of places like shops too.
No comments:
Post a Comment