How to Balance Standards - Work and Personal
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@scottalanmiller said:
If you are getting "free" advice something is wrong.
Nothing is free, but the advice is included in the sales price. You are getting advice on the expectation that you will buy something. That doesn't mean that the advice is not valid. Many business models are based on the need for repeat sales and recommendations. The "value" of the company is based on its reputation. That reputation wouldn't be worth as much he sales staff just advised customers to buy items with the biggest commission. Many (most?) retail stores don't work on commission anyway.
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@Dashrender said:
The problem I have is that CDW sells itself as a solution provider - I guess the misnomer is that the solution is one in their best interest, not your best interest.
I don't have this issue. They make it extremely clear that they are a store. I've never gotten the impression that there would be any ambiguity. Once someone is a store, there should be no doubts.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Nothing is free, but the advice is included in the sales price.
Yup, but the advice has two key elements:
- The person's job and obligation is to the employer not to the customer (by convention, social contract, legal, etc.)
- The person or company is paid to make a sale. No matter how you word it, if they don't make a sale they don't get money, the more that they sell the more money they make, margins determine their income rate.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
That doesn't mean that the advice is not valid.
Absolutely, it could be completely valid. It simply means that there should be no expectation of validity.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
The "value" of the company is based on its reputation. That reputation wouldn't be worth as much he sales staff just advised customers to buy items with the biggest commission.
And yet Best Buy, Staples, CDW, etc. I don't believe that this theory holds up in the real world at all.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The problem I have is that CDW sells itself as a solution provider - I guess the misnomer is that the solution is one in their best interest, not your best interest.
I don't have this issue. They make it extremely clear that they are a store. I've never gotten the impression that there would be any ambiguity. Once someone is a store, there should be no doubts.
They want to be your MSP - that's a bit more than a store.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
The "value" of the company is based on its reputation. That reputation wouldn't be worth as much he sales staff just advised customers to buy items with the biggest commission.
And yet Best Buy, Staples, CDW, etc. I don't believe that this theory holds up in the real world at all.
In the US at least, Scott is correct - these places don't care about repeat sales, they only care about this one sale today. Specialty stores care about repeat business, but big box stores.. nah.. they know there are 10 more people behind you looking to buy something.
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@Dashrender said:
They want to be your MSP - that's a bit more than a store.
You are missing a key element here.... store is a store. You can sell as many extras as you want, but once you are a store, you are a store. If they sell things "at cost", you could make an argument that they are only providing a service and are not a store or motivated financially by it. I know of no one doing that but, in theory...
But if you are being paid to sell products, all of your advice is suspect at best. It's very clear, the concept of a store is completely misaligned with the values of a customer.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
They want to be your MSP - that's a bit more than a store.
You are missing a key element here.... store is a store. You can sell as many extras as you want, but once you are a store, you are a store. If they sell things "at cost", you could make an argument that they are only providing a service and are not a store or motivated financially by it. I know of no one doing that but, in theory...
But if you are being paid to sell products, all of your advice is suspect at best. It's very clear, the concept of a store is completely misaligned with the values of a customer.
I'll give you that.
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@Dashrender said:
In the US at least, Scott is correct - these places don't care about repeat sales, they only care about this one sale today. Specialty stores care about repeat business, but big box stores.. nah.. they know there are 10 more people behind you looking to buy something.
Well it isn't that they don't want repeat sales. It is that there are many factors:
- Many (most) customers never evaluate the advice that they were given to see if it was good so are just taken advantage of over and over again.
- Switching stores would mean admitting their own mistakes of the past and most people would rather make the same mistake twice and claim it was not a mistake than to fix their behaviour and not make the mistake again.
- There might not be other stores available or they may have no idea where to go.
I hate Best Buy, but sometimes they are what is around. But I never ask them for advice, that would be ridiculous, obviously they have no idea about cables, audio equipment, computers, whatever. They know less than random people on the street in most cases.
