Published 4 years ago on Dec 04, 2020
by Anindya RayView: 2137
Anecdote #8
Let me ask you a question…
What do you think is the most scarce resource in the world?
Yes my friends, it is “ATTENTION”
And why is attention scarce?
Because it is so difficult to grab it.
What happens when we walk into a store?or open an e-commerce webpage?or any of our social media accounts?
Yes, we are bombarded with information, each trying to grasp our attention.Every inch of our view is branded with messages, colour, music, smell and design fighting for our attention.
What do you think this does to our attention? it fragments it, makes it jumpy and that results in a very small attention span. We become much like grasshoppers, fluttering from one place to another.
Studies show that the average human being now has an attention span of 8 seconds. This is a sharp decrease from the average attention span of 12 seconds in the year 2000. More shocking, perhaps, is the fact that research has found that human attention span decreases by a whopping 88% every year.
Take a minute to soak that in as I recount yet another incident from my early days in retail.
For those who came in late, as a management trainee, I was sent to the store for some months to sell and ended up managing the whole counter as all the sales staff quit. So there I was, first job, trying my best to manage my sales targets.
Now try as I might . . the sales targets were always elusive. There was a lot of pressure from HO to meet our targets. Even the Chairman made a few visits to see how things were going.
It is here that I had a revelation. Customers (and people in general) have very short attention spans.
By the time you explain them one thing, they have moved onto to the 10th.
One of those days, in walked a customer who demonstrated this to me.
‘Well . .’, I gave him an explanation on how the newly introduced trouser was a superior product. Thank god, I remembered some of the product training.
‘Do you have it in my size?’
‘Let me check?’ I said, and quickly checked the pile on the shelf for the piece, which was not there. ‘I think it’s in the store room, I will just be back’.
I went quickly to the store and rummaged through the stocks and there it was at the bottom of the pile. With a sense of great achievement I rushed back.
But, where was the customer.
I looked left, looked right. The customer had vanished.
There was this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Had I taken too long?
I looked at my watch, 6 minutes – oh! It’s okay I thought . . .
I started walking through the store to see if the customer was still there. And there he was, in another section, looking at the products.
He looked blankly at me when I offered him his size. ‘Ah! Yes’. He remembered. And politely took the piece to the trial room. ‘This fit’s fine’, he said coming out, ‘Do you have that dark grey colour in this? I think I like that colour more.’
On the inside, I was dismayed as I could see another customer in my section who was going unattended.
With a polite smile, I said “Of course, just give me a minute. I will get it for you”
I had no idea if I had that piece in stock, it would take another 6 minutes to get the size. In the meanwhile I would probably lose the customer browsing in my section. But I would at least get this sale.
Unfortunately, by the time I came back with the piece, the customer had left. And I lost that sale. Not just one but two.
And then I started seeing a pattern. I realised there were quite a few cases like this. I thought maybe if I could not waste time, while attending to customers – it would allow me to multi-attend and also close sale faster.
And then I came up with a 3 step formula to help myself.
– The product posters & tags helped me in explaining the product to the customer while allowing me to multi attend to customers.
– The cheat sheet was a pencil written inventory which stayed in my pocket at all times. I would cross off pieces sold and add pieces which came in. At any point I knew what my inventory was.
– In the store, I made a system of keeping inventory in a way that I knew exactly where the pieces were.
I did feel a lot more confident after this and it helped improve my hit rate.
But the lesson I learnt was this, that consumers have a very short attention span. And if you have not hooked them in that span or ensured that they find it easy to shop and try, either you have lost the sale or lost a future sale.
While retail has truly evolved in these many years. So much is done by artificial intelligence, systems, store talkers, marketing material etc., yet the fact remains simple.
– Keep your communication simple and clear.
– If it’s important, then that communication bears repeating.
– Do not waste the consumers time, because you do not know the answer to a question. Anticipate, plan and keep the consumer engaged.
Whether you are in retail, or online, these principles remain the same.
What are your experiences on this. Please do write and share with us.
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6 Comments
Umesh KamaladinniDec 05, 2020 at 18:20 pm
It is true,attracting attention of customer is sales executive job.wel explained about cheat sheet.... Nice article..
Manoj Kumar M.RDec 05, 2020 at 14:25 pm
"A store is a place for everything & everything at its place" but knowing what is available in stores & what is expected requires a lot of homework. Yes Sir, Cheat sheet records are followed till date by most people. Wonderful article Sir. Great learning ???
Raja ChidambaramDec 05, 2020 at 09:51 am
I just reflected on my previous comment that I wrote just now ... What came to me is a simple principle "You have to give attention if what to grab anyone's attention". This leads to a very simple fundamental principle of life: "What you give is what you get back from the world". I remembered a Tamil quote that I read in early chilhood: "வினை விதைத்தவன் வினை அறுப்பான், தினை விதைத்தவன் தினை அறுப்பான்." It means: "You reap what you sow." Thanks Anindya for this insightful story.
Raja ChidambaramDec 05, 2020 at 09:07 am
Hi Aninidya, This is very true. Many many many time I have walked into Branded stores and for more than a few minutes no one even comes near me. All the store staff including the store manager are busy with their own thing when there is no other customer except me. They all see me in the store. But ... the store manager is super busy with his computer. The store staff are chatting about the movie they saw or some gossip. Every time I have walked out .... the worst is when no one even has asked me whey I am leaving or what am I looking for. In most cases I have gone with clear intention of a specific purchase. This has happened in the last 20 years hundreds of time specifically with Branded stores in Malls as well as high streets. Some times I have even shouted at them about their attitude and have told them that they are killing the brand. But the most interesting thing is .... I have seen this happening to me far less in small multi-brand stores run by Owners. There some one will come to me within a 90 seconds of me walking into the store, asking me 'Sir, what do you?" or "sir, Can I help you?". So you can understand when many Single branded stored owned by the companies do less sales ... RMKV, Nalis, Kumaran, Chennai Sillks doing roaring sales even during the Pandemic time. This was one of the biggest lesson from second-class educated my father who ran retail stores: Greet the customers within 30 seconds of entry and ensure some is there to attend to them (This used to a shop where we had counters between the product and the customer) & Ensure no customer is unattended if it managing more than even three customer families at a time during seasons.
Kamal sehgalDec 05, 2020 at 08:20 am
Completely agree on same sir. Many a times it happens, if a sales person is taking time to show the product or finding the product in the store customer will not wait. Either they will walk or they will say will come back..but many a times it doesn't happen. Very important a sales person should know how to make customer occupied during the time when other one is finiding the product.
Sanjay lalDec 05, 2020 at 00:09 am
While I agree on all attention gathering points, the most important is not to bull shit ( sorry for my french ) to the customer. Customer is intelligent, have done his homework and if the sale team tries to be over zealous then the customer will walk away. Bottom line is to know the product and be able to present it in under 2 minutes.