A few days ago, I had a phone conversation with one of our new vendors. The person on the other end of the line was trying to explain why they couldn’t accomodate what I felt was a very reasonable request. During the call, she made several ill-advised statements, including:

– “I just work here.”

– “I’m not very good on the phone.”

– “We can’t be held accountable for that.”

As the customer, this tells me that the vendor employs poorly-trained people who aren’t empowered to help resolve problems. But fast forward 30 minutes or so, and the rep ended up addressing all my concerns — and she was quite nice about it. I was amazed to see the conversation start so poorly and then make a complete turn for the better.

Like any reasonably savvy businessperson, I understand the whole “underpromise and overdeliver” thing. But if that’s what the vendor was trying for in my example, they went a little overboard. After all, do you really want to begin a call by telling a customer that you’re not very good at what you do, and aren’t capable of helping them? Of course not.

Setting reasonable expectations is one thing, but don’t set the bar so low that you’ve basically told people to expect total failure from the start. Instead, train your staff to be honest and open about how they can help resolve the issue at hand, and try to instill confidence in their own abilities. You’ll find that customers respond very positively to this type of candor, and it sets the tone for a more welcoming and productive interaction.

My favorite breakfast place in Chicago just opened a new location that’s much closer to my apartment, so I decided to try it out over the weekend. Aside from a few minor hiccups, everything was great. Well, except for one thing: they could only accept Visa and MasterCard, since their Amex account hadn’t been activated yet. And of course, the only thing I had on me was my Amex.

When the cashier learned about the problem, she said I could just come back later that day with cash or another type of credit card. She didn’t request any collateral or demand my contact information. Instead, the cashier just asked for my first name, and then told me her name and shook my hand.

I returned less than an hour later to take care of the bill. But the experience also made me admire the approach that the restaurant had taken. By telling me her name and shaking my hand, the cashier implicitly established a greater level of familiarity and trust. Much like how placing a baby picture in your wallet increases the chance that someone will return the wallet to you, I bet that the name and handshake raise the odds that a customer will make good on the bill.

All else equal, people are more likely to keep promises to people they know. If giving someone your name and shaking their hand builds even a small level of familiarity and trust, then you’ve increased the odds that they’ll come through for you. And since these actions are good for building relationships and loyalty anyway, you really have nothing to lose by helping customers get to know you just a little bit better.

Different food products come in different sizes of containers, which is why grocery stores typically include the cost per ounce right next to the price of the whole container. Even online stores like Amazon show unit costs in this fashion. But I’ve noticed a few weird exceptions. Instead of showing the cost on a per ounce basis, some products just have a cost per “item”.

What’s an item? It seems to refer to each individual box or container within a larger shipment. For instance, a case of 12 boxes of raisins would contain 12 “items”. But if each of those boxes has the weight printed right on there, shouldn’t they just calculate the price per ounce? Well, yeah.

The products listed with these goofy unit prices probably sell very poorly compared to those products with normal units of measure. Customers have to do more work to generate a fair comparison when prices are listed in non-standard terms, and they’ll gravitate to the products that include proper unit costs. So if you’ve got a local store or online shop, make sure you’re presenting unit prices based on actual units of measurement. This makes it easier for customers to decide which product to purchase, and easier decision making for shoppers usually means stronger sales volume for you as the retailer.

For the most part, the music that you hear in retail stores, restaurants and other venues tends to skew towards the conservative side of things. After all, why risk pissing off the majority of your shoppers just to have a small segment of customers think you’re cool? But sometimes a store decides to throw logic out the window, and creates a playlist that has everyone shaking their heads.

I saw — or rather, heard — this exact scenario last weekend. Despite being in a fairly sophisticated store, someone decided to replace the usual in-store audio tracks with a series of rather questionable songs. How would I describe them? Let’s just say the songs would be a good fit for one of the love scenes in an “Austin Powers” movie.

This leads me to a few recommendations about the types of songs to avoid within a public or semi-public environment:

– Songs that are obviously about sex or violence

– Songs that are filled with explicit lyrics

– Songs that make you feel like you just walked into a funeral

Anybody with the tiniest shred of common sense would already to know to steer clear of this type of audio. But if venues are going to put totally clueless people in charge of in-store music decisions, it might serve them well to give these recommendations to their staff, and remind those employees that bad music really does drive customers away.

Let’s say that you’re browsing the floor of a retailer that displays men’s and women’s clothes in one big area, rather than in separate departments. You’re looking for pants, and the colors and styles are quite similar for men and for women. Plus, some types of women’s pants use sizes like 29, 30, etc. that also exist in men’s pants. Together, these factors mean that your only reliable option is to scrutinize the tags from a few products on each rack, and repeat this process as you move across the sales floor.

For retailers who merchandise all or part of their stores this way, there’s an easy way to fix the problem. Just add a simple but highly visible placard on top of each rack to indicate whether the clothes on that rack are men’s or women’s, along with the type of garments and the sizes. For instance, you might have “Men’s Pants – Sizes 28-34” or “Women’s Sweaters – Sizes XS-M”. Make the signs double-sided, or even better, use a three-sided prism design that’s visible from every angle.

By providing these inexpensive navigational aids, you’ll help customers locate the type of items they’re looking for in a matter of seconds. This frees up more time and energy for those shoppers to actually browse through the available items, and paves a smooth path for them to buy the products they’ve found.

I recently contacted a company’s tech support department via email. A few minutes after sending my request, I got an auto-response that said I should expect to hear from them in “24 business hours”. Since most people would define the standard business day as 8 hours, I interpreted this to mean that I would get a response in 3 business days.

However, I can see a lot of customers reading this differently, and thinking that they’ll get a response within 24 hours on weekdays, i.e. on the next business day. Which interpretation is correct? I don’t know. But I am pretty confident that using a term like “24 business hours” is usually a mistake.

There’s a better and simpler approach. Stick to terms that everyone agrees on, like “hours” and “business days”. Returning to my example, the tech support department might choose one of the following ways to describe their response times:

– Next business day

– Within 3 business days

– Within 4 hours if the request was received during business hours, or by the end of the next business day if the request was received outside of business hours

Setting the proper expectations can make a huge difference in how customers perceive your tech support performance. Thus, it pays to use words and phrases that leave no room for confusion. Tell people what to expect using terms that everybody understands, and you’ll make things easier for your customers and tech support staff alike.

While I was in a clothing store over the weekend, I noticed a nice-looking leather jacket that they had on display. It was fastened onto a mannequin, and the price tag was well-hidden — if it even had a tag at all. I looked for a rack containing the jackets, but it appeared the floor sample was the only one in the store.

Granted, I’m not in the market for that type of leather jacket right this moment. But I certainly could be in the future. And the way the store presented this premium product felt like a dead end. There was no information about pricing, sizes, or how to buy the item.

Fixing this would actually be quite straightforward:

– Place each floor sample near the rack where the featured products can be found, rather than halfway across the store.

– Make sure the price tag on every floor sample is visible by shoppers.

– When possible, include a small sign on or near the item that explains how much it costs, which sizes you can get it in, and how to buy it.

There are certainly some cases where you might want to skip a few of these steps, like in a high-end store where prices are rarely the focal point. But in the vast majority of cases, following these recommendations will make it easier for customers to make buying decisions based on the floor samples that you’ve carefully placed throughout the store. And when it’s easier to understand the selling points of the product at hand, more people will move forward with making a purchase.

For whatever reason, I’ve always assumed that elevators have a safety feature that prevents the doors from crushing people. In other words, if someone gets in the way of the doors while they’re closing, the doors will open up to avoid the obstruction. But how much force does it actually take to trigger this safeguard?

My experience with this matter is rather limited, since I never try to run into closing elevators. However, I sometimes have to fend off doors when they begin to shut after I’m already halfway into the elevator car. This usually happens because the people who just exited took so long that the elevator starts closing before anyone new can get inside. And when I push against the inside edge of the elevator door with my hand, it’s rather shocking how much force is needed to make the doors reverse their direction. If a person somehow got stuck in there, they could suffer some serious injuries before the safety mechanism kicked in.

In any case, I bet a lot of people assume the doors are smart enough to open with the slightest bit of pressure, when the reality is that you have to really push back to avoid getting caught in the middle. Better messaging is clearly needed to help align expectations with reality. A little diagram showing a stick figure being hit by the door, along with some text explaining that getting in the way may cause injuries, should get the point across.

Frankly, I don’t understand why it takes so much effort before the safety mechanisms kick in. But until every elevator has an impact-free way to detect obstructions — like using infrared sensors — the best solution is to remind people not to get stuck there in the first place.

Ever buy a bulk pack of something, sock it away in the closet, and then find that it’s basically petrified by the time you’re ready to use it? This happened to me recently, even though the product was nowhere near the expiration date — if it had one at all. Apparently, I would have needed to shake up the item periodically in order to keep it limber.

Of course, there was nothing on the package that indicated how to store the product. And even if there was an expiration date, it wouldn’t have been enough. What’s needed here is a sort of tip sheet about how to keep the product fresh until you’re ready to use it. For instance, a liquid that comes in a bottle might say “Store upright, and shake once a month to prevent drying out.”

Granted, most people wouldn’t bother reading the instructions on the package. But for those that do, the extra guidance would help them get more value from the product — while encouraging them to make bulk purchases again in the future.

A few months ago, I dropped a water glass while I was in the process of drying it off. The glass shattered into what seemed like a million pieces, and it took a good 45 minutes to clean up the mess. By then, I had finally had it with easily-broken glasses. Without further delay, I headed straight to my computer and ordered an unbreakable drinking mug.

The model I chose is stainless steel with some sort of plastic covering on the outside, and includes a sturdy handle so you can pick it up with ease. Overall, the stainless steel mug is a huge improvement over drinking water out of a glass. Compared to regular glasses or mugs, the advantages are numerous:

– It keeps drinks hot or cold for a longer period of time.

– It won’t shatter if you drop it.

– It almost never sweats or develops condensation in hot weather.

Interestingly, only the first benefit (keeping drinks hot or cold longer) was part of the manufacturer’s sales pitch. I discovered the other ones on my own. And this makes me wonder how many sales they’re missing out on, simply because the people designing and marketing the product don’t understand all the ways that customers value it. Who knows, they might sell twice as many units if they focused on the unbreakable aspect, or the way it stays dry in the summer.

Of course, every product manufacturer faces this same challenge. You can never really be sure that you’re shining the spotlight on the most salient benefits of your product, and that you’re getting that message to the right target market. In the case of high quality drinking mugs, I’m sure there are a lot of other klutzes out there just like me who would love to replace traditional glasses with an unbreakable alternative. And if it’s a sweat-proof mug that keeps liquids hot or cold for hours while looking stylish and modern, that’s all the better.