| Editorial June 2002
Bad Sales Practices
If you’ve been involved in home theater and/or audio
long enough to gain some appreciable experience, you’ve probably helped friends or
relatives assemble a system or two. Just last month I told of
an upgrade process that went as smooth as silk. When it works right, it’s a pleasure
that I truly enjoy. My wife likes it too because I get to spend someone else’s
money for a change. However, the upgrade process does not always go as planned.
The journey to better performance usually involves sending
the person to a dealer for certain items that we’ve identified as either worthy of
auditioning or worth buying. Good dealers are a pleasure to interact with, and many times
this works just fine. Bad dealers, though -- the ones with really poor attitudes --
are different. The stories I’ve been told about the experience with a bad dealer are
sometimes laughable, sometimes questionable, and sometimes just plain wrong. Here are two
examples:
What you have basically sucks. This is the most
annoying for me to hear because in most cases it’s just not so. What they are really
saying is "I want to sell you all new gear that I carry, which means you’ll have
to replace your whole system." Now, good advice is great stuff, so in the instance
where a dealer is offering a solid opinion, I have no issue. In fact, I’m grateful.
But when the opinion is meant to swindle money from an unsuspecting victim, I do
have a problem.
One example is a buddy that went to buy a new DVD player.
He came back and told me that the dealer said his current speakers would not work in a
home-theater system since they were meant for audio only. This was, of course,
preposterous. The $5000 speakers in question were a large full-range tower intended to
play back both music and movie soundtracks. They were great home-theater speakers, by
anyone’s unbiased standards.
You can’t use what you have with this. A
long-time audio buff was crossing into home theater. Before I got to him he had inquired
with a dealer about what he would need to convert his system. This guy had a pair of
monoblock amplifiers he was currently using and two stereo amps lying in the closet, which
were the byproducts of past upgrades. The dealer told the gentleman that he would have to
buy a receiver and would have to ditch the stereo and mono amps. Oh, but he could
buy a multichannel amp as an upgrade to the receiver, if he needed more power.
If you’re saying, "Wait, that makes no
sense," I’d say, "Exactly." The receiver had preamp outputs, which, if
compatible with the dealer’s multichannel amp, would be compatible with the
customer’s separates. The dealer wanted to sell that multichannel amp pretty doggone
bad. The friend in question did not fall for it, but it annoyed me anyway.
Before I have dealers e-mailing me telling me that they
"have to make a living" and upgrading is part of that living, yada, yada,
yada, let me make a few distinctions. There is a difference between incompatible
and inconvenient (in the case of the multichannel amp). Make the distinction and
tell the customer the truth! If they find out you’re not being honest, at some point
in the process, you’ll lose that sale and every one after. Not to mention it’s
just plain wrong to lie! Ask your mother, she’ll tell ya!
There are also differences between they suck and
won’t work versus they would not be my first choice (in the case of the
speaker system). If you don’t happen to like something, hey, more power to you. But
if the customer does, maybe you should work around that preference. Over time perhaps you
could broaden that person’s horizons by exposing them to new and different gear, but
that’s never going to happen if you completely offend the person and, again, are
dishonest.
Last month I spoke of dealers investing in their customers.
I suggest investing in some straightforward advice and using an honest approach, and
I’ll bet over the long run you’ll have a more loyal customer, and -- surprise!
-- sell more gear to boot!
...Jeff Fritz
editor@hometheatersound.com |
