Everyone in my household is currently Covid Positive and being the only one who is testing negative, I am the one who is isolating in my own room, not that it's that much different from how things usually are because I am in my own room 90% of the time when I am home. Just wondering when I will actually get infected by it because it probably will happen eventually, would be a nice break from work, speaking of which, work has been feeling very unsatisfying, so nothing new there.
I lack competence to do the things I am suppose to be doing at work, which is to actively approach walk-in customers and trying to start a conversation with them, I am not good at it because I do not like doing it, it's uncomfortable, it's awkward and I don't like being the one that initiates a conversation with anybody. Ever since I came back from Reservist, I have been very passive with the walk in customers, so much so that the In-House Interior Stylist (who has a very different position from me because I am Sales) ended up talking to more customers than I do when we end up working on the same shift because he will always greet them when they walk into the store, whereas I just can't be bothered if the customers aren't looking at my direction, which is most of the time, so naturally when the customers have any queries, they will approach him first.
So the situation at work hasn't really improved. It just sucks going to work and feeling incompetent, I'm being made to do things I am not good at and the things that I feel I am better at doing, the company isn't really giving me the opportunity to do them, like doing Interior Styling Proposals for prospective clients. Well, I wouldn't say the company isn't giving me the opportunity to, it's more accurate to say the company is expecting me to create those opportunities on my own by informing every customer who walks into the store that we have that service available.
The amount of talking that is required to actually convert a walk in customer into an Interior Styling Project customer is too much for me to handle, my colleague who is more chatty is able to do that, and he has spoken to dozens over the past 5 months he has worked in the company, out of the dozens he has spoken to, only 2 were converted successfully into Interior Styling Projects, the others who are initially agreeable to it will forget about it the moment they leave the store because they will either have their own Interior Designers / Architect to do that for them, they are only there to get a few items or they are just window shopping.
I am not going to offer doing an Interior Styling Proposal for a client who is only planning to get a Sofa and Coffee Table with a few Armchairs, that's like a homeowner finding an Interior Designer to help them change a Toilet Showerscreen, or engaging a Professional Baker to help them slice their cakes, it's redundant.
Customers should be looking for us to prepare Proposals for them and not us looking for customers to prepare proposals for because chances are the latter aren't going to be very receptive to the service, and it feels like such an afterthought, it doesn't' feel like an actual service because sadly, it isn't being promoted very prominently by the company.
When I first applied for the role back in 2017, I tried to look for the information of the Interior Styling service on their official website and had so much difficulty trying to actually find it because the only mention of that service is right at the bottom of the main page where hardly anyone would ever scroll down to, it was already difficult for me, someone who knows the service actually exist, to find the mention of the service, imagine how much more inaccessible that information is for people who don't actually know the service exist, putting that at the bottom of the main page is the same to not putting it at all.
Speaking of Interior Styling Proposals, I decided to sent the customer that I wrote about in my last post the Interior Styling Proposal yesterday, I rendered the drawings for him earlier this month, but because of how "pleasantly entitled" ,but entitled sounding nonetheless, he was during our last phone exchange, I purposely delayed sending him the renderings, just to manage his expectations.
Well, I didn't manage his expectations enough because this fucker decided to just ignore my messages, I guess because my proposal wasn't send to him quickly enough, I no longer warrant a reply from him. Not even a courtesy response, nothing. I feel like I want to actually call him up just to incite some sort of response, but then I also don't really want to because I just really do not want to give him anymore attention and assistance unless he actually shows up to the store to meet me in person.
This is a customer who requested for the service, imagine if the customer was offered the service by us, they would feel even more entitled to it because I am the one who is offering to help you as oppose to you requesting for my help and the sad truth is, majority of the customers that I have spoken to so far who visit the store are a little entitled, that is why I am unable to have conversations with a lot of them because I just really do not want to.
Speaking of entitled customers....
I had the unfortunate pleasure of assisting this Caucasian lady who came into the store a few days ago, asked about this particular table that she was eyeing and it wasn't what she said but her tone that just turned me off completely.
I was actually busy doing something else and just happened to walk past her, so she ask me about the table's price, ask if there was a showroom discount and then said that it should have a bigger discount because the table was a bit stained, she then ask me if the stains can be removed and since I didn't really have the answer to that, I told her I wasn't sure. She was already using an unpleasant tone with me from the start, so I just really didn't want to assist her further by helping her check if the stains can actually be removed.
I told her what I know and that is that before we send the table to the customer's place, we will clean up the table first, and she goes...
"I'm not asking about the cleaning, I am asking if the stains can be removed. If the stains are still there after the cleaning then what's the point?"
... in a really annoyed tone, so I told her I wasn't sure and just can't be bothered to deal with her attitude anymore, so I just walked away to deal with something else because thankfully, I was actually busy with something else and had a valid reason to just walk off. My colleague then assisted her and she was equally unpleasant, she was with her husband and toddler, and the husband is so passive throughout the exchange, when I see couples like that, I can't help but wonder, what exactly did he see in this woman that made him want to decide to spend the rest of his life with her because she was also quite rude with him, such a horrible personality.
I have seen her in the store before and the reason why I remember her is because of how unpleasant she was during that visit as well, and she is the type of customer that comes into the store, asks a lot of fucking questions, is very rude about it but then doesn't get anything. When she finally left the store, my other colleague then tells me he has served her two times before and every time, she doesn't end up getting anything, that's why he didn't bother approaching her.
... anyways, I digress, back to the original topic of Interior Styling Proposal Customers.
The other customer who requested the service on the other hand, the one who physically came to the store to ask for the service, well, he came down with his partner again to meet me in the store for us to run through the proposal together and I was more than happy to give them a copy of my proposal, the space planning layout and quotation after we were done, this is what the customers should be doing, and I am very grateful that out of the 2 proper Interior Styling Proposals I have done so far, at least one of them had the common decency to meet me in person for the run through.
I have already been with my current company for 5 months as an Interior Stylist and till date, I have only done 2 proper Interior Styling Proposals because barely anyone knows that Interior Styling service is actually available and I am lucky that I happened to be in the store when the customer walked in and actually requested for the service, otherwise I wouldn't have had the chance to properly do one.
Doing these proposals is what I want to do as an Interior Stylist and it's what I was expecting I would do when I first join the company, but at the present moment, I am barely doing any of that and am instead doing more sales, which is frustrating because I do enjoy doing the proposals, I like sitting down and looking at a floorplan to best optimize the furniture layout, creating 3D renders. I enjoy talking to customers who are there to talk to me about their home, who actually want me to help them and are actively asking me questions.
I would very much like to just leave this current job and go back to doing Interior Design, because I do miss it, the customers that I meet in retail are very different from the ones I meet as an Interior Designer, as an Interior Designer, I get to form relationships with most of my clients because we will end up working together for months, they tend to be more understanding and patient and I can feel some warmth from them usually after the first month, whereas with retail customers, there isn't any warmth that radiates from them, they come, they buy, they leave, the only nice ones are usually the couples in their late 60s to 70s.
Likely gonna be stuck in my current company for a while because the pay is decent and I am really enjoying getting a fixed salary every month, it just doesn't feel like a very fulfilling position to be doing long term.
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