A few days ago, an old customer of mine came to the store look at the table lamps we had available that he could buy, unfortunately, because I was away that day, one of my colleague took the initiative to show them the pieces we had. I am not sure how extensive his conversation with my client was, but my colleague reached out to me and shared with me that my client had dropped buy and was interested in this particular lamp we had.
I followed up with my client the very next day and that client then proposed to drop by this evening for us (me and my client) to discuss which light would suit his home.
6.00pm comes along and my client and his wife drops by the store, my colleague who had assisted them on my off day happened to be at the store today as well, so when he saw them, he greeted them at the entrance and the husband ask for me. When I saw them, I waved at them and proceeded to start a conversation with the both the husband and his wife, but I was able to build rapport with the husband much more quickly because this was my first time meeting the wife.
The wife then leaves mid conversation to explore the store on her own and at some point during her solo exploration, my colleague who had assisted them a few days ago suddenly got into a conversation with the wife, I am not sure if he approached her and if she approached him, but either way, that's when things started going to shit as the wife decided to bring my colleague back to where her husband and I were seated. I had been discussing with the husband and offering him advice about the lamp options at this point, but the wife started sharing the opinions my colleague had been sharing with her when they were having their separate conversation a few minutes ago, this then led to my colleague repeating the conversation he was having with his wife to the husband, all while I was seated there, mid-conversation with the husband, my colleague, being the officious individual that he is, proceeds to overtake the entire conversation and started sharing his own advice with them, which was completely contradictory to what I had shared with the client, and I just sat there a bit confused as to what is going on because the customer came to the store looking for me to seek my advice, so why the fuck are you giving your advice with them when the original sales person that the husband is looking for and was speaking to is literally seated less than 5 meters away?
A general rule of thumb when it comes to talking to someone else's customer while the original sales person is present is...
You don't.
This is basic courtesy, you just don't talk to their customer unless the original sales person is asking for help, I clearly wasn't in need of any help, I can handle my own customers, back off.
I can understand why the wife would prefer talking to my colleague, she feels more comfortable with him because it was the first time she was meeting me and my colleague clearly left a good impression when he spoke to them during their last visit. If the husband hadn't ask for me by name and my colleague took over the customer entirely, I would have gladly given them to him, but the fact that the husband requested for me by name and my colleague still felt the "responsibility" to engage with both of them even though I was present, it just made this whole thing feel really icky.
Anyways, I chose to disengage from the conversation when my colleague decided to parasite his way in because I know I won't win if I am competing with him for the customer's attention, he is an extrovert, I am an introvert, I need the customer to stay engaged with me if I want the conversation to continue, but my colleague is clearly hogging all the attention away from me, and even though I know the husband is trying to respect my presence, it's really difficult when his wife is clearly more interested in talking to my colleague who is talking much louder than me.
They had a very long conversation amongst themselves because that's what my colleague is good at, being long winded, and every time I hear my colleague laughing out loud in the distance with the client, I just want to shove a light bulb in his mouth. About 10 to 15 minutes later after all their "HAHAHA" and his "LOLS", he brings the lamp they have decided to buy over to me, tells me the customer has decided, and is all proud about it like he has just help me clinched a sales
I told him to put the sales under his name because I didn't want it
He thought I was being coy about it, but when I reiterated that I did not want it at, I guess he could sense my annoyance and stopped pushing for me to take the sales, I then spoke to the husband and told him my colleague will prepare the invoice for him, sort of my way of telling him that my colleague will be completely taking over from now on, that he has successfully been poached away from me.
He thinks he has done me a favor, but all my colleague has done is poached my customer, this isn't about this single sales that he thinks he has helped me close, I didn't need his fucking help closing the sales, this is about the long term relationship I am suppose to have with the customer that he has completely ruined for me because when they come back to the store in the future, they are not going to look for me anymore, they are going to look for him. The fact that he even gave them his own number when they left instead of asking them to contact me is what's so fucking disgusting about this whole thing.
I actually don't know how dense my colleague is, but the moment you offer your own contact number to another sales person's customer, you have to realize that you have overstepped your boundary right? Especially when the original sales person is literally just a few meters away from you.
Gross.
Anyways, this isn't his first time meddling into my business, he did this to me before previously, at that time, he was also "trying to help", but all he did was undermine me in front of the customer. This is what one would call 越帮越忙.
This whole exchange just really rubbed me the wrong way but I do feel really bad for the husband though because I could tell at the start he was genuinely asking me for my advice and not my colleague, the problem is his wife and my colleague started having their own conversation and my colleague, being the good-willed but extremely meddlesome individual that he is just fucked everything up. I was so upset at the whole situation I didn't even bother to say my goodbyes to the customers when they left, which, now looking back, I do feel quite bad about.
No comments:
Post a Comment