Miscomm

So I got a call from a recruitment agent this afternoon sharing with me a new job opportunity that he thinks I might be suitable for based on my work experience.

During the first 5 minutes of the call, instead of telling me what the job actually is, the agent went on this questioning spree asking me about my current job and what I did previously, and I shared with him that I had been doing Interior Design previously but am currently working as an Interior Stylist, and the reason why I am actively looking for a new job at the moment is because my current role as an Interior Stylist is too sales oriented and I wanted a position that was more creative and design oriented. I think it was made very clear during the first 5 minutes of my conversation with him that I didn't want to do a sales related job at all, and this wasn't something I was telling him out on my own accord, this was information he was getting out of me from his plethora of questions.

And when he finally shares what the position is with me, I was just so fucking annoyed because it's a Sales Position in a shop selling sanitary ware. All the questions he was asking me at the start and all the replies I gave him, they were all just redundant because he didn't even bother to listen to what I was saying.

 

I said I do not want to do sales anymore and am looking for a design position, that should be a sign for you to then get to the point and tell me right away that the position is sales related, it's just all that built up he created and then I am presented with a job opening that is not even remotely close to what I am looking for.

Sales Associate in a Sanity Ware Shop.

Hello! 

I have a diploma in Interior Design.

I have 4.5 years experience as an Interior Designer

I have 1 year experience as an Interior Stylist (on my resume anyways)

How the fuck does all that experience in those design related field make me a suitable candidate for a Sales Associate in a Sanitary Ware shop? Are you fucking dense?

That 10 minutes call I had with the agent could have been a 1 minute call if he had just told me from the beginning what the job was instead of beating around the bush. I am really annoyed because I am genuinely looking for a new job at the moment and this moron gave me so much hope at the start by asking me so many questions about what I was looking for in a job, I genuinely thought the agent was ticking off the check boxes for me about the job, but nope.

I have gotten many calls from recruitment agencies before offering me a chance to interview for a position I am not interested in, but something but this particular call just got me really annoyed because of how dense the agent is. The level of annoyance I felt from this call is probably only second to this other experience I had with another recruitment agency who tricked me into going for an interview that I didn't want to go to.

Since we are on the topic of miscommunication, I also had the pleasure of attending to one customer via Zoom today for an Interior Styling Session. 

So just to quickly introduce what an Interior Styling Session is, it is essentially a service my company provides to customers who want to get furniture pieces from us but do not know where to start, so as the Interior Stylist, my job is to do Space Planning for them using furniture pieces from the brands we carry.

Most clients who understand what our service is about would usually understand why we would want to meet them in person in the Showroom, because we want them to physically try out the furniture so they can decide which one is the most comfortable, and then I can then do the furniture proposal accordingly to their preferred pieces. 

When the marketing team introduced the service via the company's Instagram page, we got about 5 customer leads. I contacted 2 leads and disseminated the rest to my colleagues. Out of the 2 I had, one responded and asked if we could do the meeting via Zoom and when she shared that request with me, I kinda had a feeling that she probably misunderstood what the service was about, but decided to agree to her request anyways and set up a Zoom appointment with her.  

The meeting starts and the first thing I asked the customer is if she knew about our company and what we do and her response was...

"I must have heard of your company, I mean I found you guys, but could I just check how you guys got my contact information?"

... so do you know our company or not? It's a simple Yes or No question,  What's "I must have?" and what's the deal with her not knowing where we got her contact information from? What have you been doing with your own contact information? Scrawl them on the walls of multiple public toilets and hope someone will save that number and contact you?  Should I say I got your number from the public restroom at Changi Village or MacRitchie Reservoir? 

I mean this first part was already a red flag to me because if you are not aware of my company, then you are probably not aware of the brands we carry and the prices of the furniture pieces form those brands. 

 

But I moved on from that and quickly introduced the company to her and told her what the Interior Styling service is about, which is to help her do a space planning for her space with the furniture pieces we carry. She just nods her head, so I requested for her to share her floorplan with me and what she is planning to do with her space.

She sends the floorplan to me via Whatsapp and then starts by telling me she wants to have a space dedicated as her study room, and that she wants to get a height adjustable study table as well as an armchair, I tell her my company doesn't carry height adjustable study tables and she then informs me that she will buy it on her own elsewhere, but that she needs me to help her decide where would be the best place to put that table.

I got a bit iffy when she shared that with me because the whole point of this service is to furnish your space with furniture pieces from our store, not to help you plan your space with furniture pieces you are going to be getting from another store. That's not a very smart move for us, it's like me going to Gong Cha and asking the workers there to recommend what I should get from Mr Coconut.  

After that, she moves on and tells me she also wants to do a glass for somewhere for her study room and that was when I decided to interrupt her and ask her once again again if she knew what our company sells and then repeat what our Interior Styling service is about, that was when it finally click for her and she goes...

"Oh, so you guys don't do carpentry works?" 

She thought she had signed up for a consultation session with an Interior Designers for renovation works. 

I didn't want to waste her time or mine anymore, so I introduce the price point of our furniture and that was enough to scare her off, she then requested to cut short the consultation session and I was more than happy to do that. I had jokingly shared with my colleague that the session probably will only last 30 minutes because the customer might have misunderstood about our service and I was half right, she did misunderstand what our service entails, but the session only lasted maximum 5 minutes. 

After that, I feedbacked to the marketing team that all the leads that we had gotten from their via their Instagram advertisement is garbage, but in a nice way. 

The way the Interior Styling service is being marketed definitely needs a lot more work.