Categories
Customer service

On-line or In-store Shopping? It’s the Experience That Still Matters

Do you prefer to shop on-line or in a store?  While the factors affecting your choice may vary (depending on store location, access, time, convenience, etc.), the outcome is still the same — a satisfactory shopping experience

So who’s more likely to be satisfied with their customer service experience — on-line or in-store shoppers?  According to a survey conducted by the National Retail Federation’s NRF Foundation and American Express (reported in a recent Marketing Management magazine article), it’s on-line consumers.

Interesting? Yes.  Surprising? Not really … especially given my recent in-store experience.

Who Are They Kidding?

I went to return a purchase I had made earlier in the week.  Since I was a fairly new customer at the store’s location, I approached a sales clerk at one of the registers located in the front of the store.  (If I lament about the old days when sales registers and sales staff were located throughout the store, I’d be giving away my age.)

Me: Where can I return this?

Clerk:  You have to go back to customer service.

Me: Thank you. (Feigning politeness while thinking I’m the customer and I don’t “have to” do anything.  If you were trained properly, you would have told me: “Some one can help you in Customer Service” while pointing the way.)

So I walked back the length of the store to where Customer Service was located … under a sign proclaiming “Customer Convenience Center.”  (Yeah, right … if it were “convenient,” it would have been located in the front of the store!)

Maybe next time, I’ll shop on-line.

Leave a Reply