The booth was advertising solar panels for homes - something that I'd been considering installing in the future. The salesman eagerly hurried over, and asked if he could help me. The conversation that ensued went something like this.
Me: "I'm in a hurry, but do you have any literature that I could take away to read, please?"
Salesman: "No. We do NOT do that. We don't just have brochures. We are only interested in people who are serious about signing up now."
Me: "I am serious about getting solar panels, but I'm not sure when we will do it."
Salesman: "We like to come out to your home and sit down with you and talk it through properly."
Me: "That's great, but I'm not at that stage yet. Do you have a business card that I can take away, so that when I am I can give you a call?"
Salesman: (Now visibly irritated) "No! We do not do that! We want people who are really serious about doing this now."
Me: "Okay, well then I think I'll leave it for now. Incidentally - the government has now stopped the rebate for installation, hasn't it?"
Salesman: "No, that's not it at all. It's just changed. I can explain it to you, but not now. That would be something we would go over if we scheduled a meeting at your home."
I finished up the conversation and left, pausing only to make a mental note of the company name, so that I may avoid using them when I do get solar panels installed.
You may wonder why I am going to great lengths to tell you about my interesting excursion to the shopping centre.
It occurred to me that, as far as this particular company and sales team were concerned, they thought they were doing something different and displaying an attitude that differentiated themselves from their competitors.
Well, they were. But not in a good way.
When looking at what you can do differently, think about what things will excite your customer, and what things will make them smile. What product or service can you offer that will engage, surprise, or make them take note?
There is no sense in being different for the sake of being different if that isn't what your customer wants. And there is also no sense in implementing something that benefits your own company but puts your customer at a disadvantage.
Where the solar company is concerned, I can understand the thinking that would lead them to avoid leaflets and paraphernalia (which probably ends up in the bin, and is costly to produce - not to mention the obvious environmental impact), BUT not having anything at all to give someone who may be interested in contacting them at a later stage seems very short sighted to me. And to essentially refuse to talk to a potential customer because they aren't signing up on the spot comes across as aggressive and rude.
What does the solar company want? They want, I imagine, to stop time wasters from talking to them all day when they have no intention of signing up. They want to stop people taking their glossy expensive leaflets and throwing them in the bin. They want to convey the impression that they are serious about what they do and they want to engage with customers who are serious about signing up with them.
But what do their customers want? Their customers want to have something - anything - with the company's name, phone number, and website on it, so that they can later call them up and use their services. They want to meet someone pleasant and knowledgeable who will answer their questions. They want to feel that the company offering the service isn't just after their money, and won't drop them immediately if the person behind them in the queue is waving more dollar bills in the air.
And going back to the solar company, surely the bottom line is that they want to make sales and to be a profitable business. And if you alienate your customers at the outset then your odds of making those sales goes down. It strikes me that the solar business in question was only looking at their own wants, and not considering those of their potential customer base at all. And, in doing so, they are running the risk of fulfilling no one's wants - their own included.
