So, in all my years of working retail, the one thing I have always prided myself on has had to do with being able to relate to ALL kinds of customers.
Rednecks? Yeah, I speak Chilton manual.
Philosophers? I'm fluent in Proust.
Comic geeks? I'm Oracle to your Batman.
Trashy romance lovers? Let's talk pirates, cowboys and vampires, oh my.
Businesspeople? Let's go Fish, and find out Who Moved My Cheese.
Whatever.
But today, well today, I had a situation in which I completely missed the mark.
By a mile.
By a kilometer, for all you metric lovers.
So, here's what happened.
I was having a completely nice conversation with a completely nice man about a completely nice electronic gadget we sell.
Said customer mentioned that he was somewhat visually impaired. I took that all in stride, then demonstrated the Extra Large font feature.
So far, so good.
He was loving it.
At some point in the conversation, the gentleman mentioned that he had been having so much trouble with his PSP that he needed to get some large print books.
It didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me, but whatever. I can relate to ANYONE.
I just figured that he couldn't see well enough to play games on the little sucker any more.
Fine.
The conversation continued, and everything was going fine.
However, the more we talked, the more he bashed his PSP. It was giving him all kinds of problems. It was causing him pain. It was ruining his life.
I'm all for being a little overly dramatic, but good grief. Your video game is ruining your life? That's a bit much. Just stop playing the damn thing already.
So I started responding to these comments. After all, me and my customer, we had RAPPORT.
"Oh it's not really that bad, is it?"
Oh come on. It's not THAT terrible, is it?"
"Oh come on. My husband has one and he likes his just fine."
Epic. Fail.
Turns out that PSP is the degenerative disease that is causing his vision loss.
Oh, and as an aside, I did NOT get the sale.
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