Really??

This week I was looking around at new laptops and had narrowed it down to two. One was at a major office supply store (not Depot or Max) and the other at Best Buy. The two were very similar but with spending that much money, I wanted to see them both in action to determine which would suite my needs the best.

I did all the prerequisite research on Google of course so was heading out with my wife to check them out in person. The first place we went to was the office store. We headed right for the laptop area and looked and looked. We couldn't find the one we were looking for - which happened to be on the front page of their ad that week. To make a long story short - they didn't have the laptop on display. They were ALL in the stockroom - in their boxes. Now do you think that they'd at least take ONE out of the box for customers to see? NO. Instead they tried to talk me out of seeing it because if we decided not to buy it they'd have to sell it as an open package.

Hence comes the big question - Unless you've done some massive researching, or are just that much more knowledgeable than the average joe, who's going to buy a computer sight unseen?

Needless to say, Best Buy got our business (and we received EXCELLENT customer service - thank you Matt) and the office store will have to settle for our "staples", paper, and pen purchases.

I worked retail for a number of years and know that there's just too much competition out there to do things like this. Customer service has got to be the name of the game at all times. Businesses, such as office stores, are so similar that the quality of your customer service and satisfaction are the main - or only - things that differentiates them from one another. You HAVE to make yourself stand out . . . in a positive way.

Keep in mind that, either consciously or even unconsciously, you're compared to other companies with every contact.