Not. Another run for cover through the Selfridges beauty hall brought this gem as I attempted to fly undetected past the Benefit counter: ‘Have you ever heard of Benefit Cosmetics?’ Luckily for me, I haven’t spent the last 10 years under a rock. It wasn’t just Benefit though, Clarins were out in force wondering how I was today, as were Clinique, whose stand I wandered into by mistake. Who exactly is teaching the Sales Assistants that this is the way to sell make up? It’s not for nothing that they get a reputation for being the ‘counter dragons’, and it’s really not their fault. They have sales figures to reach and a training manual to adhere to. But, who would you trust most – the SA who asks gently if she can help you, or the one that wants to know how your day is, whether you’ve heard of one of the most prominent make up brands in the UK and USA before, or the one who greets you like a long lost relative and launches straight into sales pitch that would make a used car salesman blush? Surely it’s far better to have the reputation as a reliable, low key confidante about all things beauty than a maniacal, high octane verbal thrust to part you from your money. If I were head of the beauty hall, I’d want it to be the one place women knew they could come to where they won’t get the hard, vaccuous sell, won’t feel intimidated the second they’ve shot through the revolving doors and won’t leave feeling traumatised by all the times they’ve had to say ‘no’. Surely, you’d recommend a friend.
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7 comments
Once, I trained for Benefit. I lasted a day. I had specific amounts of people I had to stop, different wells to sell. I didn’t really like stopping women on their lunch breaks, clearly just walking through the store to avoid big issue sellers so I quit.
Hard sell and the stereotypical scary counter is what keeps most of my female friends away from make up counters unless their bodyguard (me) is with them
Yep, the Benefit girls have to be raptors. I feel bad for them, but not enough to stop and have my face smeared.
The Clarins lot are also very aggressive, and will keep talking to you about products even after you’ve said you are just looking.
Suqqu always used to be an excellent counter for appropriate service behaviour, and Rock and Republic at Harrods is good also.
I couldn’t agree more! I wish they would just let you browse! I don’t want to be pounced on as soon as I approach!
Brilliant post. I run into similar situations here in Canada. When they pounce I want to run run run away.
Michelle
as soon as I saw the title for this post I knew if would be a cringeworty SA expereience- what’s wrong with them? My last bad experience was at a shop here in australia, I was looking at the philosophy shower gels and asked the price. She replied ‘$35, are you going to buy one off me now?’ and batted her eyelashes. as if!
Just dropping by to say hi.
Great post! While you have issues of ‘overly-friendly’ SAs over there, we have the same except you won’t see those friendly faces but very grouchy faces and/or sometimes being ignored! Well, not all SAs are like that, of course.
And hi Em, if I were to be spoken to in that way, I would have walked out of the store right away and let her continue batting her eyelashes like some teenager with her 1st crush! haha!
I was a Clinique girl back in the day and they were always on me about upsells for this or that but unless something was a complement and the person open I didn’t want them pulling away from coming back because they weren’t being listened to. If they wanted to shop in other departments, hit the perfumes, buy a few products from me and something for Lauder I rang it all up with a smile and had very few returns. At the time, they only focused on sales and not returns. I had very few with a softer approach.