Posted by Roger Cunningham on Mon, Feb 15, 2010 @ 09:24 AM
Being a mattress blog, you might think my title, "too hard, too soft, just right" deals with the feel of the new mattress you are shopping for. Not this time. It actually refers to the shopping process itself. At The Bed Store, we are constantly searching for not only the right products at the best prices, but also for the very best way to present these products to our customers.
Our research reveals that the number one complaint from mattress shopping customers is that it is too confusing and that they DO NOT trust the salespeople. In fact, mattress salespeople are compared with "used car" salespeople. This grives me, but it is a truth that I must live with and try to remedy as I hire and train our sales staff. One axiom we live by is "never, ever lie to, steal from, or cheat" our customers. In fact, "the golden rule: do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is the underlying spirit of our business. So, this should pretty much take care of everything, right? Nope, not so fast.
Because I put a harness on our salespeople and don't allow them to "pressure" our customers into a "buying decision" they can come across "too soft," therby not assisting you complete the sale, once they have actually helped your find your "just right" mattress. Because you are so afraid of making the wrong decision, you simply decide to wait and think some more and once you do, the confusing process begins all over again and you search endlessly until some, perhaps ill intentioned, salesperson from one of our competitors and thereby end up with perhaps the wrong mattress and spending more than they needed or less than they should have to get the right mattress.
So, do I "tweak" their training and increase their tendency to "close the sale" once they get anywhere close to something you like? That would be the easy answer, and they could "make good money doing it." But then the tendency might be for them to become "too hard" in their saleing process, thinking more about "getting the deal" than helpin YOU find the very best mattress and the best price for your particular needs.
My answer, NO COMPROMISE! The Bed Store will continue to work this out, but we will NEVER compromise YOU, our valued customer. We will diligently work on finding the "just right" solution so that when you are in the market for your new mattress, you can shop The Bed Store with absolute confidence and assurance that you will be treated as we would want to be treated when we shopped for any new product that we wanted. You are worth the effort and besides, we want to sleep good at night too.