How inviting

What a great idea! I saw this sign when I went to buy some fruit and veg today.

This is stupid for 3 reasons.

1. If I hadn’t considered snapping off the stems to reduce the weight of the broccoli, you have now given me the idea.
2. How many customers will come back and shop here again after incurring the double payment fine?
3. It sets a tone or feeling for the fruit shop. It implies, "On the whole we think a lot of you are thieves and we don’t like you or your attitude".

I was wondering if this is such a big deal, can’t they find other ways of dealing with it?

eg: Cut the stems off before you display them and charge an extra 25c per kilo. If customers think your broccoli is too expensive they are probably not your ideal customers.

Or, offer to cut the stems off at the checkout to reduce the total weight. This will leave the customer with a feeling of appreciation.

What about change the sign to say, "Snap off the stems if you want, but we’d rather you didn’t as it we don’t want to ban you from our shop"

Drop the sign altogether and except that a small percentage of shoppers will snap off the stems. Does it really matter that much?

After I left the fruit shop, with my broccoli and it’s heavy stems, I went to the bank. A smiling girl met me as I walked in and offered me a little wrapped sweet from a basket. Nice touch.

Think about the messages you are sending out to your customers / staff / patients / every time you communicate with them.

Posted in Sales; Tagged Customer Service; Posted 28 November 2008 by Steve Herzberg