Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster is a fascinating albeit slightly depressing read for anyone who has in the past loved luxury or service. Shopping in boutiques has always been something I’ve loved to do because I would get the best and most knowledgeable service. The sales people would learn my name, they’d put things aside when they came in, they could tell me the little details, they’d wrap up my packages and make shopping an experience whether I was buying something for $20 or $200.
Living in Santa Monica with neighbors like Los Angeles and Malibu, “luxury” boutiques are all around. Every name designer and brand is within easy reach of me yet service and knowledge within those companies is pretty elusive. Even more so during the recession, which you think would be opposite.
During tough times, when foot traffic has slowed and dropping cash is slower still, you’d think companies would regroup, get rid of unproductive, knowledgeable people and train those that stay on how to treat and engage customers, how to explain the products from a t-shirt to a ring to a Bentley and then train them on how to present it upon check out.
But I can’t tell you how many luxury stores I’ve been to where the sales people just kind of do their own thing from gossiping with each other, to letting merchandise just unfolded on shelves to saying, “Um, I don’t know” when asked a question. In a store shelling out luxury products and I as their only customer in sight, it’s frustrating. I’m actually a European shopper in the sense I generally like to be left alone to browse but when I have a question, someone better have an answer. And if I’m going to spend money I don’t take into consideration just the price of the item but the entire experience. If the sales person makes it less than, I walk.
Yesterday a girlfriend and I went to the new J.Crew Collection store in Malibu, one of three in the country. We were the only customers with 5 sales girls running around. To their credit, the nicest woman came over and was genuinely interested in helping us and talking to us and we were genuinely happy to be petting the pretty things – specifically the luggage.
With a trip coming up to Europe, my girlfriend wanted to buy it. She hesitated at the price and asked my opinion since I’m a frequent traveller. I tried asking the sales lady a lot of questions but the first problem was it took 4 sales women to figure out how to open the special lock system. And then they each just gave a quick blurb about how it was hand made for the Royal Family and limited edition. I asked a few more questions but didn’t get answers to those. It was, however, a stunning piece of luggage and I had read up online about it a little so I knew the quality was high and could totally see my girlfriend with it.
But with such a big purchase, she wanted to make sure she knew what she was getting. And you’d expect from a store – especially a high-end retailer – to be able to get your every bit of information and present it in a totally confident way. But when she asked the price it took four women and about ten minutes to try to figure out the price of the bag. When she asked to see the inside, it took about another 10 minutes to figure out how to open it. When she wanted to know all the materials used, it took scrambling around to find out what the material was (we were told the shell was made out of leather even though it clearly wasn’t). Totally in-love with the product, my friend hesitated in buying it because the whole experience in the store seemed uncertain. The staff wasn’t making it easy for her to say yes to buying. Their confusion made her confused about buying.
So we put it on hold and left to think about it. Now the story splits into two here because there is my friend who wanted that suitcase and was willing to over look the situation to get the product. The product was more important. So when it took about 10 minutes and three sales women to figure out how to ring it up and they still could not answer some of the questions, my girlfriend overlooked that because at this point, she wanted that bag.
However this morning I get a text from her – she’d been way over-charged for the bag. She’d looked online and seen they had charged her for a larger size. I was so furious for her.
In a retail store that hasn’t seen crazy opening days and wasn’t busy on that particular day, 4 sales women totally dropped the ball. It’s not like they’re managing 17 stores, 80 people, different changing venues – they’re managing J.Crew merchandise in a J.Crew store. They should be beyond experts. They should know the intimate details of a $1500.00 bag. But no one did.
Yes they were friendly but ultimately they represented this luxury store very poorly. There was no wrapping of the case, no special tags given, no info on how to care or clean or what to do if it rips. Plus, they got the materials wrong and charged my friend for the wrong size.
When I said the story split it split in the sense that the bag was obviously worth it to my friend to go through the hassle and over-pay for it. That store got lucky to have her as their customer because if it was me buying the bag, I would have walked out. I wouldn’t have purchased it because the whole experience didn’t inspire confidence or specialness. It was a transaction mess. And I think stores are being both lazy and counting on customers to not care or say anything. Or worse yet, it’s that we’ve all come to expect bad service. For people to not be invested in their jobs unless it’s some kind of glamorous one like a movie or rockstar or bazillionheirres because chances are, we’re not invested in our own jobs. They’re not what we expect so we don’t commit. We save up for when our dream jobs arrive. The problem is, even that dream job – if it comes – will have a lot of tasks you won’t want to do or require you to be passionate about something you’re not. So my advice is to bring the passion to everything you do, even if your job isn’t your full-time passion.
The sales women at J.Crew obviously loved the brand as each of them were decked head to toe in their clothes and were choosing to work there. But they didn’t seem invested in the company or in themselves. Because of this, I have zero trust in their abilities despite the pretty store and fashion sense of the women. Instead of building customer relations and having two sales instead of one, they lost a customer and had another tell her friends about the over-charge which means a potential loss of even more customers.
Time and time again I see this happening not just in luxury boutiques but in restaurants, in hotels, in dealing with other business from Hollywood to tech and I wonder when did people stop caring about their job and about customer service? When did we decide that we don’t have to be experts, participate in educating ourselves or invest in a job we chose to take on whether it’s in tourism, retail, the web or the arts because it’s either not our “calling”, it’s only part-time, it’s just to pay the bills, it’s not fun? Any job you have is important to someone else so you’d better start making it important to you. Don’t sacrifice yourself and a customer because you’re only waiting tables until you’re discovered – that’s not the customers fault or responsibility. If you choose to go to work, then do the best because it will only get you further ahead, build better relationships, teach you a lot and most importantly, always make you invested in yourself. If you can be invested in rocking out a retail job, imagine what would happen if one day you got a dream job?
I can speak from experience on this because when I was 18, I worked in housekeeping at the famous Chateau Lake Louise; a four star luxury hotel that stars stayed at but also the average person who saved up for a once in a lifetime experience. It was my first big job and I thought there were times when I would be “on” and times when I could just complain about cleaning the 14th suite. You know, the expensive rooms would get the best cleaning and the best dressed people in the lobby the best service. I would be selective about when I’d rock out the service because not everyone should get the same – not everyone was going to be nice to me or had the fancy room or was actually staying at the hotel. Plus, I thought, I’m in housekeeping. It’s not like that’s a cool job. It’s not like that’s my passion!
But during a training session, my supervisor ended up giving me advice that changed how I worked entirely – not just at that job but every job thereafter.
He said that everyone in the hotel, whether they’re walking on the grounds outside, or through the lobby must be treated as though they are paying for the most expensive suite in the hotel for the most amazing experience possible. The reason? When people are walking around you don’t know who paid for the cheap tour bus room or the thousand dollar lake view suite. You can’t judge so you must give your best with everyone you meet whether you’re bringing strawberries and champagne to a room or just having finished cleaning a toilet. That how we held ourselves changed the experience of everyone we came into contact with and if we couldn’t muster the energy to be the best for each and every person, they wouldn’t have the best experience. And it didn’t matter what job we had, that if we couldn’t be fully invested in what we were doing, someone, somewhere, would be affected. And our business wasn’t in disappointing people.
That advice changed how I did each and every job from then on. No matter what it was, I did my best. Even cleaning toilets. In my personal life, I rarely made my bed and hated cleaning my roomt but when I went to work, I never cut corners or went in with an attitude. I actually ended up winning an award for most consecutively cleanest rooms and the quickest amount of time (my passion was skiing and hiking and I wanted to get out fast!) and received a promotion really quickly because my enthusiasm, pride and customer service was noticed by everyone (boss, co-workers, guests). That taught me to do the best, know as much as I can and deliver no matter what because it will help me somewhere else and in the meantime, create success for my customers, my co-workers, my company and myself (promotion meant more ski time and I was able to work a late shift!).
Even in 2001 before I went out on my own, when I was working at a job I didn’t find fulfilling, I brought my a-game every day. It’s why I left on great terms with my boss (and CEO of the company) and why I was able to move forward onto the next job without any bitterness or resentment or more importantly, fear. I hadn’t “saved up” my energy or abilities for “the perfect job” which meant that by doing the best with things I didn’t fully enjoy, made me able to confidently rock out the jobs I did.
Not every job will be your passion (cleaning toilets wasn’t mine) but you need to bring your passion to your job. Each and every time you go to work.
I think during these times where it’s no longer chic to flaunt things, being able to flaunt a job and a job well done should become the new status symbol.
The Chronicles of Girl at Play began in April 2001 as a way for me to chronicle my leaving a successful corporate position to become a self-employed writer.
