Why doesn't anyone know anything anymore
Hint: corporate managers don't have friends.
Make a friend.
My personal theory of why poor customer service pervades every industry is that there are a collection of individuals (middle managers) who do not have any genuine friendships, and have to rely entirely on public service worker interactions to feel something.
You’ve experienced the effects of this kind of corporate mismanagement; it’s why you can’t ask a salesperson in a global fashion retailer for help finding something (they have to check an app, or find you the wrong thing) but have to endure them ceaselessly pestering you for personal information (they are written up if they don’t and have data collection quotas). It’s not them - it’s the company policy.
Corporations demand this service focus on “personalized experience” because people in management, as I mentioned, at some point cease having authentic social groups, cease actually going to the store, and can’t appreciate what you might actually want out of an interaction in their store as a result. One person shows them some touch of human kindness and they think “wow, I loved that feeling, what if we had that EVERYWHERE and made that the thing that made our store DIFFERENT.”
I call the cultivation of this useless customer service performance “Synthetic Empathy”—and I’m only half-joking that it emerges because people don’t have friends. I actually think that plays a big part. The other, larger, part is that no one wants to pay to train anyone to know anything anymore. So instead they make their employees on the floor into weird social engineers meant to make you feel enough to buy something.
This strategy inevitably backfires in myriad ways, and frankly most multi-national corporations exist in spite of this practice, not because of it.
An example.
The way Synthetic Empathy plays out in a fashion retailer, like Nordstrom or Neiman Marcus or Saks or literally any of the other major brick-and-mortar players, is something like this:
Salesperson: “OMG hi, welcome in, how’s your day going so far? Anything I can help you with?”
You: “Yeah, well, maybe—I have a kind of specific thing in mind, so I don’t know if you’ll have it. But I’m looking fo—”
Salesperson (interrupting): “Oh we definitely have something for you, don’t worry. What occasion is it for? Big plans this weekend?”
You: “Right, so as I was about to say, I’m looking for a blue-ish or cool toned bias-cut silk charmeuse skirt.”
Salesperson: *blank stare*
You: “Sorry, I know it’s super specific, like no worries at all if you don’t have it, but that’s what I’m looking for or something similar. Do you know if you have something like that?”
Salesperson: “Uhhhhh…. well no I don’t know. But let me check our computer system. While I’m doing that, tell me more about why you want that!”
You: “I just like the way it drapes, no particula—”
Salesperson (interrupting): “OK so how do you spell that brand you mentioned?”
You: “I’m sorry, but I didn’t mention a brand?”
Salesperson: “It was like, shareeee something.”
You: “Oh, charmeuse. That’s a fabric. Yeah, that’s c-h-a-r—”
Salesperson: “Hmmm nothing’s coming up in the system. But you know if you’re looking for a skirt I’m happy to help! You would look great in orange.”
You: “OK, yeah, no I’m good, I’ll just browse.”
You: walk up to a random rack and find the thing you were looking for.
Salesperson: “Oh wow, so weird that wasn’t in the system. Let me ring you up.”
You’ll notice that the focus of our interactions is around aping friendship. It is entirely centered around getting to know me and not getting me what I want or need.
Now, there’s a few ways people will read this story and immediately try to invent something about why I’m “wrong” to consider this poor service:
“JM, I bet this person could just tell you’re a rotten customer!!! Why should they show you where that was when you’re so clearly horrible!”
I can assure you that I am never unkind to service workers, and there is nothing I said in that script that is rotten. Truly disgusting customers are not uncommon, but they are not what we’re discussing here, and a salesperson would be well within their rights to refuse service for genuine cruelty. I support them in that.
“JM, that’s so classist of you to blame sales staff for this problem!”
I did not do that. I do not think it is the salespersons’ fault at all. I will get into why below.
“JM, it’s so rude of you to blame the salesperson for not finding that in the system! Computers aren’t perfect - I bet they just genuinely couldn’t find it!”
No. It is not rude of me to expect someone who works in a physical space to have an awareness of the stocked items without the use of the computer. This is something we did as a species since the invention of stores.
“JM, how dare you blame a salesperson for trying to just be NICE! What would you prefer? People be MEAN to you?! Do you want them to just ignore you?!!!”
No. The problem is not whether or not this person is being nice; the problem is whether they have been trained to provide me with genuine service. When I am in a store, the priority is the service and stock the store provides. If they want to be nice to me while they provide the service, they would be welcome to, and I would appreciate it, but I have friends, and I do not need to have sales staff feign friendship with me in place of doing their job.
“JM, you are so unreasonable. How was this person supposed to know something so specific? You were basically trying to trick them!”
No. It should be reasonable for me to expect someone who sells clothing to know the terms blue, cool-tone, bias-cut, silk, charmeuse, and skirt. It should also reasonable for me to expect them to know the brands the store carries, their location in the store, and their relative stock level. This is quite literally the purpose of stores: to interact with someone knowledgeable (service) who has a product I need or want (goods).
“JM, most people don’t just walk into a store with a specific thing in mind! You’re an outlier and you’re being so mean to act like we should cater to your weird whim!”
No. Most people, globally, do not have nearly enough expendable income to be wandering into a store without something in mind for what they will purchase. Even people who are not looking for a specific item such as myself will be looking for something similar to other things they like, shopping for an occasion, shopping for a type of garment, looking for colors they like, or making some other kind of association with reasonable need to ask someone to help them find something they will like that fits some rule. If they are truly just browsing, they may find something they like and ask “do you have this in xyz color, or abc size” or “do you have other things like 123?” Sales staff should be prepared to accommodate all of these needs.
“JM, this is just one interaction you had with one salesperson!! How dare you extrapolate that this is ALL salespeople.”
I have done this same song and dance in nearly every variety of brick and mortar store. I have this same flavor of interaction play out regularly in other retail areas. There are exceptional salespeople out there, but they are exceptional (read: exceptions to the rule) and most salespeople are being done a training disservice by having them focus on customer “interaction” at the expense of product knowledge.
I do not blame salespeople.
I will reiterate for clarity: service workers, salespeople included, are not to blame for the Synthetic Empathy phenomena. If you raise your voice to, threaten, belittle, think less of, or just generally act in an unkind way to a service worker, you are vile and I will not weep for anything that happens to you. Bloated corporations, helmed by people who do not understand what it is like to exist in the world and demand to be coo-ed and shush-ed like little babies all day, are to blame.
In the state I live in (Virginia), the average Nordstrom associate makes 12 to 30 dollars an hour. There is, of course, the commission structure, and selling enough merchandise might net you anywhere upwards of $100,000. But let’s assume conservatively that most employees are not powerhouse salespeople (and why would they be, when their base pay is abysmal, they have limited opportunity to move up, they are often working the job in service of finding another, and they’re potentially treated like garbage by customer and management alike); they might earn somewhere in the ballpark of $30,000. The average Nordstrom executive makes $233,749 and leadership reviews of said executive team include gems like this: “What does the leadership team need to get better at? Actual leadership. Someone needs to be there, to make sacrifices, to choose the customers and brand before their friends. Oh and bras require more training than 90 seconds, signed someone with a decade of experience.”
I can already see the memo the VP of Marketing is sending down to help with this, imagine it with me:
Hello rodents!
We have had yet another brilliant idea here on Mount Nordy’s: let’s be sure we start every sales transaction with a “big plans for the weekend?” and end with “are you suuuure you don’t want to get our store credit card?”
Leading with a personal question always makes people feel seen and you can use that to make them feel more obligated to get a line of credit they don’t need with us!
BIG UPDATE: after a lot of careful consideration and the work of our powerhouse AI team, we’ve decided to up our bra training course from 90 to 180 seconds. Their data shows this will help us hit our quarterly goal. go team!
Thx so much
Sent from my iPhone
“Why don’t you just shop online”
Ah, yes. Technology will solve everything. Who needs a pesky, informed salesperson with deep product knowledge and insight into my needs, as well as the benefit of touch and feel and the opportunity to try something on (or at least measure it myself) before I purchase it when I can have badly photoshopped, disingenuous or obscured information, or the styling services of a ChatGPT plugin.
Sarcasm aside; here are the reasons I limit online purchases:
inevitably I will spend more and I will regret more. Pretty much everywhere I see this spouted, and whether or not it’s proven for everyone, it’s definitely true for me. Buyers remorse hits HARD on online purchases.
you can’t guess size, fit, or feel. I do not care if they provide size information, I do not care if I’ve shopped the brand before, I do not care what is on the listing, SOMETHING is always off and I can spare myself the hassle by evaluating these things in real life.
you rarely discover something new. My example earlier is not the norm, quite frankly, for how I shop. I browse. I review every item on every rack. I let my eyeballs fall on something that I would never have considered and be MOVED by it. Then, I decide if it fits in with my style, but I let myself be moved to ask the question, “this is so cool…do I want this?”
it just isn’t fun. this one is full personal opinion. I am never joyous when I’m online shopping; it does not excite me, it does not surprise me, and it feels like a chore.
I will, however, concede that you do sometimes find some great things online (and share some tips on that in the future).
How to work around this system.
I have honed a foolproof way to get around the effects of corporate incompetence that have seeped into shopping. Unfortunately, it requires effort and the accumulation of knowledge that you shouldn’t need, but I will dispense it to you and set you free:
learn how to evaluate if something fits for yourself. I’ll have more on this in future posts, but here’s a bra fitting guide, for a start, since I mentioned that in my tirade.
learn about fabrics and fabric care. You’ll make way better decisions about what to buy and how it fits into your life (or doesn’t!) Jenna Lyons is absolutely KILLING it with the little snippets of wisdom in this department and I’ll share some of my own in future posts too.
buy less stuff. You don’t have to have these weird interactions if you aren’t buying things you don’t need. Being deliberate in your clothing acquisition will spare you much of it.
trade stuff. Buy nothing groups in your area, clothing swaps with friends or local community groups, or bartering your skills for handmade options is always A+.
subscribe to this substack for more intel on all of these options. (You must’ve known this was coming lol.)