"SERVING" and "SERVICE."

Hutt News, Volume 2, Issue 32, 16 January 1930, Page 2

"SERVING" and "SERVICE."

Counter salesmanship in t>his country has riot reached a very high standard. It is for the most part looked upon as unskilled labour, and for the most part it is unskilled. But it ought not to be, and it need not be, ;;ays a writer in an English hardware paper. ""

Although I have no wish to decry British methods of business, I must say' that here again we might take a lesson or two from America.1. Inhere the/art* of shop-keeping is~ studied in its every detail.as a profession. Here too often] pur shop-keeping is a makeshift. The reasin is, I think, t>hat we have a traditional and quite unreasonable disrespect fox "shop-keepers." In America shop--keepers are regarded as being all in the great commerce arid of it,-and lignity and skill arc not considered ineoaipat•ible with serving behind a eoantcr. I Which, of coTvrse. is a perfectly sensible view to take of the matter.

Thus it follows that in America counter salesmanship is developing as *i line art. Shop sales girls and sales men arc instructed in the art of addressing a customer, of „ ascertaining iis wants if he doesn't know: them himself (not an infrequent occurrence this, as shobk33pers will tell you), of setting forth convincingly the merits_~of the goods to be sold, and, in short, they set out to make a good job of the business cf

selling.

, The effects of. such training are obvious. The sales staff realise that their job consists in something more shan merely "handing out the goods"; that there is room for personal achievement in serving, and that £t offers *heni scope for taking a pride in their work. And in a good firm, of course, there 5s always the opportunity of promotion,

with sometimes the chance to go "on the road "au d earn, (' big money.''

Briefly, the effect ,of the" training is to. raise counter salesmanship from mere serving to Service., To "hand but" to a customer something approaching what he asks for may be defined as serving. To endeavour -to iind out the eu'stomer's exact rcquiremen rs, to advise him. if necessary; in a word, to '' do your best for him,'' this is Service; and unless a counter salesman or.saleswoman can aeMeve what "s thus

understood as Service, he. or she can never expect to find pleasure or profit in the work.

In this country too, in London, some of the larger stores have institated counter salesmanship training classes,