Auntie Kate The Resale Expert

Are stupid questions giving you the shopkeeper headache?

Contrary to what your mother or third-grade teacher told you, there is such a thing as a dumb question. In fact I just heard one: my man standing in front of an open medicine chest, whose entire top shelf was filled with pain relievers, asking if we had anything for his headache. I’m sure you’ve received your own share of dumb questions this week.

A dumb question is one whose answer is plain to see, if the speaker would simply use his/her senses and wits.

Let’s go on a campaign against dumb questions.

At least in your shop. How can we do that?

By answering the question before it is formed,

allowing the questioner to use those senses and wits!

My least-favorite question of all from shop visitors is Do you take old clothes? After several years of this, I finally trained my eye muscles not to roll around when I heard it. And then I got smart enough to create a brochure explaining our service, and placed them in every conceivable spot around the sales floor. Immediately the dumb questions stopped and the valuable ones started, such as When shall I bring in my items? Now that’s a question I enjoy answering!

Turning a dumb question into a profitable exchange of information can be this easy.

Another example: Do you hate it when, for the twentieth time this week, a browser asks you if you carry [fill in the blank]? Stop and think about why they’re asking: yes, you know that you carry that, and where it is. . . so why don’t they? Could some rack or department signage do the trick? Maybe moving the category or removing a visual barrier in front of it?

Yes, I know, people don’t read signs. It’s true, you’ll still get lots of questions, no matter what you do. But wouldn’t a decline in dumb questions go a long way in making your workday more enjoyable?

Another question that might be common in your shop:

How much is this?

Figure out why people are constantly asking. Could it be that your tags are not legible? To stamp out dumb questions, you could print the prices larger, darker, or more clearly. Maybe too many items have lost their tags? So you devise a better way to attach them. Perhaps your system of markdowns is difficult for shoppers to understand or compute? Then you figure out a better way to indicate how much that item is today.

There’s another reason, though, sometimes,

for those dumb questions you receive in the course of the day. That question can simply be the speaker’s way of asking for your acknowledgment. That’s why the woman with an armload of clothes can stand in front of you at your take-in area and ask Where do I go with these? She’s not really asking for information: she’s saying I’m here, I have clothes, acknowledge me please. Ditto the customer at the sales counter with an item in his hand. When he says Can I pay for these? he means Please help me, see me, pay attention to me.

So maybe my man didn’t want to know where the aspirin was. Maybe he just wanted a cool hand on his brow and a little sympathy. Or maybe I need to post an arrow-shaped sign: Pain Killers Here. I’m still mulling that over, but it’s giving me a headache.

PS Another way to cut down on questions about procedure, acceptability, how to consign, and so on? Create links in your FB, tweets, blog, e-newsletter to the various informative articles on HowToConsign.com. It’s like having your own on-staff  PR person … for free, courtesy of Too Good to be Threw. Can’t beat that with a stick!

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