The Land that Customer Experience Forgot: Retails from Barcelona

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The Land that Customer Experience Forgot: Retails from Barcelona

I live in a city with sweeping holes in its marketplace - non-existent customer service, hilariously illogical store planning, unfathomable merchandise, and a useless Internet presence (outside government) where finding resources is a madman’s journey to nowhere. I’m going to start to chronicle the don’ts of these experiences and what I’ve learned from these places.

Here’s a go:

Rule: In 2010, There Should No Longer Be a Swarming Sea of Stuff Customers Have to Settle For

Large, high end Stationary Store – This store is filled with merchandise, much of which is well-organized but oddly there is nothing that I would want to buy. I find this is a phenomenon in a lot of places. A really enticing store from the outset. It shines, it sparkles, it has a theme, the right lighting, the right music, and then. Nothing. As you get closer to individual items you don’t see a reason to own them. Individually the merchandise amounts to little. All flash, no finds*.

I went there for stationary which is quite limited because people don’t send thank you cards or use stationary for as many occasions as we do. That’s just something I have to accept. They do have a rack of blank paper in a variety of colors, most of them in strong saturated colors and therefore difficult to write on. The stock is really light and flops in the hand and comes in one shape – a longish folded card. The rest of the rack are various shapes of envelopes and one A4 paper.Nothing that would suit my purpose. Not distinctive enough nor quality enough for me to create my own card solution with.

Photo Albums – one nice style in many shapes, the kind where you insert a small photo in the front with a nice paper finish, and in a handful of colors. The rest are very generic reminiscent of ones found at Walmart but at boutique prices. All overpriced. Picture frames – in plastic and cheap metal, or the kooky 1980s stacking kinds with places to put several photos in one frame. Overpriced. None in leather, sterling silver, other quality materials like mother of pearl (I say this because they have a plasticy mother of pearl imitation frame, also reminiscent of the merch in Walmart). Lots of Disney themed frames. Nearby there is a huge variety of desk sets but none that appeal to my personal taste. How big is the market for desk sets? I wonder as I pass them on the way out the store.

Points for: selling rubber stamps and ink but there is only one brand of ink. They also sell wax seal kits but we’re missing letters of the alphabet in both stamps and seals when we went looking for thank you card options. They also had an attendant for each section of the store and they did try to help me find what I was looking for.

Good idea to: Attend gift shows globally. Think state-of-the-art. Think of the craft and DIY trends. Consider allowing people to build-their-own customized solutions. Think variety. Think quality, clean, crisp, versatile, high-end. Draw up customer profiles and help your customers to aspire. Divide sections by utility. Create a stationary bar with an attendant or a few there to help people. Offer lower end basics in good solid quality at low or moderate prices and offer high end at competitive prices and genuinely top quality. Don’t fake it. Don’t put a high price tag or point mood lighting at a low-end mass market piece of junk.

*All flash, no finds

Another store like that is a high-end world travel / ethnic themed clothing and gift store in Paris. The store is a deep inviting pink and merchandise includes mirrored pillow covers, printed woolen dresses, voodoo candles, journals, and woven baskets. The items come from all over the world but unlike Anthropologie, where you may pay a little bit more because they found what you couldn’t, in this store you can’t help but think you can buy these same items at the Indian / Latin American / Mexican / Haitian imports or hippie incense shop down the road for less.

Rule: Customers are Just Another Word for People. People Like You, Mrs. Bread-Department Lady.

I couldn’t find ‘pecanas’ (pecans) for the life of me. I went to three stores.

While entering the biggest department store-based grocery store, I was told by a stern security guard that I could not enter the food area through the first entrance I saw, the regular logical flow of customer traffic. I had to go around a huge maze to get to the food. Finally, and already feeling the first inklings of frustration and put off by the idea of shopping, I was able to get in. Once inside, there were two huge nuts sections. I am not sure why not just one but there were two. Filled with the same kind of nuts – walnuts, peanuts, almonds, and one other kind, in various packaging, mostly of the same size curiously. I asked if they had pecanas. The man said if you can’t find them there (didnt look or ask) he pointed to the other nut section and said otherwise they may be in our gourmet section. [The gourmet section is a room with classical music and lovely display tables with very ordinary but arguably slightly nicer items though hardly obscure (I shop the Pakistani and Asian and English grocery shops regularly) at really exorbitant prices]. I said thank you and went on my merry way to section two which had bagged nuts, same kind, bigger brands, no pecans. I saw a cluster of women working in the bread department across from nut section number two. They were all talking and oblivious to the store traffic around them. I said excuse me, and tried to engage the woman in the kind of conversation I might have in a city like New York. I asked her if people used pecans in cooking in Catalonia. She didn’t understand. I said pecanas, nueces (nuts). I said there are nuts over there but no pecans. Do you ever use them? She pointed to the sign above her that said ‘pan’ (bread). That is not my section. I am in bread. I said I know but I’m just asking as one human being to another if you ever use pecans or know if they are available in Barcelona. She pointed to the nut section again and said sorry.

My attempt at human contact with an employee, to find camaraderie or information: REJECTED

I then tried to exit the store and was stopped. I could not go through the registers if I wasn’t buying anything. That is not the way to exit, I must go around the whole store to get out again.

Rule: Don’t Make A Promise, You Can’t Deliver

The Supermarket – This didn’t happen to me but to someone I had coffee with yesterday and I thought I’d throw this in because I’m running out of time. Next week, I’ll talk to you about ‘illogical merchandise’. So here’s my last one, at this one supermarket chain, upon checkout you’ll find multiple (undesigned) signs that say in huge lettering: “when the line gets to three people, we will open another lane.”

A regular at this grocery store says in all of her time there, a new lane has never opened up.

The End. More Later..