Disappointment with A/V salespeople (1 Viewer)

[terence]

A friend and I orderd from Reliable and we had a great experience with them. We both got ours for 700.00 shipped back in August. Their shipping was top notch, the ES came in a x-tra box with the little popcorn shipping stuff all around it. The must important thing was the customer service was great.

Hey MatthewJ S, a friend and also i bought our 4ES's from the Reliable back in september, and you're right it was shipped very well with great customer service! I resently bought a 20-39PC+ sub from SVS and the customer service was outstanding!

It seems like i get better customer service from online vendors than from the chain stores as of late.......go figure.

 

[RobWil]

My .02 worth.....
Out of the hundreds of thousands of A/V buyers out there maybe 2% are really knowledgable about the technologies. Same as the average computer buyer probably. Sooooo....why should the A/V salesman feel a need to be as smart as 2% of the buyers when he already knows more than 98%?
Now that does not mean that I would think that way if I were a salesman....I tend to be a perfectionist and I'd want to be really on top of the situation, but that's just me. I would say most of you that frequent these types of forums already know as much to 1000 times more than the average salesman. A salesman is a salesman and they drift from one product to the next depending on where the money is....generally speaking of course. There was a post recently where someone was lamenting the loss of a top salesman to Real Estate. Unless you're shopping in an absolutely top notch, high end shop you should expect no less.....IMHO.

 

[MatthewJ S]

Actually , the % mentioned in the last post is probably close to what I experiance. I would add that the people who do have more knowledge than some of the better salesmen in the industry have that knowledge very focused on a narrow catagory and also possess it in a vacuum......
That is to say, the more intelegent among them understand the insight that can be gained from people who have done hundreds of set-ups and encountered countless "situational synergy" challenges....
I am always intriuged by the " expert hobbyist" who has hooked up 10 incarnations of his own system and systems for 4 or perhaps 5 friends/relatives....knows 2 brands of speakers intemately (going back almost 3 years)....has had personal experiance with 4 rcvrs, 5 dvd players, once even did a sattelite instalation, knows that laserdiscs could deliver dolby digital, has an avia test disc, has an spl meter (even downloaded the correction table),reads and understands every piece of PRINTED material (like it was gospel),and can tell you ABSOLUTELY what the best speaker set-up is in every price range without you even having to tell him anything else BESIDES the price range......Yeah , there is no substitute for experiance......

 

[AaronBatiuk]

I once told a sales guy at the local FutureShop (Canadian Box store, owned by Best Buy) that I wanted to buy three pair of bookshelf speakers, to use in a 6.1 setup. "What are you going to use for the centre? You can't use one of those!". Why not I asked. "Well,", he said, "the bandwidth is completely different... it won't work! You need a centre channel speaker.". Yeah, thanks buddy.

 

[Steven Simon]

I have bought tons of different kinds of gear in the last few years, and almost all the stores around here employee salesmen that can barely sell themselves out of a paper bag . The only stores that have any sort of expertise are those selling Lexicon, Martin Logan, and Krell products... Most stores around here have younger kids working, that have little to no knowledge of what their selling.


I don't let this bother me though. I expect this going in, and have all the expertise I need, by reading the net, and finding out what I'm buying before hand. So my only task in the actual store is price, and to buy.....

I definitely don't let it bother me, you can't.

The few super high end stores are getting harder and harder to find these days.....

 

[Albert Damico]

All of these experiences are endemic with a much greater issue that falls outside this HT site. How many "landscapers" are true craftsmen and how many simply cut grass? How many carpenters are true tradesmen and how many just hammer nails? How experienced is the appliance repairman, or the handy man that comes around to do work on your home. How often do any of us have anyone come to our homes to perform work that we find substandard? How many store clerks, from clothes to electronics, are actually experts in design, or speakers, or how about those makeup people in the department stores. Now there are some experts! And lower wages is just not the only answer, as someone suggested. Sure your salesperson went on to real estate, they wanted to move up, no harm in that. But where are the younger people, the clerks, that are ready to move up to where your salesperson used to be. Its a constant movement. I don't think its an issue of money. I think its, partly, an issue of pride. Some people believe that what they are doing is beneath them. But they need the job. So they assume a defensive posture, like arrogance. Or they simply just don't have the desire to excel. In every time, every occupation, in every walk of life, what percentage of the people you come across really take the time to become experts at what they do? Very few. Thats what makes Eagles. This issue becomes exacerbated in HT as we tend to be much more informed than normal. I hate the term, but for "Joe Six Pack" most of those CC or BB guys are probably just fine. But isn't it a little unfair to read, research, learn, and dedicate yourself to your hobby, that you love, and then sit and wonder why the guy in the store isn't as smart as you? I don't know, but again, based on the workmen, salespeople, clerks, etc. that I run into on a day to day basis, I think they are pretty representative of the population in general. Would I like it to be different, sure. Has it ever been? Nope

 

[terence]

Let's face it people a lot of these stores are just hire bodies to place on the floors of their stores. With no knowledge of the products but they have plenty of knowledge of how to sale you a extended warranty. I can't really blame the so called sales reps because some of these stores just throw these guys to the wolves. Push them out on the public because they assume the customers knows less than they do and he/she can wing it or ask someone else who has worked there a little longer to do the old piss on me and tell me it's raining routine. Hell you might get lucky and fine someone who actually know what they are talking about, but don't hold your breath!

 

[John Royster]

I've been watching this thread with interest and by dealing with salesman most of my career I have to ask.

"have you ever met a saleman that actually knows his product inside and out?"

Because no matter what the industry I believe the answer is....

NO

-edit- a perfect example is cars salesman

 

[David Cohen]

This thread began with someone being fed up with AV salespeople because of one associate's not being aware of a magazine review. As a 20+ year veteran in this industry, I'll admit that magazine reviews were the very last place that I learned anything.
Most decent mid-fi/hi-fi stores expose their salespeople to quality factory training. It's stil a matter of the individual asscociate, not the industry.
Let this thread die already, it's going nowhere.

 

[MatthewJ S]

It's like with anyone who's expertise you seek; layer, doctor, mechanic, carpenter, etc., it's up to you to find a good one. If I needed my gall bladder removed and the first 2 doctors were arrogant ,the next two seemed stupid, the next three were to young, etc., I would not take it upon myself to remove my own, or trust the help from my "on-line friend"....If I have trouble finding a guy I like to sell me an automatic switching propane generator as back-up for my house power, I'm not going to spend hours/days "reading-up" and think that I know more than all those guys and that their real world experiances mean nothing , I'm going to find the guy that does know what he's doing...he's out there I assure you ....what amazes me is how few people who do know more than average come in and ask for someone who is VERY knowledgable about x/y/z...I think that it may be a concious/unconcious desire to reaffirm that we don't need these peoples opinions or help....I always want to know what I don't know and when a customer comes in with knowledge that I don't have, I soak it up like a sponge!
SEEK OUT COMPETENT PEOPLE IN EVERY INDUSTRY !!!
I WORK IN A STORE WITH A FULL TIME STAFF OF 15 AND THERE ARE ONLY ABOUT 3 OTHERS THAT iWOULD WISH ON ANYBODY, BUT IF YOU SAY TO THE OTHERS "GEE, YOU DON'T SEEM TO KNOW ANY MORE ABOUT THIS THAN ME, CAN YOU TELL ME WHO MIGHT?" ,THEY WILL TAKE YOU TO SOMEONE WHO DOES.....