OP, is it possible you’re the very model of human perfection, and the employees are flustered because they realize they have no products or services to offer you?
I’m a bit confused by this alleged business model too. My wife has begun doing spa work herself fairly recently (the state-certified kind, not the happy-ending sort) and I’m sure she’d be completely bemused by the idea of discouraging or driving away potential clients, whoever they may be. Overweight/plain-looking people want spa services too, and their money spends just the same.
Some people adore this treatment. In the case of male shoppers in a store that caters mostly to women, a lot of men really need help, because they have absolutely no clue as to what they are looking for, or where to find it. In other stores, this policy is put into place to get the clerks off their butts and actually helping customers, and in yet other stores, it means that you look like a shoplifter. Some stores give out commissions on especially large sales. In some stores, it’s a combination.
Personally, my feeling is that if I want help, I’ll ask for it. And then I’ll find that every single clerk has gone on break half a minute ago.
My wife and I had this problem when our stylist moved from JCPenney’s to a frou-frou salon. We followed her because they promised she could keep her old clients at the old prices, which they honored, and the stylist treated us just as well as ever, but the management looked at us like we’d just wandered in from a septic pit.
Yeah, Sephora is awesome for that. I always go in wearing zero makeup, because why the hell would I be made up if I was looking to try some on, and they’re both helpful and don’t assume I must be a newb if I’m bare-faced.
I went to a nice department store to buy a fancy dress to wear as my wedding dress. I was willing to drop several hundred dollars that day, but walked out when no one would give me the time of day. I was wearing a polo shirt and jeans. Ended up getting a dress off-the-rack at Jessica McClintock for $175.
My wife has been a piano teacher for decades, with the frequent need of new sheet music and occasionally new instruments.
Depending on the store, she often gets the “snotty spa employee” treatment. As soon as she walks in the door of one particular store, she feels that the floor staff give her the once-over, as if to say: “you’re in the wrong place, lady” just because she doesn’t look like a twenty-something metal head.
In another, the owner runs the store and treats customers as a barely tolerable nuisance that get in the way of her making money. My wife was routinely ignored there, and when she did get the woman’s precious attention, it was clear that she was being an inconvenience. Though that store has one of the best music selections in the area, we do not go there anymore.
Even though she is a piano teacher with dozens of students—a great customer with a powerful influence on the expensive purchases of many others—they just don’t even try to help her.
I know it’s not everyone’s style, (and in fact it’s not actually my style either, as I loathe confrontation), but if it was me, and there was a store that I had patronized for years and finally had to abandon due to repeated rude, dismissive service, I think I would force myself to stop in one final time, seek out the owner and tell them exactly why I was never going to shop there again.
I would also be tempted to wish them a speedy bankruptcy and extended homelessness, but I might not really have the nerve for this parting shot…
I work for a credit card processor and the answer, at least with the terminals we have, is nope, not easily. If one knows what one is doing (hardly any merchants do and this is especially true for those in the fashion industry) in the set-up area a flag can be set to tell the terminal whether tip processing is on or not. If it is on, a tip line is printed on the receipt and a transaction can be easily found to add the tip to later on when they get time or at the end of the day. If the flag is off, no tip line is printed on the receipt and the only change that can be made to a transaction is to void it out entirely.
Now, someone who’s well practiced could get to the set-up screen (with a password), find the area containing the tip processing flag, set it as desired, then back out in about two minutes. The problem is, the flag cannot be changed if there have been transactions run previously; the software doesn’t like a mix of transactions that can and cannot have tips added. The merchant would have to close the “open batch” as it is called (i.e. transmit the information to our server, notifying it that those transactions were to be collected), change the flag, then run your transaction, only to have to go through the process again when someone is ringing up a sale that might garner a tip. It ain’t gonna happen.
The alternative would be to have two terminals, one for retail sales and the other for tippable services. This would, of course, entail the buying or rental of a second terminal along with the monthly fees for keeping it active. You might suggest this to the spa owner next time you’re in.
And we don’t get it because we don’t feel comfortable or happy. Why the hell would I want to do something that’s supposed to be relaxing when I’m feeling judged? I shop around and look for places I’m comfortable in.
A friend of mine was snubbed while shopping at Nieman-Marcus. I suggested the next time she went there, she simply wear a sign saying “If I couldn’t afford it, I wouldn’t have come in.”