Isn’t it amazing how helpful shop assistants become once they realise when you’re planning to spend a lot of money. Normally when I go into a clothes shop they don’t so much as ask me if I need any help. Yet when I needed an expensive ball gown when shop assistants saw me looking at those they suddenly became VERY helpful! To the point that when I was in the changing room one woman was bringing in clothes she thought I might like, and telling me if I didn’t like the colour she could get it in blue! Anyone else ever noticed this?
It’s human nature. Not polite, not proper behavior for a person in the service professions, but human nature. If there were two people talking to you, and one of them just wanted to talk and the other one wanted to give you a bunch of money, you’d probably listen more to the one waving the bills in the air.
Personally, whether I’m spending lots of money or not, I don’t generally like having people follow me around trying to help me. I bought a sofa recently, and part of what made me decide to buy the sofa where I bought it was the fact that the sales person was polite and friendly, made himself available to help us, but did NOT follow us around trying to upsell us on things. I’d get rather annoyed if somebody followed me to the dressing room offering to get me different sizes and colors of dresses, but that’s because I’m shy.
At restaurants, I do. If I order appetizers, wine, other drinks, dessert,… the server is in happy land. I guess the more we spend, at least in the U.S., the higher the tip. If I choose not to get all the trimmings, I leave a good tip if the service was good.
Of course. Especially if they work on commission, which salespeople for those high-end items often do.
OTOH, I’ve had lovely experiences from salespeople helping me find something very inexpensive, just being helpful and friendly and knowledgeable. An increasingly rare pleasure; usually I get the moron who stares blankly at me when I ask where I can find something and says, “I dunno.”
LMAO.
The really smart commissioned salespeople are nice to EVERYONE who comes in. I once went shopping for a pair of diamond earrings for a special gift. I was dressed quite casually. Some jewelry stores wouldn’t give me the time of day. Others were condescending and snobby. A couple were helpful and treated me like a millionaire. Guess who got my money?
When I turned 18 I received money from an inheritance… Not being terribly wise yet, at such a tender age, I decided to spend a fairly large chunk of it on a stereo… Now… At the time I wasn’t precisely Mr. GQ… (Not that I am now, but thats irrelevant) I was wearing torn jeans… Moccasin boots… Some T-shirt with a saying on it… A bandana… You get the picture… I didn’t get the time of day in the electronics store… I chose the particular stereo I wanted without the slightest input from a salesman, mainly because none of them would speak to me. When I finally DID get the attention of one of them and told him I’d made my selection, he looked very dubious… He began filling out the paperwork and then asked me “Will that be check or charge?” Note the absent “Cash” option… Well, I didn’t have a checking account or credit card… So I laid out the $1200 cash in front of him… His eyes looked like dinner plates… Suddenly I became his long lost best friend and drinking buddy… Jerk… The story doesn’t end there, though… I ran into the same guy at another branch of that store a few months later. I wasn’t going to buy anything… I was only browsing… My SO at the time was with me on both occasions and she too rembered how he had treated us before. As soon as the sales guy was in earshot, she said "I don’t see why you want to just get another set of speakers… You should just get a whole other stereo for downstairs… " The guy tore that store APART hooking different speakers to different amps, etc… An hour later and after THREE distinct visits from mall security for the volume being too loud, we left without buying a thing… What goes around…