I read your entry and I agree with you 100%. Top grading your staff should be a must, (they’re there for a reason) if companies are laying off workers left and right it would make sense they would keep the best of the best. Circuit City was a retail giant, hence the word “was”; however I can understand why they’re now out of business; they simply lacked quality in customer service, product knowledge, and most importantly…management.

While we can sit here and complain all we want about retailers, we have to look at this picture from a distance a bit, and at how fast our technology is progressing. Can we actually blame salesman for not knowing their products? Is it possible that the progression of our technology is too fast for us to keep up? Anybody can sell a cd or dvd player, but how many people can sell a top of the line digital SLR camera especially trying to understand the different technologies of each manufacturer. While some of us are technologically savvy, most of the world is not.

I leave my shopping strictly online, the prices are better, there are no pushy salesman, and reading the specification of the product I want is a lot more calming than salesman throwing me a sales pitch speaking at a mile a minute. Online retailers have it easy, they obtain the necessary information they want to sell, and slap it in between table tags in an html page, no communication required, no product knowledge required, if it’s what i want, all i have to do is click “buy”. I’m my own salesman.

-Good post.

Thanks for the quick response. I didn’t read your message prior to making my last one. I do want to add that you hit the nail on the head, so to speak with your comment “companies aren’t structurally prepared to deal with the possible wild west outcome from placing themselves in the social media space”!

I’ll be waiting for your Weblog Part II. I also want to thank you for spurring up some good conversation here on Facebook! I was impressed and liked your choice of words.