How not to sell a PlayBook (or anything for that matter!)
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 at 2:17PM Travelling through Newark Airport on the way back home from WWDC, I stumbled across a BlackBerry store. With a couple of hours to kill, I thought I'd take a peak at a PlayBook.
As I entered the store, one of the assistants jumped at me...
"Can I help you or answer any questions?"
"No thanks, I'm just browsing...."
I sauntered over to the PlayBook stand to try my first hands on experience.
Literally, after a couple of seconds, barely enough to swipe the screen, the same sales assistant was back...
"Can I help you or answer any questions?"
"No thanks, I'm just looking, I wanted to see how the Playbook worked and what it's performance is like"
The sales assistant, ignoring the fact that I wanted to be left alone, launched in some well rehearsed spiel ....
"You can play it on the TV" she told me, gesturing to the Playbook next to the one I was trying to use. She struggled trying to press the Power button with her fingernail but when powered up, the TV out didn't work.
"The Playbook plays flash videos you know, the iPad can't do that..."
"Oh really..."
"The Playbook has front and rear cameras. It can take photos and video at 1080p, the iPad can only take 720p"
"Oh really..."
I tried to ignore her and explore the PlayBook in front of me.
"The Playbook is the only tablet that can bridge to your Blackberry for you emails, the iPad can't do that"
"Oh really..."
At which point I gave up and left the shop.
Sigh....
Reader Comments (6)
You are a far better man than I. This has happened to me on a number of occasions but I tend to be very blunt and tell em where to go!
Oh really?
I dare say the Playbook has some potential, but who needs enemies when you have sales staff like that? =;-)
Don, for future reference, you were in NJ. State law permits you to beat her senseless with your iPad.
It's the same service you get from any commission based company, from Sofa's to PC's they are only in it to sell you most valuable item whether you want it or not.
Apple on the other hand let you wonder around and play, and don't bug you. Try playing on a Mac in a Currys or Comet in the UK and you will be pounced upon !
The stores I avoid like the plague are the Mobile Phone shops, plastic props glued to a wall and in the wasteland between lie the coyotes waiting to jump on you, and sell you insurance, 1000 extra texts a month and some other crap you don't want !
I went into Curry's and asked for a chicken jalfrezi. They looked at me like I was bonkers.