Paul Fitzpatrick: London

These days my inbox is full of messages from retailers, supermarkets, banks, credit card and service providers. Offering discounts, incentives, loyalty points, additional services or looking for feedback and reviews.

I was up in Glasgow last week and booked into a aparthotel.
An hour later my phone pinged, it was a message from the hotel asking me if everything was going okay with my stay, and if it was, could I press the green smiley face icon.

I checked out the following day and received another message within hours requesting feedback on my stay, and just in case I needed an incentive to respond, the hotel said they’d plant a tree if I submitted a review.

So if the planet runs out of oxygen it’s my fault…. sorry about that!

When did retailers and service providers become so needy?

Besides we all know they don’t really care about what you think, it’s just another rouse to capture data, no-one ever follows up on (or reads) your reviews or requests anyway?

As an example, I’ve been writing to Fry’s for 30 years now requesting the return of their legendary ‘5 centre chocolate bars’…. and based on my experience, no one’s listening!

When did this obsession with customer feedback begin, certainly not in the 70s. Nobody gave a shit whether you were a happy shopper in the 70s apart from your local newsagent or corner shop who were genuinely friendly and accommodating and look where that got them….. those nostalgic retail spaces that served the community so well are all coffee shops, Turkish barbers or estate agents now.

In the 70s we had limited choice but it’s changed days now.
The tables have turned and it’s we the consumers who hold all the aces.
Access to the internet and 24-7 shopping certainly moved the dial.

As an example, on my recent trip to Glasgow, a pair of trainers priced at £90 caught my eye in the window of a shop in the West End. As I’d flown up I was travelling light so I took a pic of them with the aim of purchasing them from the retailers website.
A couple of days later I searched for the make and model on line to discover I could buy them for £60 from a different online retailer.

I’d much rather have spent the money with the guys who brought them to my attention but who’s going to sniff at a 33% saving these days?

It’s safe to say that in the 70s, it was the retailer who held all the power.

If you wanted to buy a pair of Levis sta prest there were only a couple of retailers who stocked them so you had to move quickly to get your preferred size and colour before they sold out.

Someone I knew ended up with a pair of green flared one’s – rookie!

Similarly, patchwork jeans would sell out of Slack Shak within hours of restocking, so you had to be in the right place at the right time or you’d be confined to wearing green sta-prest up the dancing.

It was exactly the same with certain styles of football boots, or specific Subbuteo teams or oxblood Doc Martens – demand always seemed to outstrip supply back then, it was definitely a sellers market.

Half the time retailers gave the impression that they were doing us a favour by permitting us to spend our hard-earned cash with them, they genuinely weren’t interested in our shopping experience, or whether we were having a ‘nice day’.

Also, the price was the price back then, there was no shopping around.

In the 70s the Recommended Retail Price (RRP) was finite and retailers had to adhere to it or the brands would stop supplying them – EU price-fixing regulations changed all that for the better.

The one time you did feel a connection was when you splashed out for ‘made to measure’.
Whether it was a suit at Jackson the tailors or a shirt at Arthur Black’s you were made to feel like the customer, although waiting 4 weeks to get your prized possession took the edge off it.

I’m not sure when ‘precious retailing’ kicked in – you know those boutiques where you’re petrified to touch anything for fear of being chastised by a prissy sales assistant for disrupting their precious display.
No matter you’re about to spent £80 on a basic cotton t-shirt with a wee embroidered logo that costs $2 to produce… which probably equates to the weekly earnings of the 12-year-old Vietnamese kid who made the damn thing.

Perhaps we deserve everything we get.

The other big change I’ve noticed is tipping.

I read an article the other day about a restaurant in St Tropez whose staff are covertly banning selected customers.

The customers crime?

Well, some Scrooge-like patrons were refusing to tip on top of the 15% service charge that had already been added to their bill.

It turns out that unbeknown to the owners, the staff had been keeping a log of those non (additional) tippers and if/when they enquired about a table, they were told the restaurant was full.

If the staff are that twisted and vindictive I’m not sure I’d want to eat in that establishment anyway.

In the very same town last week, a customer was followed into the carpark by a disgruntled waiter who wasn’t happy that he’d only left a €500 tip, he deemed this unreasonable and demanded it be doubled.

Maybe it’s just the French!

I think Mr Pink (he of Reservoir Dogs fame) had a reasonable philosophy on tipping.

If someone provides great service then they deserve a tip for going the extra yard, but tipping for tipping’s sake just because society deems that we tip some people and not others, ain’t fair.

We can be on the end of some great service from someone at a McDonalds or at a DIY store but we never tip them, yet we always feel obliged to tip a minimum of 10% in a sit-down restaurant, regardless of the service or the quality of the food.

It’s not logical…. they’re probably all on minimum wage, yet we all do it.

I don’t remember any ‘service charges’ being added to the bill in the 70s and if you could afford to leave a few coppers as a tip after your 50p Wimpy meal then everyone was happy.

I’m not saying I’d like to go back to the 70s, I’m perfectly happy buying discounted trainers on-line and utilising voucher codes and using up my loyalty points to get a free pastry at M&S, etc.

But…… I just wish they’d stop with the virtual signalling, the unnecessary messaging, the disingenuous links to charities to make them look more caring, when in reality they all use sweatshops, and pay below the ‘living wage’.
And of course the incessant requests for feedback that no one reads.

Trust me, no one’s reading – I’ve worked with brands and retailers long enough.

No one cares that your £80 t-shirt shrank into the shape and size of an Oxo cube after one wash… they’re just trying to build a ‘community’ so they can collect as much data about your preferences, lifestyle, spend and buying patterns as they can.

Ultimately the whole customer-engagement charade is a quid pro quo and it ain’t gonna change any time soon.

For genuine retail insights from the 70s please read the excellent pieces below from John Allan and Mark Arbuckle, who both served on the front line.

Are You Being Served – John Allan
https://onceuponatimeinthe70s.com/?s=are+you+being+served

All Over The Shop – Mark Arbuckle
https://onceuponatimeinthe70s.com/2021/10/20/all-over-the-shop-part-1/

John, Mark – we thank you for your service gents!