Since time immemorial, I was thinking of getting my eyes checked by an optician, and in all probability was expecting a further decrease in my vision power. Or shall I say I was expecting to get more myopic, given the fact that it was becoming more and more difficult for me to read what some of the professors wrote in their sweet little fonts on the white and black boards in the classrooms. Sometimes I wondered if some of them thought that it was a global standard to follow Times New Roman Font size 12 not only on the word documents, but also on the class room boards. Nevertheless, one fine day I finally managed to visit a prominent eye care store downtown.
Having enquired about the rates for a vision check, I went ahead with it. The person who attended to me seemingly knew a lot about the terminology related to opthalmics and threw a lot of half phrased gyaan at me in his broken English. All through he was checking my eyes, he was speaking words like spherical vision, fiber lenses, high index and the most frequently dropped word was “anti glare”. With some background in science and technology, I took pride in the fact that I could somewhat make sense of whatever terms he was speaking. Thereafter, when I ordered the lenses and chose the frame, I was glad to know that he could deliver me the glasses within 2 hours. So I happily decided to sit down for two hours for coming down all the way to city from my campus demanded a comparably higher investment in all kinds of resources.
In the next two hours, I noticed what is called as the beauty of sales. A good number of customers dropped in, and I saw how brilliantly the same salesman cum optician was convincing people to use anti glare, and high index glasses. In fact, many a times the conversation was in regional dialect but it was apparent how the sales guy would throw in the benefits of the anti glare coating and would scratch on the glass and show people the coating (Though even after two hours I could not figure out what was he trying to show about the ‘Anti Glare’ coating by scratching on the glass). The best part came in when he would ask people to wear an anti glare pair of zero power glasses and look at the television, and then do the same using ordinary glasses. Through my experience of last 5 years of using anti glare glasses, I know that one cannot find any perceptible difference in the two situations just by trying the glasses for a minute. But to my utter amazement, people actually agreed that they could find a difference between both the exercises! This is very typical of a consumer’s behavior that one actually starts to feel the difference if he knows about it before hand. In our case, the salesperson was so convincing and smart that he would point to various colors and sharp features on the television, and ask the customer to notice the difference in a way as if it was in black and white. There were people who had never sat in front of a computer terminal or never intended to do so in foreseeable future, but the salesman could manipulate them to buy the costlier and higher margin ‘anti glare’ glasses. This is again typical of many consumers that they purchase products whose features are way beyond their foreseeable utilitarian needs. In fact, this kind of a buying behavior is especially observable when people go to buy mobiles. The height of the situation was when a person claimed that he was using an anti glare screen for his desktop, and so did not need an anti glare coated pair of glasses. The salesman beautifully answered his concern by explaining to him the different types of glares, the angles at which they work (He actually drew a diagram on a paper!) and how the desktop anti glare screen could prevent ‘one kind of glare’ and not the ‘other kind of glares’! I was dumbstruck….and so was the poor customer who was left wondering why the PC company did not take care of the remaining ‘kinds of glares’ while making the anti-glare screen. My entire fundamentals of physics was shaken, as it was the first time I was hearing about ‘different kinds of glares’ and that too from an ordinary looking, a not so intelligent, salesman of an eye care store. Nevertheless, I got my glasses in the mean time. And so I left the store being much more educated about ‘Which glares’ and ‘What glares’, than what I previously knew about, and certainly with an added insight into consumer behavior and the art of sales.
My learning for the day – ‘If you are sure that you know little about something, try to sound all the more convincing and confident about it – and more than half the world will fall for it’.
In the next two hours, I noticed what is called as the beauty of sales. A good number of customers dropped in, and I saw how brilliantly the same salesman cum optician was convincing people to use anti glare, and high index glasses. In fact, many a times the conversation was in regional dialect but it was apparent how the sales guy would throw in the benefits of the anti glare coating and would scratch on the glass and show people the coating (Though even after two hours I could not figure out what was he trying to show about the ‘Anti Glare’ coating by scratching on the glass). The best part came in when he would ask people to wear an anti glare pair of zero power glasses and look at the television, and then do the same using ordinary glasses. Through my experience of last 5 years of using anti glare glasses, I know that one cannot find any perceptible difference in the two situations just by trying the glasses for a minute. But to my utter amazement, people actually agreed that they could find a difference between both the exercises! This is very typical of a consumer’s behavior that one actually starts to feel the difference if he knows about it before hand. In our case, the salesperson was so convincing and smart that he would point to various colors and sharp features on the television, and ask the customer to notice the difference in a way as if it was in black and white. There were people who had never sat in front of a computer terminal or never intended to do so in foreseeable future, but the salesman could manipulate them to buy the costlier and higher margin ‘anti glare’ glasses. This is again typical of many consumers that they purchase products whose features are way beyond their foreseeable utilitarian needs. In fact, this kind of a buying behavior is especially observable when people go to buy mobiles. The height of the situation was when a person claimed that he was using an anti glare screen for his desktop, and so did not need an anti glare coated pair of glasses. The salesman beautifully answered his concern by explaining to him the different types of glares, the angles at which they work (He actually drew a diagram on a paper!) and how the desktop anti glare screen could prevent ‘one kind of glare’ and not the ‘other kind of glares’! I was dumbstruck….and so was the poor customer who was left wondering why the PC company did not take care of the remaining ‘kinds of glares’ while making the anti-glare screen. My entire fundamentals of physics was shaken, as it was the first time I was hearing about ‘different kinds of glares’ and that too from an ordinary looking, a not so intelligent, salesman of an eye care store. Nevertheless, I got my glasses in the mean time. And so I left the store being much more educated about ‘Which glares’ and ‘What glares’, than what I previously knew about, and certainly with an added insight into consumer behavior and the art of sales.
My learning for the day – ‘If you are sure that you know little about something, try to sound all the more convincing and confident about it – and more than half the world will fall for it’.
2 comments:
I have used anti-glare lenses for the past few years. I got a new pair recently, and told the optician that I didn't need anti-glare coz I hardly find any difference. Now I wear the normal kinds.
And Lo! I do see the difference now. :(
Very interesting observation and relevant example about the fact that people notice what they want to notice or think they should notice.
Do I look too stingy or non-convinceable or what..Nobody's ever tried selling "Anti-Glare" to me. Hearing of the term for the first time.
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