Training

[cdnbookslave]

I am less than a week away from opening a new store, three times the size of the one I was working in before. Responsibility has fallen to me to make sure the 20-odd new staff we hired will be trained enough to help customers a week from today

Comments

[happyjackal]

"Do you have Robert the third" (Richard III)
"That book about kites" or "The kite flier" (Kite Runner)
"Do you have at-one-ment?"
"That book, eat sleep, something?" or many variations (Eat, Pray, Love)

[happyjackal]

forgot one
"do you have Oprah's book?" She meant The New Earth and looked offended when I asked if she was looking for a book by Oprah or one she was promoting.

[stephaniesmom]

Oh Gosh, where to start?! I haven't worked in a month, so I don't know currents, but: I have 9 years' worth of odd customer questions! These have all actually been asked by real customers

[chaeri]

its ALWAYS blue!

[stephaniesmom]

Ah, I actually had a red one once! AND found it!

[bf_nightingale]

Nope, they can be green as well. Back in my good ol' school days, I had this literature teacher who was all ecstatic for that particular grammar book she recommended us, and it was small and green. She couldn't remember the title, nor the author, nor the publisher, but it was easily recognizable as it was small and green and you could find it in that awesome little bookstore next to [insert name of a middle-sized store name here] in [insert name of the next bigger city half an hour away by car].
For the record, the only bookshop I know next to that particular store was and still is a comic shop. Dot dot dot. As a former bookseller, I have nothing more to add to this statement.

[daria2]

It occurs to me that what one can generalise from these kind of customer questions is that a major bookselling skill is the ability to put oneself in the mind of the customers, in all their glorious variations, and translate from non-bookseller pov into a useful query that can be put into your database. Compensating for the cognitive gap between how customers conceptualises and thinks and talks about books (that one on Oprah, it has a blue cover and it was over there three months ago), and the information the bookseller actually needs to find the book. Many customers do not grasp this, the bookseller must patiently bridge the gap instead (instead of screaming in their faces, "blue cover? why on earth do you think that there is any practical way for me to find one book among ten thousand like that? Magic? Telepathy

[logophilet]

shelving, ask them to pay attention when shelving it's the best trick for the magical customer service moment when they ask for 'that book with the painting of the woman with a pearl..', and you walk a yard and *yonk* 'is there anything else I can help you with today...' of course such moments probably only perpetuate the 'blue-book' syndrome. Really customers that ask blue-book questions must think that we all are endowed with categorical mental knowledge, of our stock, including visuals, they're not looking for good use of a bookstore database, they are looking for a librarian GOD.

[cija]

Customer can and will mix up Water for Elephants and Like Water for Chocolate in bewildering and hilarious ways.

[metyldapryde]

Get them familiar with any books that the local schools are reading. Make sure they know how to see if it is in stock at other stores.

Have the be prepared to tell students that Slaughter-house Five is not the fifth book in a series.

Have them become familiar with popular kids books - I'm looking for the one with the bunny rabbit and it's got a mom and kid in it. (Either Brown Nut Hare or Runaway Bunny)

Is there anyway they can shadow people at a different store?

Deep breath. Be prepared to say for the few weeks you are open, "We are still working the kinks out."

Best of luck to you.