Three Times I Had A 10/10 Service Experience

Studies say a rude sales staff can actually boost sales, but it's not all passive-aggressive condescension out there.

Yesterday I attended the FHH New York Watch Summit, which like so many watch events was organized around moderated panel discussions, with the participants ranging from lifelong collectors and enthusiasts, to individuals with a relationship with watchmaking but also with broader experience in the luxury world, and its relationship to watch collecting (Todd Snyder, for instance). One of the most interesting panels was “Taste, Time, and Value: Ushering In The New Age Of Luxury,” which was moderated by Thomai Serdari from NYU Stern; Jean-Emmanuel Biondi, Head of Fashion & Luxury at Deloitte; Patrick Pruniaux, CEO of Sowind Group (with whom I’d previously had a fascinating conversation about Girard-Perregaux, about which more in another story) and finally, Wei Koh, founder of Revolution and The Rake.

One of the many subjects the panel covered was the quality of the retail experience at watch boutiques in particular and luxury stores in general and as you might expect, stories were all over the map. The nadir of the luxury shopping experience is of course, not being allowed in the store at all, which Wei Koh said happened to him when he tried to walk into a watch store in Venice – a salesperson locked the door when they saw him coming, presumably, according to Wei, because they didn’t want to deal with “another Asian tourist.” Without the ability to (a) be there in person and (b) mind-read it’s impossible to know if this was in fact the reason, but the fact that it sounds perfectly plausible, tells us a lot about what we expect in terms of customer treatment at luxury stores these days.

As it turns out, there is at least some evidence that snobbish and contemptuous treatment from sales staff at a luxury boutique can actually boost sales. The studies in question go a certain distance to confirming suspicions that the relationship between luxury brands and clients can be pretty sadomasochistic. According to one 2014 study published in the Journal Of Consumer Research, with the provocative title, “Should the Devil Sell Prada? Retail Rejection Increases Aspiring Consumers’ Desire for the Brand,” a study by Megan Ward and Darren Dahl (respectively, Methodist University and the University of British Columbia) found that being treated dismissively by sales staff could actually increase consumer desire for a luxury brand. The study says in part, “After being rejected by (vs. having a neutral interaction with) an aspirational brand representative, consumers who relate the brand to their ideal self-concept are likely to elevate their attitudes toward and increase their willingness to pay for the brand.”

The study also notes that this effect seems to be limited to certain environments – someone shopping for a luxury bag or watch, for instance, might be more susceptible to what you might call the “I-only-want-to-join-a-club-that-won’t-have-me” effect.

I’m an editor with, for better or worse, little if anything resembling an entrepreneurial streak, so I can count on the fingers of one finger the number of times I’ve entered a luxury boutique with the ability to and intention of buying something. However, I can think of three memorable instances in which despite the fact that I was obviously not a client for anything worth the time of a salesperson making a living on commission, I was nonetheless welcomed with cordiality and enthusiasm. Here are three instances in which I was treated like a king at a luxury boutique by three different companies: Tiffany, Piaget, and Hermès (and in the last case, I was actually shopping for something, albeit probably the cheapest thing in the story).