By Chris Bucholtz 

I admit to having a goofy hobby. I build model airplanes. Yes, the plastic thingies that most people stop building at around age 12. I just never quit. The International Plastic Modelers Society actually stuck a page up on me in their “members profiles” section, officially making me a nerd.

It’s a totally discretionary kind of hobby: you don’t need to buy this stuff, like you do groceries or gas. That makes customer service a critical thing for hobby shops, which are quickly becoming artifacts of the past. A lot of people say it’s because of the Internet, but I think the true reason is a precipitous decline in the quality of customer service. 

Take two near my house. There’s the big one I used to go to every week. It was cluttered and dusty, but it had 18 big shelves full of kits. It also had a manager who would thoroughly brief parents on how to help kids learn the hobby. I recall him refusing to let customers leave before he explained how to clean and care for their first airbrushes. He also had an encyclopedic knowledge of not just what was in the store but what had been manufactured in the past 40 years. By himself, he converted dozens of customers who were there just to look around into repeat buyers. 

That place is still cluttered and dusty, still, but now the manager’s gone – chased off because his salary was too high. For some not-so-weird reason, their model sales dropped off at about the same time. They’re down to eight shelves of kits, their selection of other things (like paint) isn’t ordered often, and the minimum-wage youngsters not only don’t know what they’re selling but they don’t recognize their long-term customers. 

Now, about 20 miles from there is a new hobby shop, called Yanni’s Hobbies. It’s cluttered, too, but there’s a difference. When you walk in, Yanni not only knows you, but he knows what you’d probably like to buy based on his knowledge of what you’ve bought in the past. “Chris! Chris! Chris! Look! Have you seen the new Airfix Nimrod?” he’ll say, practically running over with the box outstretched in front of him. He holds building parties on the weekends, orders things specifically for his faithful customers, knocks a bit off the price for members of local model clubs and clearly loves talking about what he’s selling.  

Now, imagine these stores sell whatever you buy for your hobby or amusement. Which one would you feel better about spending your discretionary income in? Which creates a better experience for the customer? And which stands a better chance in a downturn, when customers hold on to discretionary income a little tighter? 

Yanni has no CRM system in the store except for the one in his head, but his approach embodies something consultant Ken Thoresen and I reached an agreement about in a recent call; CRM is not a technology, but a discipline that technology can help with. (Ken will be the presenter in our webinar on April 10, about driving CRM’s impact from sales through the rest of your organization, by the way.) If you don’t turn your viewpoint around to put the emphasis on the customer, no technology will help you. Further, I’d say that no customer is going to be excited about buying from you if you’re not excited about building a relationship with the customer.  

 I don’t think this trend is limited to my oddball little hobby. I can imagine dichotomies like this taking place in everything from sporting goods sales to art supplies to quilting boutiques. If you can give me an example, I’d love to hear it.