In a message dated 6/30/2006 4:29:47 PM US Mountain Standard Time, 
craigwhite@azapple.com writes:

>Most of the people that sell
>cars don't know where the oil level stick is.

Okay, given, but as I see it, there are better and worse ways to handle not 
knowing something.

Good ways to handle it:

-Ask someone who's more competent.
-Refer customer to manual, specs as quoted on box, or web site with accurate 
info.
-Admit they don't know.
-Research it with the customer, so you'll have the answer for next time.

Bad ways to handle it:

-Make up something.  This includes 'educated guesses' which may not be close 
to accurate.
-Tell customer what you assume he wants to hear, wether it's true or not.
-Evade the issue.

It makes me cringe that clerks tend to favour the latter list.

It doesn't hurt to know your audience (the person shopping for components, 
will, in many cases, have more technically detailed questions than the person 
shopping for a complete system) and a little about your wares (I recall the car 
salesman who believed Hyundai was a Japanese make).  If you stumble on 
something easily researchable or obvious, it can often cost you credibility on any 
more difficult questions.

If shops like Fry's hadn't developed a reputation of no-clue staff, it 
wouldn't be so tempting to poke fun of them though.  If you prefer, I'll poke fun of 
the guy at a local shop who "straightened" a pin clean off a processor, or 
the one who managed to select heatsinks ranging from moderately bad (only rated 
to cool a chip 200MHz slower) to comically absurd (designed for completely 
different processors than the ones being sold with it)
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