The Portuguese art of losing a sale
First things first: to all my Portuguese friends, this article was written out of love for the amazing country I’ve been calling home for the past 3 years, and the wonderful people I’ve met. Please do recognize my good intentions; I’m pointing out something that in my belief should be improved.
This might represent more sales!
A couple weeks ago, my wife and I were coming back to Lisbon from a weekend away, and at 2:30 pm we pulled the car in a beautiful and touristic small town. It was a sunny Sunday and we wanted to have lunch — quite late for the Portuguese schedule, I know…
One hour before, we had tried to call the best recommended places on TripAdvisor, but none of them answered. I thought they might have been busy and continued to drive towards the restaurants’ area.
The first restaurant followed a well-conquered medieval aesthetic (pun intended). We could easily point the free-empty tables out of the on-purpose empty tables — due to the social distance restrictions imposed by the Government.
My wife happily commented how lucky we were to have found this place; the dishes coming to the tables looked extremely delicious, and the customers were delighted.
However, we were ignored by 2 waiters. Eventually, the manager came to greet us and kindly explained that they were not serving any new client; “the restaurant is about to close, we’re not able to serve anyone else”.
I felt sorry; we were really excited, but nevertheless she, in a very positive tone, said “Sure; we’ll find another place”, even though the restaurant’s page on Google mentioned that it closed at 3:30 pm — yes, in 45 minutes.
Around the corner, another semi-empty place. Food coming at a very high pace from the kitchen, but another “no, we’re about to close” excuse. I started to doubt we could ever find a restaurant and my stomach was already aching.
We walked fast as it was almost 3 pm, and found a tiny central street.
Tourists calmly eating outside and enjoying the last sunbeams of summer; the manager approached us not so friendly as it would have been expected.
“Hi! How are you? Could we still have a table? We’ve tried 2 other places without luck, and are starving.”
“All I can serve you is veal; if you want, I’ll set a table.”
“Please do; thank you!” — I said as we were left outside.
5 minutes went by and the lady was still serving 4–5 tables, going in and out of the restaurant, not even looking at us. Another 10 minutes passed, no table, no sign of an intention to set a table for us; we left.
“Hurry up! It’s 3pm!” — we continued to walk really fast and found a row of 4 restaurants. One of the waitresses anticipated our move and said they’re no longer serving; frustrated I started to consider having a feast at the closest McDonalds…
Guess what? At the next restaurant, we received another no.
Under a really hot sun, I regretted that happy thought of visiting a new small and beautiful little town to have lunch.
As a last shot, “this one looks more expensive and we’re wearing flip-flops; not sure if they’d ever accept us in”, I told her. Surprisingly, they did.
The owner gently invited us to take a seat and we had a delicious lunch: for me, a sirloin steak in red pepper sauce, for my wife a really tasty salmon topped with herbs and crispy onions.
I started to pay more attention to customer relations ever since that day.
The week after, I tried to book a couple’s massage at a local Lisbon spa. After having no success trying to call during the working hours, we exchanged a couple messages via WhatsApp. Here’s the transcript:
Me: “Hi! I was about to buy a massage on your website, but before I was wondering if you have any available slots for the end of the day tomorrow?”
Spa staff: “No, we’re full.” — period, end of the story.
What about suggesting a new date like any decent sales-person would? No. Nothing.
During that week, I’ve also called a very well-known university at least 3 times. I wanted to check executive formation courses’ structure and prices, but “the responsible for the information” was never able to pick up. I took the liberty of insisting for them to take my number or email to reach back to me, but they never did. I now assume they don’t want any new students.
This saga of trying to buy stuff and not being answered or at least well treated continues on and on. Even when it comes to finding a coworking space! A simple B2B relation. There are plenty of empty desks due to the big C, but the sales team didn’t have any interest in calling us back at my startup when we tried to negotiate their proposal 2 months ago. Funny fact: they have no idea that now we have more budget and want to double the size of our office.
I think this is rather odd. The world is in a very delicate economic situation; several people have been laid off across the globe, almost everybody was stuck at home for 2 months, most businesses lost a lot of revenue, and Portugal might even close the year in a 14% recession. However, people don’t want to make sales — that would obviously increase their businesses’ chances of surviving these uncertain times.
Sometimes I feel that people act as if they are making me a favor. Even when I ask for a proposal, a price or simply try to have any kind of commercial relation. By the way, I’m not only talking about small businesses; I’ve given a few personal examples but I hear these stories every now and then from people who attempted to start deals with all sorts and sizes of businesses.
After some years living here, I guess there is a lot to do regarding customer service and sales. Obviously, Portuguese people are very sympathetic, kind, and welcoming in general, but they’re not the masters at selling. Actually, some are losing money because they ignore their potential clients, or really mistreat current clients who automatically churn from whatever is their service. The issue here is that they blame everything but their current sales process (or lack of it). It can be the weather, the crisis, the summer, the winter, a rush, but never the process.
This could open a cool discussion about how employees are treated. I’ve grown to find that more important than the relations we establish with clients themselves is the relation with the employees and/or colleagues. Indeed a strong team can handle whatever is thrown at them.
Does this happen due to lower salaries? To the feeling that their work is not well appreciated? I guess this is not a cultural thing — or is it?
