Navigating the Sensorial Assault Of Sales Tactics In India
There’s a target on your back the moment you enter the store.
Introduction
I just got back from the gas station, or as we like to call it here, the petrol bunk. I had gone to fill up the car for a short city commute which my family would be taking later in the evening. And considering the nightmarish traffic and commute times to basically anywhere during any time of the day, it is considered pragmatic to fuel up whenever one isn’t in a hurry or has a time bound reason to be somewhere. Barring early morning and late night queues from office going professionals who don’t have the time to fuel up during any other time of the day, the scene at the petrol bunk is relatively placid and stress free during the afternoons. And hence, we usually make the very best of it.
In fact, I didn’t even have to wait behind any other car or queue up for minutes together as no one else was fuelling up and I was the only one there.
No sooner had I entered my fuelling bay and turned off the ignition, did a barrage of questions get hurled towards me like a jungle tribe shooting a hail of arrows to hunt down an enemy in the forest.
The first request was for opening up the cars bonnet to conduct a quick check on engine oil levels and probably some other stuff that needs to be routinely checked out. This request came not from the designated fuel agent for the bay I was parked at, but another agent who was assigned that particular job. I didn’t even bother asking what the rest of the checks would be since I was in a hurry to get back home and continue with my work.
The second request was made by my fuelling agent herself where, after asking me how much to fill up for and inserting the nozzle into the cars fuel filler, proceeded to try to sell me on car tissue and air freshener.
The third request came from the engine check up guy again — as if they were in an imaginary game to alternate shooting their cross-selling shots at prospective customers between agents — asking whether I’d like to have my front glass cleaned and wiped down thoroughly.
As expected, the fourth request alternated back to my fuelling agent where, while the car was still fuelling up, proceeded to try selling me wiper cleaning fluid which, as per her, would keep my glass stain free during the monsoons.
I politely declined all of these requests with just a head nod, barely even acknowledging their questions.
During the entire ordeal, I struggled to keep my focus on the numbers running on the fuel meter, and whether it was fuelling up to the level I’d requested for. However, since it was a brand name petrol bunk, the agent pro-actively notified me that the meter was set at 0 and only then began pumping. It is a well known fact in India that petrol bunk agents attempt to scam motorists by starting the meter at some other preset number in order to make a quick buck from the difference. Diversion tactics are pretty common at local brand pumps and so Indian motorists are habituated to constantly keeping their eye on the meter as the fuel is being pumped in regardless of the brand of petrol bunk they’re at.
With a barrage of questions to follow the moment one enters a fuelling station, the process of filling up fuel is anything but smooth and hassle-free in India.
I’m not new to this. But the fact that I hadn’t fuelled up the family car in a long time made it seem all new and novel to me. In fact, this is what exactly constitutes customer service in India, where service/sales agents are supposed to keep pestering and haggling customers to purchase the company’s products.
Here are a few more such sales tactics that are an assault on the senses whenever one heads out to purchase something in India:
Promotions, offers, and discounts
Cross-selling harassment begins the moment you purchase any high value item in India. It’s not uncommon for automobile service executives to constantly call and harass customers to get their vehicles for service or install some new paraphernalia inside. I’ve had to block car agents from the showroom we purchased our car from from repeatedly calling and pestering me about upcoming car service dates, but they continue haggling me to this very day using number changing software even years after we sold our first car.
In India, we’re approached by sales agents even whilst grocery shopping, throwing a spanner in the works of what would have otherwise been an undisturbed solitudinous affair. I’ve been badgered by an assortment of salespeople at various grocery shops all trying to get me to buy a product that currently has promotional offer going on or has discounts on bulk purchases.
Walk into a cookie shop. They instantly start talking to you about their offers and pestering you to buy an additional packet of cookies for a discount.
Go to a Cafe with a date over the weekend, and you are instantly suggested to add snacks to your order in order to get a discount on the total bill.
Stroll into an Donut outlet. There’s some kind of offer going on there too which the staff just can’t stop raving about as you’re contemplating which assortment of donuts to get.
Luckily, I’ve yet to experience any kind of cross-selling harassment at our local mithai (sweetmeat) shops, but I’m sure they too must have something going on during festivals and cultural occassions to lure people into purchasing more.
With so many sales agents constantly vying for the money in your wallet, the shopping experience in India is anything but smooth, relaxing, or therapeutic.
Payment method offers
Next comes payment method promotions and discounts.
Thanks to the advancement and widespread adoption of cashless mobile payment systems across the country, shoppers are even more encouraged to do cashless transactions all in pursuit of discounts on their final invoice.
Depending on a brand, the product it sells, and the value of the product, you might be coerced into using a certain payment method in order to secure a discount on the entire bill. Some shops have discounts running on certain brands of credit/debit cards, while others have discounts running on cashless payment apps. Even within cashless payment apps, there might be some offering better discounts than the others. So it really is a wide spectrum out there!
On multiple occassions I’ve been pestered to do a cashless payment through my cell phone in order to claim a discount on a product even after reminding the sales rep multiple times that I don’t have any kind of payment app installed on my phone. While most sales reps prompt you to make payment through mobile apps, some others pursuade you to pay with a certain brand of credit or debit card in order to claim an additional discount on the final bill. The offers vary from store to store, but the prompts to take them remain the same.
Gold/premium memberships and customer loyalty cards
After cross-selling, additional product, and payment method harassment, comes the persuasion to buy membership or customer loyalty cards of business establishments all in an endeavour to — you guessed it — get you to shop more and get discounts on subsequent purchases there using the reward points accrued.
Whether its trying to get you into a loyalty program of a coffee shop or a multi-brand parent company, where one gets to claim points whether they shop at a clothing boutique or a furniture store, there’s no end to the number of businesses trying to get you to get you into their customer loyalty program, all so that you end up spending a certain amount of money each month just to keep your membership.
Many of them even sell your valuable personal information so that you can be harassed by sales agents in other domains like the ones mentioned in this article.
Loans, credit cards, and insurance policies
This article would of course be incomplete without mentioning the number one source of customer harassment in India regardless of class or physical location. Telecallers! The moment you give out your contact details in India, whether at a car dealership, on a bank form, to an e-commerce website, on an insurance policy, on a housing loan application, at a restaurant, or even on a donation form, you are harassed with a barrage of calls from telemarketers trying to sell you credit cards, home loans, vehicle loans, vehicle service deals, and insurance policies during all times of the day.
Insurance agents constantly trying to get you to purchase their brand of insurance policy for your car or bike is a whole other story. The surge in calls begins as soon as your insurance expiry date starts inching closer, and you are literally bombarded with calls from insurance brokers one company after another, all trying to pursuade you to buy their brand over the others stating a unique set of coverage benefits.
Credit card agents, completely unaware that most of us aren’t even eligible for credit cards, nevertheless, make it a point to spam us all through out the day with calls about various offers from different banks they claim to be attached with, and how one can benefit from choosing their brand of credit card over the others. Credit/debit card sales agents are also notorious for hanging out at the entrance of shopping malls, haggling prospective customers into opening an account with their bank while rattling off all the benefits the user stands to gain by purchasing their bank’s card.
Conclusion
As an Indian resident or visitor, how many of these sales tactics have you personally come across? And how have you managed to tell all of them off? Do you have a specific set of counter arguments to use against sales agents whenever you encounter them? Do us all a favour and share those avoidance tactics with us too. Lastly, have you encountered a variety, type, and scale of sales harassment not mentioned in this article? Is there a type that you already encounter on a daily basis which I missed mentioning?
Do let me know in the comments bar to the side.
