HoP Idol II:n Musings of a Game Store Patron

 Last up in this week's challenge is yet another take on Lo's "Musings..." posts.  Looks like that one was a popular option.  This one comes from The_King_Elessar of "Mind War FTW."

Musings Of A Game Store Patron - Totally Not At All Like When Dethtron Did An Article With This Name

TKE here again, with a bit of a spin on the lovely Loquacious' usual lowdown of life ...something else beginning with 'L'.  Luckily, this article ties in quite neatly with hers this week, which will either work in my favour, or look like a cheap attempt to cash in and grab votes.  Either way, I'm going to write the article I want, just like I always do. :P  The fact that it kinda totally sounds vaguely similar to one 8 months ago on this very site doesn't matter - especially when I am taking a different direction.

I haven't been in as many game stores as a good number of you, though unlike most I have made the trip to the Mecca of GW's *ahem* 'Hobby' and pilgrimmaged (that's a verb, right?!) to Warhammer World, so that cancels it out?  I haven't been to a humongous number of places, simply because I live in a small country with a population of under 3 million (being within the larger confines of the UK is pretty irrelevant when separated by a mass of water) and the number of LGSes that have been open nearby in my lifetime is relatively limited.

That said, I've been in a few, and I know what I do, and do not, like from them.

The most important, and perhaps the hardest thing to get right, is the atmosphere.

When I walk in the door, I want to feel somewhat welcomed - I want to feel comfortable, and I want to feel like they want my custom.

No, more than that.  I want to feel like they want my PRESENCE.

I've been in stores where it doesn't feel like the owner is particularly bothered whether I come in or not - and that's no way to run their business.  I don't want false sincerity and buddy-buddy 'let's be new best friends' - but I DO want to feel like the person behind the counter is interested to know what I play, and are interested in the prospect of me playing whatever-that-may-be in their premises.

Is there a simple and easy formula I have to follow to make sure everyone can get this to be the experience they give in their won stores? Of course not.  It's even easier than that - be friendly, be personable, show at least a passing familiarity with the game system(s) involved, and Don't Be A Dick.

Probably the worst thing to do is fail to greet a customer.  GW staff get a lot of derision for the way in which they approach people entering the store from veteran gamers, but the reality is that building a rapport with the limited number of people in our hobby is a great way to make them feel relaxed and spend more money.  The trick to this is not to be pushy, merely welcoming.  That said, stony silence is probably better than being greeted with a frosty reception - I've walked into a store, for instance, where there was a M:TG draft tournament going on at the time, and the overriding feeling was that I had intruded, simply as I wasn't 'one of them'.  

Technically, that's inaccurate anyway, as I am a lapsed TCGer, if anything - once you've been bitten by that bug, the knowledge and mindset never goes away - and the fact that I don't play M:TG presently doesn't actually mean that I don't fall under the same sort of general bracket as the players who do  -we're all varying kinds of nerd, but surely we ought to stick together rather than polarise ourselves against similar but distinct interests?

I know that's a topic I covered already in my last article, and I'm loathe to look a single-issue Blogger here, but it's certainly the case that alienating part of your prospective customer base is a bad idea.  Anyone who noted all the invective levelled at Battlefront Games over the last couple of weeks surely noted the drama and nerdraging that went on over what probably seemed to them quite a small issue.

In turning away what they claim to be under 10% of their players, they made a very clear statement that they think they are more important than the people who (essentially) pay their wages by purchasing their products - and this is the kind of thing that a Bad Store Owner does too.  Store owners that get too involved into a game, or allow cliques to run rampant amongst their players - ESPECIALLY those that tend to focus on a particular game to the exclusion of others - are doing the same thing on a smaller scale, and these are the kinds of places that lose their most vital commodity: customers.

I haven't been back to the aforementioned store, and in fact only went there from pseudo-desperation in the first place, as the graduation to an unfriendly place didn't happen overnight but was an ongoing process for some time, and caused my departure initially.  Conversely, I miss going to a store I never visit anymore as nobody plays 40k there (admittedly, my own desire to play is almost at an all-time low) because the atmosphere was good and the banter excellent.

In short - if you make me feel you like me being there, I'll go - if you don't, then I'm not giving you my repeated custom...and I warn you, that can be quite a sizeable loss in an industry where loyalty = survival.  As the picture says, be better.