Are your human employees registered?

That's grossly unfair - and wrong. What you say is certanly doable, but it's not the best way of providing help to customers in a store. Staff in the store in *much* better. I know that for certain from when I used to stand in my store a *lot*. The number of queries for help was hugely more than the number I get when I'm not in the store. I.e. when customers have questions they'll ask a staff member if they see one, otherwise they usually don't ask at all.

This has been my experince too Tegg, and I also tipped them because I was impressed and happy with the service.

I don't hang around in my stores for long but thinking about it, when I have been in my store and customers have been there, I have been asked questions that I doubt they would have im'd me about.

I think I can answer all those questions in one Being high in the rankings earns a lot more money, from a lot more sales, than would otherwise be earned. It really is financially rewarding to be high in the rankings in any of the search tabs.

Only LL knows what the "pressing reason" is. The rest of us assume that they want to keep the numbers up. From the users' point of view, there really is no good reason to keep on with the traffic rankings. People do want the traffic figures, but not the traffic rankings.

What you've come across is irrelevant. What Ciaran said it correct.

That may be how it is in general but it's not how it was in my case recently. It wasn't Harry who handled my first appeal - it wasn't him who merely rubber-stamped the original decision without giving it a second thought. But is *was* him who dealt with my second appeal, and gave me the ok for my models.

Let me add another good reason for Owners/employees to be active and on the premises.

When I ran my animation business I often built new furniture on the roof. I could hear customers talking to each other commenting on what they liked or did not like, asking each other questions etc. I often popped down and answered questions on the spot. Often they followed me back to the roof to see what my new project was. Many MANY times they came back and bought that new project. The feedback I got from those customers was priceless in the improvement of my business.

You've just reminded me of an incident where I was in a store and a business partner and I were wondering whether to purchase a bot that automatically invites people to the land group when they pay the rental box, my business partner was asking me questions and I was saying she'd have to ask the store owner, he was upstairs and heard us, came down, discussed it all with us in a fashion that was far easier than sending notecards and im's and sold the product to us.

Fair's fair .

---

And there's also a rather big difference between the creator and a random person who's there trying to get a tip out of you.

If I have a question I'll ask it to the person who matters which is the actual creator. If they can't take the time to answer a pre-sale question then they're not likely to bother with post-sale problems either which isn't generally anything an "assistant" can handle.

There usually is such a difference but that's no the point. As Ciaran and Tegg mentioned, many sales staff are very good at what they do, and it's so much better to have them on hand than having a remote system. Even if they can't answer absolutely everything, it's still much better that a real person will either get the answer for you or put the owner in touch with you. It's so much more personal.

Not the store owner then? Perhaps you like to have special treatment, but we are talking about customers in general.

It's an issue of richness Kitty, the holy grail for business is high richness, high reach, SL is good in terms of reach because we can TP everywhere, but richness isn't so strong.

That is the point because this is solely about *staff* so you dragging yourself standing in your own store answering questions missed the point. You're not "staff", you're the "owner". Big difference.

Yet everyone seems short on practical examples.

Modelling clothing simply doesn't count because it's merely an excuse to not make the effort to have actual demos available and about the only other thing I can think of otherwise are "laziness" questions ("Were are the shoes?" "Right near the sign that says 'Shoes'" or "pointing out the obvious" ("Does it come in blue?" "No, just the black and red like it says on the wall" or "Does it have more than one animation?" "Yes, that's why it says 'multiple poses' on the vendor" which just isn't helpful.

In the majority of cases the content creator and store owner are one and the same person .

There are items that only a demo will work.........skins, shapes, hair, animations, prim outfits and, in some cases such as sculpty shoes, shoes. Most other stuff obtaining a demo is more a nuisance than anything else. I'd rather have a question or two answered on the spot than a demo. Things like does the price include a hud? Or where would I find an AO to go with this set of fairy wings? Sure you can IM or notecard the owner and wait for that answer..........but I never wait around for more than a few minutes for an answer before I'm gone to some other place. I don't think I'm the only one..........in fact most people I know are just like me.

Nothing like a real person to talk to.........if for no other reason than the owner's attempt at personal service. Plus I never tipped an assistant for anything.........I'll tip hosts and hostesses, DJ, live entertainers, dancers but not a model or store assistant. I figure they are being compensated by the owner. It's not a get rich job afterall.

I've tipped assistants but I think it's because I was so surprised and impressed that a store actually had a real assistant.

Slightly off-topic, for Phil etc.: Do you guys find you sell more when you're on the shop floor? In my experience at my animation shop, lots of people like to be left alone when they shop. But some do ask questions. I enjoy chatting up customers, but I'm not sure most of them want to be chatted up!

Conversely, when I'm a shopper, I usually want to look for stuff on my own -- both in RL and in SL. I hate when the salesman zeroes in on me at Nordstrom's! But maybe that's just me.

I HATE if the owner is in store when I shop!! I feel bad if I tp without buying, so I tend to tp without looking instead if the owner shows on my radar!

Thats mean, I know that

I didnt hang around IN the store. I just used ot build on the roof. SO I guess it was a bit less threatening to those who preferred to shop without being bothered.

I like to have a model up when I release something new because it can give people an idea what something will actually look like in world. I'm not lazy but I my time is limited. I used to make demos of everything...I think I gave out like 2 demos in 3 months. Definitely not worth the time to make/upload/package them.

I went ahead and cut out a parcel to put the pose stand on, next time I won't have to worry about it when my friend's alt models for me

1. "It really is financially rewarding to be high in the rankings in any of the search tabs."
2. "People do want the traffic figures, but not the traffic rankings."

Which "people" do not want the traffic rankings? When was this comprehensive survey done?

From the fairly obvious (1), it could be that the only people who do not want traffic rankings would be those on a low ranking relative to their competitors.



Traffic rankings that are largely ungamed would be a very useful indicator of where avatars choose to spend their time.

They would be, but the "ungamed" part pretty much isn't going to happen. Ever. LL may enforce it now and then, but there are still plenty of bots around, some roving from store to store like "shoppers".

We predicted this originally. Just like microparcel extortion, it will take them two years to fiddle-fart around the policy bush, and the problem never will really be solved to any great degree.

If you have something which people can game, they will, especially when it means MONEY.

Well I for one was asserting that traffic is no guarantee of quality precisely because:


Do those questions presuppose that a large body of people are intentionally looking for crap?

As far as I'm concerned, a bunch of campers or bots on a sim is nobody's idea of action so inflated traffic figures can easily give the wrong impression of quality for high-rated sims in the search results. And, even in a camper/bot-free zone, it is very easy to be disappointed and to feel duped by the pointlessness of the experience because:


Most of the scenarios you listed here are sadly true and very relevant despite your dismissal of them because they are the subject of ongoing whinges about the pointlessness of the SL experience in-world, on these forums and in the media at large. Oftentimes half the folk present will be standing around wondering what they are doing there or where else they can go or they are simply frozen by lag. So when you say that:


I have to insist that, for many residents and newbies especially, questions like "Where is everybody? Where's the action?" are aimed at establishing the popularity of a sim as an immediate indicator of a quality in-world experience. And this is where they are let down by the 'Search' feature and consistently let themselves down by continuing to rely on it in its current form.

An alternative method of handling search exclusively by keywords would work much better because that requires discrimination and thought on the part of parcel owners in order to promote an accurate impression of their content. Repetitive dross based on buzzwords as opposed to keywords would soon sink to the bottom of the listings.

As it stands, the traffic/popularity/quality yardstick is a damning indicator in SL and, with all due respect, I'll stick by what I said.

If 'traffic scores' were done away with that would be fine by me. And it isn't sour grapes since in my category I do pretty well. Then again I'm not in a profit based business, more a public service.

My worry would be something equally pointless would replace it, such as customer votes. Obviously that could be gamed to the point it would make traffic scores look like Sunday brunch to its Las Vegas all you can eat buffet. (Not to mention grudge/lowballed scores.)

If only there were some way that small places and small businesses could attract customers without paying through the nose for it in some way or other.

And if only this hard nosed approach would cease toward the general user base. And the paranoia. Do I care if places hire models? Not a fig. Especially for gowns or skins or shapes. One needs to see them in 3D or see how they move.

As for making employees stand on some perch in separate tiny parcels, could that BE more ridiculous? Again, how about places which need security forces which are better off incognito? Standing them on a dunce stool, you might as well put a big red arrow atop their heads.

Kitty. You can argue as much as you like, but it is much better to have staff on hand to assist customers than to have only a remote system. You don't agree and that's ok, but it's so obvious that it's not worth discussing.

I've never tried to quantify it, but I have noticed what appears to be a corelation between days when when I spend a lot of time in the store, and higher sales. It may have just been coincidences but it did come to mind a number of times due to the levels of sales for the various days.

What I don't do it hang around customers, even after they've paged me to answer questions. I don't want them to feel that I'm looking over their shoulder, so I tell them to click a pager again if they need any more help. I think people mostly preferstaff not to hover.

When I'm in the store, my 'spot' is near the arrival spot and sometimes I welcome people as they arrive. I don't do it much but sometimes I do. In those brief conversations, I tell them click a green pillar (the pagers) if they need any assistance. Also, quite a lot of people have a question as soon as they arrive - "Do you do such-and-such an item?" (e.g. kitchens). They are TPing round places, looking for particular things, which is very common. It's so much better for them to have someone there to answer those questions as soon as they arrive, especailly in larger stores where the answer isn't in plain sight. Not only can the 'staff' say yes or no, and save the customer time, but, if the answer is yes, they can tell or show the customer exactly where it is. Many times, I've had customers follow me to the items they are looking for but haven't found so far. Sometimes they think it's not there at all, but they ask anyway.

Those questions on arrival are one *very* good reason why live staff is better than any alternative. Live staff is so good in many stores, and for various reasons.

People in general who have expressed an opinion in public (in this forum and the blogs, for instance, including in this thread). I only know of one person who said that he wants the traffic rankings to stay. All other opinions that I've seen everywhere are to get rid of traffic rankings altogether.