Recently, on the way to an early meeting in the city, my colleague and I stopped off at a local car dealership so that he could collect his car which had just been serviced. This was about 8am.

While I waited for him, I went to get a coffee from the machine, and after waiting in line behind the queue of sales consultants also getting their first coffee of the day, I then hung around reading some material on the latest model while drinking my coffee. 15 minutes later my colleague came out and we left.

All very normal and pleasant, but what struck me was that not one of the sales consultants spoke to me, or even acknowledged me. I suspect their working day hadn’t started. Personally, I am not too fussed, I am not actively looking to buy a car. I am however starting to think about it, and had they engaged with me, it may very well have led to a sale, not then but in the near(ish) future.

Now I suspect that if they measured CX (and maybe they do), these consultants would get a great score, they are probably very good at their job. EX scores may however tell a different story. An engaged employee goes above and beyond for the organisation they work, they won’t strictly pick up and down tools by the clock. I suspect if these sales consultants were better engaged, then they would have taken note of my presence (and interest in reading their material) and at least asked me if they could help. If I owned the dealership, that is what I would want them to do.