My most recent Teavana experience
I just had to share this. I feel like a heavyweight champ.
There are two Teavana stores in cities about an hour and a half away. When I go, I am usually the only customer, or one of just a few. This means the usual relentless spiel and not being left in peace to look at the goodies.
This time, I embraced it. I started chatting with the fellow. I told him I had 95 teas at home. He asked what my favorites were, I guess expecting me to name some grocery store stuff, and when I named a few of my faves he seemed surprised. He said it was such a pleasure to meet someone who actually enjoyed good tea. Doesn’t everyone who shops there enjoy good tea? :). But the part that did me good was that as we talked about tea, I told him about the teas I had sampled from Teavivre and based on his likes, recommended their Yun Nan Dian Hong. He got excited and pulled out a tiny notebook and wrote down the website and the name of the tea.
As I left there, I suddenly realized….DUDE! I just sold tea to a Teavana ninja! I must admit I felt like flexing my biceps or something for the rest of the day. LOL! The tables have turned…it was a legendary tea day…
Wow, that’s amazing! I’d love to see the look on his face when he sees how different the prices are too.
Awesome! And it just goes to show you how much a tea company can gain by offering free samples. Not only has Teavivre scored a bunch of customers from the people they sent out samples to, but they just got another from word of mouth!
Very cool! Score!
Asking them questions seems to help me. For inevitably, I learn something from them, and I usually end up teaching them something (at least I hope I do).
Like it or not, this is actually a point for Teavana, too, as it demonstrates (at least in my judgement) that some of their employees are open to suggestions and/or ideas (I have run into at least one Teavana employee like this myself).
Wow, seems you were on fire! I love teaching the Teavana folks a thing or two. Did you know some of them didn’t even know Steepster existed? Then again maybe that’s a good thing….
My favorite thing to do is to ask them if they sell gaiwans or guywans. They usually give me a weird look and then point to a metal infuser. I had one employee notice that I was not surprised by her not knowing what it was. She then asked "Is that bad I don’t know what that is?’ I then explained what it was and what it looked like and how it is used. She thanked me and said that she wanted to get one for herself.
I have been to 4 different stores and I have never found a person that knew what it was…..
True..but I think that if you work in tea shop you should know about tea and the vessels used to serve it.
Its like working in a coffee shop and not know what a french press is. I have worked at 4 different coffee shops Starbucks, Dunn bros. and two independent shops and it is one of the first things I learned even though we only used it for tastings.
After reading a lot of the topics about Teavana I have noticed that people go into the store and say that they don’t want to be bothered and that they know what they want. I love to go in and let them talk to me about the tea and their knowledge about it. I do love talking to people about tea in general so I am not trying to stomp them, just like to talk. There have been times when they tell me that they have the “best” and that they “know” tea. There have even been times when they almost quiz me on my knowledge of tea and that I “need” a cast iron tea pot to get the most out of the tea.
Unlike many people on Steepster I do have good experiences with Teavana, just now I only go to pick up more 3oz tea cups or dragon pearl balls.
I do see your point though…..:)
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