The Customer Is King, Just Don't Ask Him for Anything.

There are some things in life one assumes will remain reassuringly uncomplicated. A cup of tea. A white shirt. A pair of socks. I recently discovered that the last of these is a dangerous assumption to make in contemporary Indian retail.

All I wanted was a pair of dark brown socks. Not an exotic request. I wasn't looking for cashmere socks hand-knitted by Benedictine monks in Tuscany. I wasn't even asking for a particularly fashionable sock. I wanted something as boring as socks can possibly be: plain, formal, pure cotton, dark brown and free size. No stripes, no patterns, no ankle length and preferably no Disney character smiling back at the onlooker from a pair of formal trousers.

Even the word "cotton" required clarification. "Cotton-rich", I was told at one point, which is one of those wonderfully elastic expressions of modern retail. It sounds wholesome until you discover that the product contains enough polyester to qualify for a family reunion with synthetic fibres.

The search, however, proved surprisingly difficult. The familiar brands did not have what I wanted. Online marketplaces produced an impressive assortment of everything except the precise thing I was looking for. And the physical stores were no better. Brown existed, certainly, but apparently in the same way that truth exists in politics: in several interpretations.

There was brown that looked black, black that looked brown and beige that was being sold with the confidence of a government spokesperson as dark brown. At one point a young salesman presented me with a distinctly beige pair and insisted it was dark brown.

He was so convinced that I began to wonder whether I had developed a problem with colour perception or whether Indian retail had quietly rewritten the spectrum.

The socks, though, were not the real story.

The more interesting discovery was the attitude that accompanied the search.

Not having a product is understandable. No retailer can stock everything. What is less understandable is the increasingly casual attitude towards the person asking for it. There was little attempt to find an alternative, check another store, suggest another brand or even appear mildly interested in solving the problem. The conversation seemed to end at "not available", as though those two words were not an inventory update but a customer-service philosophy.

At another shoe and sock outlet, a young salesman was so deeply engaged with the cup of tea he was nursing that I felt almost guilty interrupting it. He eventually confirmed that neither the shoe nor the socks I was looking for was available in his brand. Then, in an unexpected display of competitive spirit, he recommended that I try the rival brand.

I admired the honesty. I admired it even more because it was probably the most useful piece of customer service I received that day. But it also left me wondering what has happened to the old retail instinct of wanting to help a customer, even when the answer is no.

Once upon a time, a salesman who did not have what you wanted would make some effort to find it. He might call another branch, ask a colleague, suggest a similar product or tell you when the next shipment was expected. There was a simple understanding that the person standing in front of him had made the effort to enter the store and therefore deserved some attention.

Today, the customer often seems to be competing for attention with the salesperson's mobile phone.

This is where the Gen Z question inevitably raises its head, although I am not entirely convinced that Gen Z should be made the villain of this particular drama. It is tempting to blame a generation that has grown up with Instagram, reels and an attention span apparently measured in swipe intervals. Yet older generations have produced their fair share of indifferent salesmen too. The difference today is perhaps not the age of the employee but the culture surrounding the job.

What exactly are retail employees being trained to do?

Are they being taught to sell products or simply process transactions? Are they rewarded for solving customer problems or merely for hitting sales targets? Do they understand the brand they represent, or have they been handed a uniform, a barcode scanner and a monthly number to chase?Because there is a world of difference between "We don't have it" and "We don't have it, but let me see what I can do."

The first is inventory management. The second is customer service. And the second is becoming surprisingly rare. This is particularly bizarre because physical retail is now fighting for its life against something extraordinarily efficient: the internet. Online, I can search for dark brown socks at midnight, compare twenty brands, read reviews, check prices and order without having to make conversation with anybody. The algorithm may not love me, but it certainly does not make me feel that I am wasting its time.

So why do I still walk into a store?

Because I expect something the algorithm cannot provide. I expect a human being to understand what I am asking for, perhaps recommend something better, save me time and make the process pleasant. That should be the great advantage of physical retail.

Instead, too many stores seem to have invested heavily in everything except the human experience.

They have beautiful interiors, sophisticated branding, mood lighting, carefully curated music and armies of social media managers producing reels about how much they value the customer. The brand can spend lakhs making sure I see its latest campaign on Instagram, and then I walk into its store and discover that the person behind the counter cannot be bothered to look up from his phone.

The reel gets more attention than the real. There is something almost comic about it. The same problem appeared at another popular watch retailer, a brand so familiar that an entire television series has been built around its world. I was looking for a leather strap. The salesperson did not come out from behind the counter. Leather straps, I was told, were out. The brand was not particularly interested in stocking them anymore. That was apparently the end of the matter.

Perhaps leather straps really are out. Fashion changes. Product categories disappear. Brands change strategy. But surely a customer walking into a watch store and asking for a leather strap is not a particularly radical event. Surely the response could have been, "We don't stock them anymore, but let me show you what we have," or even, "Try this other option."
Instead, the interaction had the unmistakable flavour of a department issuing a policy circular.

And that is perhaps the larger problem. Customer service in India has become oddly transactional at precisely the moment when customers have become more discerning.

The customer is better informed now. He has compared prices before entering the store. He has read reviews. He knows what competitors are offering. He knows whether the product is available online and, quite often, knows more about its specifications than the salesperson does. He is not captive anymore.

Yet many retailers continue to behave as though he is.

Perhaps this explains why the quality of service can change dramatically according to the size of the bill. Walk in looking for an expensive watch, a luxury handbag or a premium appliance and suddenly the customer becomes royalty. There is a chair, a smile, a glass of water and an impressive demonstration of product knowledge. 

Mention a modest purchase and the atmosphere can change rather quickly.

The old phrase was that the customer is king.

Today, it seems the customer is king provided he arrives carrying a sufficiently large invoice.

But that is not how loyalty works. The person buying a pair of socks today may buy a suit tomorrow. The person browsing without buying may return six months later. The customer who spends ₹1,000 may influence five other customers. And even if none of those things happens, there remains the rather old-fashioned principle that a customer deserves to be treated well simply because he is a customer.

Perhaps, therefore, this isn't a Gen Z problem at all. Perhaps it is an attitude problem created by an industry that has become very good at talking about customer centricity and rather less good at practising it.

Perhaps young salespeople are not apathetic by nature. Perhaps they have never been taught that retail is a service business. Perhaps their managers are more interested in targets than behaviour. Perhaps low margins, low incentives and long working hours have stripped away whatever enthusiasm the job once demanded. Perhaps the customer, after years of being told that everything is available instantly online, has simply become one more interruption in a system designed around speed rather than service.

Whatever the reason, the outcome is the same.

The customer walks in. The brand has spent millions getting him there. He asks for something perfectly reasonable. And instead of feeling that someone is pleased to have his business, he gets the distinct impression that he has arrived at an inconvenient time.
That is a dangerous place for retail to be.

Because I may eventually find the dark brown socks. I may even find a pair that is genuinely dark brown, genuinely cotton and blessedly free of Mickey Mouse. But by then, I may also have discovered something considerably more useful: another brand.

And unlike the salesman, the website will be delighted to see me. The customer may still be king. He has simply discovered that kingdoms are no longer hereditary.