Customer Service

I spent a day last week walking in and out of several competitor’s pawn shops. I went into a total of 6 stores. Of those 6 stores I counted about 30 employees.

I had one positive interaction with 1 employee of the 30 that were available to me. Very few people came out from behind the loan counter. When they did, they did not know the product I was interested in. 2 had to use google to tell me if a TV was 1080 or 720 dpi. I waited over 10 minutes on the one person to answer the question for me.

I think my point to this blog is that Pawn Mart has really concentrated on customer service since the beginning of 2010. I feel we have made huge strides in the right direction. After my experience last week I would bet that we have one of the best customer service oriented staff in this region’s pawn industry.

I found a great sense of relief and pride walking out of our competitors locations and into our stores and knowing that our customers are being greeted by friendly and knowledgable staff.

Random thoughts on not so random conversations

As I maneuver through my career in the pawn industry, I’ve noticed several trends. One trend being that the people who do not usually do business with pawn shops, whether it be buying retail or getting a loan, are usually the people who are the most interested in pawn shops.

This happened again last week. A business associate and I attended a seminar on how to hire quality sales associates. The seminar was really geared toward hiring outside sales people, but the presenters did a decent job of tailoring the content to meet the need of our desire to hire inside, retails sales associates.

Mark and I were wearing our Pawn Mart shirts with the logo on them and immediately the questions began.

“Who do you work for?”

“Really?”

“How are things for you in this economy?”

“Where are your stores located?”

“Hey, do you ever come across any edgers?”

And so on.

This happens all the time. Whether I’m at an AMA marketing lunch session, Chamber of Commerce after hours session, in a class room full of MBA candidates or just out and about through my normal course of life.

Then, after answering the initial round of questions I get:

“So most of your TVs are refurbished?”

“You sell warranties?”

“You carry Blue Rays?”

“So all your items are tested when they come in and when they go out?”

“Do you have a card on you?”

Basically, what this tells me is that as an industry, we have done a poor job of really letting the public know what the pawn industry is all about.

Inevitably, the conversation will also turn to stolen property, which I will cover in my next blog post. However, once I explain to the people asking the questions above about how we handle stolen property and how low the percentage of property that we take in is stolen then the conversation goes back to “You sold a Rolex watch for how much? Can you get me one?”

So how do we overcome this? Is social media part of the answer, is location another one. How about customer service and word of mouth, do all chains get lumped into the bucket of the pawn stigma, or can an individual chain stand alone based on how well they are ran? Does the idea of the ‘Loan Transaction” scare away retail customers?

I’m not sure about the answers to all the questions, what I am sure is that there are a lot of people out there who are curious about this industry and intrigued by the merchandise we carry at the prices we carry it at. Bit by bit, we are trying to piece the puzzle together.

Just to let you know . . . . . . .

The pawn industry is ever changing. Most people don’t realize that we, as pawnbrokers, must follow several federal and state regulations. For instance we have to adhere to 12 federal regulations including:

     • USA Patriot Act
    • Truth-in-Lending Act
    • Bank Secrecy Act 
    • Trading with the Enemy Act 
    • Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act

As well as state laws that require us to get a fingerprint from every customer that brings an item in for sale or for a loan and they type of forms we have to submit to them as well as wait periods so items can be researched by the police.

The last couple of years there has been a movement sweeping the pawnbroker community that has promoted the change of pawn shops from an old school, smoke filled, shady business to what we hope it is becoming today, a much more professionalized industry.

Our chain hires people we know can manage situations, not just a pawn shop. We feel that customer service is the most important aspect of running a business. Pawn Mart wants customers to feel comfortable walking into any of our locations to do business.

We have recently remodeled an existing location and plan to start on the remainder of our stores this year. By doing this we hope to accomplish several things. We hope that we can separate the loan and financial services areas from the Point of Sale area so we are giving our loan customers more privacy. We also hope the layout of our stores proves to serve a better retail experience. Brightly lit, well maintained, clean, open and inviting, that is what we are going for from this point forward.

 In the near future we plan to post a blog on how we secure items and how we participate in programs to ensure stolen items do not end up in pawnshops. If you have any questions or suggestions for topics please add a comment to our posts.

Who We Are & What We Offer

Pawn Mart is a locally owned and operated chain of pawn shops in central Indiana. We have been around for about 15 years now and hope to be around for a long time into the future.

 We offer a host of services to our customers. Those would include:

Retail Sales: We sell a lot of used and sometimes new or refurbished items. Everything from Home electronics, Jewelry, Car and Home Audio, Tools, Seasonal Items and most anything of value that can be resold.

We offer layaway on our items as well so that our customers can afford to spread the costs of big ticket items over a couple of months if needed. We also offer warranties on certain items and have product specialist in our stores for help with items you may not be familiar with.

Loans: We provide consumer loans on items our customers bring into the store. Items have to be in working condition, be of a value that allows us to make a respectable offer and be owned outright by the customer.

Loan terms are explained to you in the store. Your item(s) will be kept in a secure spot until you return to pick them up. We have wait times that we have to follow per state law. So an item that is pawned or sold cannot be re-sold or picked up by the owner for 7 business days. We do this so that we can participate in programs that track stolen property for the police.

Gold Buying: We buy gold. Whether it is broken or scrap gold or a nice piece of jewelry you simply don’t wear anymore. Bring it in and we will make you an offer. By the way, pawn shops normally offer a lot more than any website or TV based gold buying program.

Check Cashing: We provide check cashing through the MACC network which allows our customers to cash checks anywhere the MACC logo is found. Our rates are competitive, if not the lowest in town, and we provide a quick and easy service.

Money Transfers: We provide international and national money transfers through the MoneyGram system.

Other Services: We provide Fax services and intend to provide Notary services starting in April of 2010. We also provide Money orders at a very competitive price.

Welcome to Pawn Mart’s Blog

Welcome to Pawn Mart’s blog. We hope you find some useful information here. The nature of this blog is to discuss how the pawn industry works, the services  we provide, what products we might carry and how the pawn industry is changing all the time. 

We would like to encourage feedback in regards to our stores, website or the blogs we posts. We also would love to hear questions you might have about our services, items we take on loan or purchase and anything else that comes to mind regarding our industry.

Customer service and support is one of our top priorities. We hope that through our website (www.pawnmart.biz) , our twitter page, facebook page and this blog you would find the answers you are looking for as well as a means to post any questions you have.

The pawn industry has a lot of stigma attached to it. We hope after reading our posts here and visiting our other online sources you will find that we are really not that much different than most retail stores. We just happen to also offer loans on products to our consumers as an added service.

Please check back from time to time or sign up for our email or RSS feed to get updates as posted.

                ~ Charlie