The Saleswoman of a pavilion | Anna Bouloubasi
It is an early Friday morning in the beginning of April. She counts the products she has ordered, so as to check if something is missing. Then she organizes the shelves and the fridges of her pavilion and gets prepared for the selling process. She greets her customers with a smile, provides them with the products they request, makes cash transactions and cuts a receipt for each and every client. The 45-year-old woman named Anna Bοulοubasi owns a large kiosk in the center of the second most well-known city in Greece, Piraeus.
“I have a pretty strict routine every morning I enter the kiosk,” she admits.
Since 2006, she has been running this business with the help of two employees. Anna’s primary goal has always been the complete satisfaction of her customers, both personal and psychological.
“I am obligated to first and for most please my clients and then to deal with everything else,” Anna states while explaining the hierarchy of the selling policy she has created for the well-being of the kiosk. “The customer always comes first,” she points out. Anna describes how essential it is for the pavilion’s recognition to be tidy and clean, as well as the products to be perfectly ordered by size, color and type.
“The client is always right.” Anna supports that even when a customer is rude or annoyingly indecisive she has to be polite, stay calm and come up with the most effective possible solution. She admits that she has never had to raise her voice or insult someone. In some rare situations when she lacks a specific product she offers another one from the same type to her customers. “No we don’t have this item right now.” This is a forbidden phrase for her. “We should always suggest a second option so as the customer to leave satisfied.”
“Despite the pavilion’s good location, the clientele has declined up to 70 percent because of the Covid-19 situation.” She says that her kiosk is now surrounded by closed shops which not only decrease the profit but also have negative effects on the employees’ psychology.
“We stay inside the small and sunless room of the kiosk for many hours. That is why the communication and the everyday dialogue with clients has always been a psychological boost for us. Unfortunately, we don’t have such a communication anymore because of the restrictions. I miss my customers,” Anna shares.
Anna also describes an incident that stigmatized her. However she managed to get through it once again with courtesy. “After 15 years of hard work, a woman tried to steal a chocolate in front of my eyes.” Anna explains that at the beginning she panicked but then her own selling policy crossed her mind, “Always be polite to the customers.” She informed the woman about the cameras that surrounded the kiosk and warned her that if she did not leave the stolen item she would have called the police. Afterwards, the woman threw the chocolate down and ran away while Anna cleaned up the mess caused.
“The majority of people believe that selling products in a kiosk is easy to be done. I want to point out that to pull the work off it is mandatory to be patient and to love your job.
I am a mother of two and every day I come to my shift full of energy as a teenager. I adore my job and I believe that this business brings joy to the citizens and honestly this is all I need to continue running it,” Anna highlights.
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Elena Stoycheva is a sophomore student at the American University of Bulgaria and she is majoring in BUS and JMC and minoring in Spanish. She took all the photos of this article. She chose Anna Bouloubasi because she gave her an overall idea of not only the difficulties to be a saleswoman but also the beauty to help people.
