Staffed!

When "real life" people hear that I own a successful virtual business, they are usually puzzled or amazed. What will they say now when I tell them I have employees?

You might be wondering what staff would do at a particle shop? It's pretty simple, really, they are doing what I often do at the store: talk to visitors and help them. I've found that it is a great way to ensure everyone has a good experience, and it's also the best way to find out what people are looking to buy.

In spite of my efforts to make the store easy to navigate, trigger demonstrations, access informative notecards, some people still have problems finding items in the store. Perhaps they are simply impatient, or maybe they can't read. It's then that they really appreciate a friendly someone to guide them to the correct place.

But this work does take a lot of time, and lately my Second Life existence seems to be getting busier than ever. So, after chatting with friends who make a not-so-great living camping, I realized I could provide a better paying job for them and handle visitors with a lot more care. After buying a timeclock (well, two of them, since the first one didn't do what I needed) and some negotiations, I have staff!

This is definitely an experiment, and experiments are one of the actions I've advised Second Life businesses to do in previous posts: keep trying things. Eliminate that which doesn't work, and do more of that which does work. In this case, I intend to compare results before and after to determine the effect of in-store sales personnel.

The best part so far: staff say, "This is so much more interesting than camping! You get to talk to people who aren't zombies!"