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litany of gulps posted:You're always going to be told it was worse than it should be, regardless of whether or not you met goals or actually did well. If your store shrinks out about 1% or more during the year, you'll probably be getting a new store manager. Isn't the national average like 2%? And yes, to whoever said it. Something ridiculous like 65% of shrink is internal. Obviously this changes based on industry, but that's the national average.
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Jun 27, 2013 04:22
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Kimmalah posted:I get this lecture at least once every few months. Right now our big problem is people who apparently have some means of removing our security tags that we put on our shoes, so they just take the tags off, hide their old shoes somewhere in the store and wear the new shoes out of store. The shoe department is near the register but it's behind me so if I'm even the slightest bit busy I can't see anything. There's also a ton of shelves/displays blocking my view even when I turn to watch the department AND store policy dictates that I'm not allowed to confront even blatant shoplifters so I don't really understand what the hell anyone really expects me to do. It could be worse. At least they aren't making GBS threads in their old shoes before hiding them.
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Jun 27, 2013 05:19
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The Lord Bude posted:It could be worse. At least they aren't making GBS threads in their old shoes before hiding them. Yeah, they do manage to poo poo in the bathrooms at least, but not necessarily in the toilet. Plus the plumbing is so bad there's a fairly good chance that even if they do, it'll completely disable all the facilities for the rest of the day at least. Edit: It was truck day today apparently. We still have a 4 box limit on certain calibers of ammunition that are really hard to get because for whatever reason people are still going into an insane buying frenzy over it. I had more than one person buying 4 boxes of ammo ask me "If I go outside, then come back in can I buy 4 more boxes today?" And at least one guy who tried to get around the limit by asking if his 5 year old daughter could buy 4 boxes too (keeping in mind that there are loving federal age limits of at least 18 years old for pretty much everything, and 21 for some). Also lots of bitching/whining and "those democraaats taking my guns, vote republican!  " These loving people I swear, I have got to find a new job. 
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Jun 27, 2013 05:45
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Jun 28, 2013 20:40
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Yeah, now management is all over us about our low selling rates for the past few weeks and even wants to possibly have managers come in from other successful stores and have a group meeting about successful sales techniques. They even wanted each front-end supervisor to explain "how you're driving sales" on the plans. What they fail to realize is that the protection plans prompt on $19.99 box fans that are flying out the door (because it's SUMMER!) and not one single person buys one on those. Ever. And that tanks our numbers. People also never buy them on blenders or the cheaper-end hair curlers. Oh, and also not to mention the fuckton of new people we've hired the past 2 weeks who are barely register trained, much less trained in selling the protection plans. But do they listen? No. It HAS to be because we're a bunch of slackers who aren't doing their jobs.
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Jun 29, 2013 05:32
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Would you like a $20 protection plan on your $20 box fan, that already comes with its own factory warranty just like everything else in this store? Sure yes you can already return this video game under our policy, but why not buy a $10 protection plan in case the disc is cracked when you open it up? While you're at it, would you like the $3 protection plan for this $10 game you got off the markdown rack because you're on a budget and SUPER MOTOCROSS OFF-BRAND BASEBALL GAME RACER 11 sounds like your kind of treat? Of course Dell will send a loving repair technician to your loving house at no cost for at least a year, probably two, to make any repair and even order parts if necessary. But why not buy a $100 protection plan so you can haul your computer back to Johnny Paycheck, who knows nothing about computers, so he can get you another computer in 1-2 weeks minimum? Here is where hardcore salesmen and regular joes differ. If a customer asks, "Is the protection plan worth it?", if there is even a shriveled heart left in your chest, you will answer "No" and maybe "Haha no" or "gently caress no." If the manager is watching, you might just shake your head subtly while reading the "benefits."
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Jun 29, 2013 05:42
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Actually the protection plan on the box fan is only $4.99 for 2 years! It covers normal wear and tear, manufacturer defects, the motor burning out, or anything else that goes wrong through normal usage would be replaced. You wouldn't have to worry about buying a new one!  Like I said before. I only do what I have to and don't press the issue too hard. If you're only going to give me 50 cents for selling a $100 plan on a giant fuckoff TV, then gently caress you. BigBallChunkyTime fucked around with this message at 06:03 on Jun 29, 2013 |
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Jun 29, 2013 06:01
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I honestly think the replacement plans are a great idea on certain items. They really do cover if you were to drop and break something, spill something on it and it stops working, back over it in your car. Whatever. And it's typically about 15% of the price of the item. The replacement company typically will send the customer a gift card for the amount they paid so they don't even have to get another of the same thing if they don't want to. Sometimes on baby items like bouncers if the parent says "well by then, they'll have grown out of it" I'll say "then break it and get your money back to buy something else" I usually try not to push too hard though. I still get the best sales of those in the store. I don't get any extra money or recognition for it though.  EDIT: Speaking of recognition, I got my 2 year evaluation today and I got another raise. A whole 21 cents an hour!! At this rate I'll be making $10/hour by 2022! I hate my life I've put in 3 applications to other places so far this week. Let's hope I hear back from someone. Buggiezor fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Jun 29, 2013 |
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Jun 29, 2013 14:49
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Buggiezor posted:I honestly think the replacement plans are a great idea on certain items. They wouldn't offer the replacement plans if they weren't making money. I guarantee I will come out on top in the long run if I never buy an extended warranty.
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Jun 29, 2013 15:16
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When I worked at Office Max, the Max Assurance on furniture was pretty nice. It was not very expensive to get the 3 year plan for some reason. Then you could come in and be say: "I have a tear in the seat, I want a new chair" and get whatever brand new chair you wanted, just for the sake of having a new chair. The plan on everything else was way more expensive and had some dumb rules I believe. Granted, Office Max was one of the places that had a 30 day return policy... While the next place I worked at, Bed Bath and Beyond, let you return poo poo whenever you wanted for whatever reason. And they also sold chairs (during back to school, and they were lovely cheap ones that we'd only carry 1 or 2 models of).
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Jun 29, 2013 15:33
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Buggiezor posted:EDIT: Speaking of recognition, I got my 2 year evaluation today and I got another raise. A whole 21 cents an hour!! At this rate I'll be making $10/hour by 2022! Look on the bright side, you could be at a store like mine where no associates get raises ever. Unless you become a keyholder, in which case I think you get bumped up to $10 an hour and work insane 50+ hour weeks often. I know how you feel though, I'm throwing out applications myself. There's a warehouse place I'm really interested in where I'd at least be full-time and get benefits like health insurance/paid time off eventually. I wouldn't mind heaving heavy poo poo around if it meant I didn't have to deal with the public ever again. In any case, I've already decided even if I don't find anything there's no amount of money that can make me work another Christmas in retail so that's my deadline.Anyway, I think if I see another loving coupon this week I'm going to scream. You can always tell when the store releases a new batch of coupons, because all these jackasses come out of the woodwork trying to use them on poo poo that it very plainly does not cover. I had one guy bring in a coupon for 25% off "athletic licensed apparel" which is a fancy way of saying "stuff with college/NBA/NHS/NFL team logos on it." So of course he brings up two pairs of socks and proceeds to argue with me saying the coupon should cover them because they have the word "athletic" on the label. I warned him it wouldn't work but scanned the coupon anyway to humor him. When it inevitably didn't work on his items, he called it a crock of poo poo coupon (actual words), spent the whole transaction acting like I personally was trying to scam him and then...bought the socks anyway?  On the plus side, he gave to coupon to some other guy whose son actually paid attention and got 25% off a nice jacket.  Really that particular coupon is the bane of my existence right now. Apparently everyone sees the big "25% off" and then their brain malfunctions so they just stop reading right there. I've had people try them on everything from shoes to loving lawn chairs and they're always genuinely shocked when I point how that it's for certain kinds of apparel only. I mean, I'll admit our coupons and sales signs are kind of lovely/disingenuous but this one is pretty loving obvious if people would just reeeaad. Edit: Also as the cherry on top of a poo poo day, I got a bunch of crap from a manager because I didn't know how to do something I've never been trained on so he had to do it. Everyone ditches me at the register and never lets me do ANYTHING else in the store, then act shocked that I really don't know how to much outside cash register. Kimmalah fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jun 29, 2013 |
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Jun 29, 2013 16:26
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Kimmalah posted:Look on the bright side, you could be at a store like mine where no associates get raises ever. Unless you become a keyholder, in which case I think you get bumped up to $10 an hour and work insane 50+ hour weeks often. Customers read only what they want to. I've posted before about how my store mails coupons to customers and dozens upon dozens of people try to use them before the valid dates even though they are very clearly marked at the bottom of the coupon. They just see the "X DOLLARS OFF" part and ignore the rest. And it's my personal fault that they didn't read it.
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Jun 29, 2013 16:53
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Retail Slave posted:Customers read only what they want to. I've posted before about how my store mails coupons to customers and dozens upon dozens of people try to use them before the valid dates even though they are very clearly marked at the bottom of the coupon. They just see the "X DOLLARS OFF" part and ignore the rest. And it's my personal fault that they didn't read it. I know. It just never really stops being annoying when some idiot won't read a coupon and then throws a tantrum like a 2 year-old because they think I've somehow personally wronged them by not magically making the coupon work. I've also had a lot of trouble with people using online coupons lately. Basically our store e-mails them out and you have the option of just pulling it up on your smartphone to use instead of printing it out. Except the reception in the store is terrible for data, so I end up having to stand there 10-15 minutes while they're like "Hold on, hold on it's loading" and the line's backing up. Then usually it either doesn't apply to their items (because again they didn't read) or it's expired. I had one recently who did this, only to find that their coupon expired in 2010. 
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Jun 29, 2013 17:09
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Here is where hardcore salesmen and regular joes differ. If a customer asks, "Is the protection plan worth it?", if there is even a shriveled heart left in your chest, you will answer "No" and maybe "Haha no" or "gently caress no." If the manager is watching, you might just shake your head subtly while reading the "benefits." This is literally why I quit a job, I felt bad convincing them to buy something useless.
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Jun 29, 2013 23:10
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Vegastar posted:The opposite, actually. The only "perk" you get from the business outside not being treated like poo poo is a free membership. There's no employee discount or anything, but who gives a poo poo. Any particular reason for September? I work some semi-lovely retail that I'd like to get out of, and now I'm wondering if I should apply now or wait it out. Getting in would be so nice, especially if they plunked me down in one of the departments I have some prior experience in. As far as I can tell, Costco's bakery and deli employees have very little direct interaction with customers. My job's not a poo poo hole, but the longer I stay, the more responsibilities keep getting dumped on me and the more I'm expected to do in the same number of hours. And while being unionized is sort of nice, it also has the side-effect of making raises 100% determined by position and seniority. So the guy that fucks off for ten-fifteen minutes at a time and does a fraction of what I do is always going to make more than me because he has an earlier start date. Screw that.
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Jun 30, 2013 03:14
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There's always one. Tonight was the last night of our big sale. Of course at 2 minutes after close some lady comes waltzing up, not in any sort of particular hurry, and has like 4 pairs of shoes. She is standing there trying them on like it's her own personal little loving fashion show and asking "Well, which ones do you like better?" and "I have a black dress at home... do you think these would go well with it?" Then she couldn't make up her mind which ones she wanted to buy. "Ok, well put these two on but take the one in the box off." "Actually, take all except this one off." "Well I think I don't want that one, put the first two back on. And is that third one half off?" No, bitch, that third one is NOT half off, because those particular shoes were not part of the sale and the sign clearly says so. "Well can I have half off anyway?" gently caress you. I had a supervisor behind me, and the store manager told the supervisor that lady had 2 more minutes before she was going to be ejected from the store. About 90 seconds after that I finally rang her up and she moseyed on out the door. I have been in retail for 15 years, and I've dealt with a LOT. I've been cursed at, threatened, scammed, cursed at some more, talked down to, screamed at, and treated like dog poo poo that someone scrapes off the bottom of their shoe. However, NONE of those things piss me off even half as much as those who think the store closing doesn't apply to them and we're their own personal shoppers at their beck and call to wait on them after we should be going home. I hope the shoes give her a blister. Sorry for the rant. I'm still pissed off and I know you guys would understand. 
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Jun 30, 2013 03:35
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PurpleLizardWizard posted:Any particular reason for September? My guess would be a combination of college students working summer jobs quitting or cutting back hours to go back to school and the store preparing for the Thanksgiving/Christmas season.
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Jun 30, 2013 03:40
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Kimmalah posted:My guess would be a combination of college students working summer jobs quitting or cutting back hours to go back to school and the store preparing for the Thanksgiving/Christmas season. Mostly the second. We start running interviews for seasonal work around the beginning of October, and its really the best chance to get a foot in the door outside randomly lucking out and getting called up for a vacant position.
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Jun 30, 2013 06:07
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MaxDuo posted:When I worked at Office Max, the Max Assurance on furniture was pretty nice. It was not very expensive to get the 3 year plan for some reason. Then you could come in and be say: "I have a tear in the seat, I want a new chair" and get whatever brand new chair you wanted, just for the sake of having a new chair. The plan on everything else was way more expensive and had some dumb rules I believe. I was an assistant manager at OfficeMax for four years before quitting to start my own business where I don't interact with the general public (OH SWEET FREEDOM). The dirty little secret there and at most similar stores is that there are VERY few metrics used to evaluate management performance. Nobody cares about the return rate. Nobody cares if a chair is sold for 1 cent or disappears from the inventory entirely. Avoiding complaints and getting that plan percentage up? That's everything. That's promotions, that's raises, that's surviving the next round of layoffs, that's keeping the district manager off your phone and out of your store for another week. I would have done ANYTHING to sell those plans, up to an including making sure that you get a new chair for free five years later because your dog tore up the upholstery on it, all of which is outside how the policy is supposed to work. Just as long as you bought a new plan on the next chair. This is the main reason you may want to consider buying these plans...they make the store management your paranoid friend for life. They will do literally anything to keep you happy. I was able to use the $150 one my laptop to get it fixed twice for issues that would have necessitated buying a new $700 computer both times. But in the future, would I buy one on anything that isn't a computer? Probably not. Stores theoretically make money on these extended warranties by carefully defining what they do and don't cover and handling them through a third-party guarantor that allows the risk to be spread out more. It's just like insurance--you can't make money offering health insurance to five people, but over five million people, the percentages go in your favor. The reality is that every employee at these places is so goddamn terrified of not meeting their metrics that they offer plans well beyond the terms that the guarantor will cover, and if someone comes in and just wants a new printer off the shelf, you give it to them ($150 in gross margin losses can be eaten over the course of a year, a return of the coverage plan is the loving apocalypse in the weekly call). Combine that with the amount of money lost in terms of how much free product is given away, how much paid employee time is wasted on dealing with the program, and how much customer ill will is generated when someone who thinks they are doing you a favor by spending $800 on a new laptop is hard-sold on a warranty and then discouraged from making the purchase at all if they don't want it, and there's no question in my mind that these stores are losing millions of dollars a year by having these programs. But that's business-school thinking for you--the only line they see on the report is the $1M gross from selling the warranties, not the $10M loss from all the bullshit around them. That's why these office supply chains are all doing so well and have a solid future, right???
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Jun 30, 2013 10:56
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My company is about to drop the commission on upgrading phones and shift towards having the bulk on new activations. All well and good, but it makes it even more painful for those non smartphone holdouts (to the point that it's tempting to just send them to best buy). Ok top of that, they are starting to emphasize an internship program where said college kid shadows either manager or business rep for 6 months, they do like, a month training at corporate and then they get promoted right to manager or business rep. Meanwhile union regulations dictate that retail reps can't even apply for jobs until after 1 year, and you basically have to move up the chain by doing a year stint at assistant manager. It really is bullshit because those business positions are one of the biggest jobs to get in the company, and pay wise if you suck at the job you're making $100K (i would be willing to bet the interns make less). Given how many people that have been there for years and years would kill for that job, and they have the positions frozen currently so they can give them to kids, it's just absurd. Corporate.
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Jun 30, 2013 13:02
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Today starts our huge clearance sale. About 20% of everything in the store was marked down to clearance last week. And that's not including the stuff that was already on clearance. This week Rewards members will get an email with the coupon "20% Off One Clearance Item" So basically 1/3 of the store is 20% off. Then next week it will be 30% then 40% and I think there's even going to be a 50% week. The store just wants this poo poo gone. Corporate even told us that the coupon is supposed to be for one item but we are allowed to override it on each Item they buy. That's how bad they want it gone. But in that case why didn't you make it "20% Off all clearance" and just make it a sale instead of a stupid coupon?! The stress will come from people who are not rewards members hearing about the sale and wanting in on it when they don't have the coupon. "Hey! Where's my 20% off?!??!" "Where's your coupon? No we're not just going to give you 20% off this item. No we don't have any coupons behind the register you can use/have. " And with it increasing every week, it's bound to cause people to notice and come back and say "I got 30% off last week but now it's 40%! I want the difference back!" Also there will be idiots trying to use it on things that aren't clearance because they don't know or care what "clearance" means.
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Jun 30, 2013 16:14
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Buggiezor posted:
Your store kind of sounds like mine, so I don't know if you're working for the same chain I am or not. But the "I want the difference back!" is actually an obscure official policy we have so in theory people could pull this poo poo if they wanted. Fortunately, most of them never read the back of the receipt so they have no idea it exists otherwise work would be even more of a nightmare. We're also doing something similar right now because we have so many clearance clothes that we can't seem to unload. I guess our clearance prices are still so outrageous that the only to get rid of them is to offer an extra 10% off the price (and even then it's not helping much). In other news, more coupon fun! Last night someone (once again!) backed up the register for probably a good 20 minutes trying to load a coupon on their phone to use. Except I guess the official website was down so they couldn't pull up the coupon itself, just the link to it that was in their e-mail message. After a few minutes explaining that no, we can't magically give you 20% off just because of a picture in your e-mail, we actually need a barcode/number to input the coupon they just gave it up and walked out without buying anything. The item that they so desperately wanted 20% off of? a $6 vinyl tablecloth. I understand wanting to save money, but it seriously never ceases to amaze me how petty people get about tiny amounts of money.
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Jun 30, 2013 18:45
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I think I might of posted about this before, but in pharmacy, there was a lady who came back 5+ times throwing a shitfit every visit because her insurance would not cover the entirety of her $4 prescription. And no, we are not talking about someone living on the street, but rather someone consistently with over $100 worth of cosmetic crap in her basket. To most people, coupon/discount poo poo is not about 'saving money' but rather 'getting one over on someone'. If they spent $50 worth in gas driving back and forth to screw someone out of $4, then it's been a good day.
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Jun 30, 2013 23:33
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Avalanche posted:To most people, coupon/discount poo poo is not about 'saving money' but rather 'getting one over on someone'. If they spent $50 worth in gas driving back and forth to screw someone out of $4, then it's been a good day. True enough. I don't think anyone spends much in gas, but they will spend a ton of time to try and get maybe a couple bucks off. Either by standing at my counter for 20 minutes trying to load an online coupon with our lovely cell reception or by doing an exchange for the sole purpose of sticking a 10-15% discount on a transaction. Keep in mind our exchange process is long, tedious and the only way I can get the difference back for a discount (which for most people only works out to $2-3 tops). I had a guy come in today and throw an absolute fit. He was trying to return some stuff without a receipt and switch it out for something else. No problem really except that without a receipt, our register automatically defaults the return price to lowest price for that product in our system during the last month since there's no way to prove how much you actually paid at the time. So if it went on sale after you bought it, you'll be getting less back than if you had a receipt. So he freaks out about this and one of our managers tries to explain why the system does this and he's just yelling "I'm so sick of having to prove myself! I have to prove stuff to you, to the government..." and on and on. He did the return, then came back in and demanded a manager who was able to search out the transaction in the computer, after about 20 minutes of searching. I think he might have gotten $10 back at most. I'm on the job hunt right now. They keep claiming they won't, but I have a feeling I'm going to be fired soon for the e-mail numbers thing. And good riddance really, this store is bad even by retail job standards.
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Jul 1, 2013 22:46
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meat sweats posted:Nobody cares if a chair is sold for 1 cent or disappears from the inventory entirely.hy these office supply chains are all doing so well and have a solid future, right??? Then again I was an employee, I SHOULD BE GLAD TO RECEIVE THEIR GLORY, etc. Buggiezor posted:And with it increasing every week, it's bound to cause people to notice and come back and say "I got 30% off last week but now it's 40%! I want the difference back!" At Bed, Bath, and Beyond we'd have done this poo poo  Every week.
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Jul 2, 2013 04:21
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Santheb posted:I'm in Virginia. Which location do you work at? I'm a fellow Costco slave in Virginia. Been there for five years.
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Jul 2, 2013 08:55
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MaxDuo posted:Sadly this reminds me of when I wanted to buy some Dilbert Desk Calendar we had.... and it rang up at $0.01. Then the manager refused to let me buy it at that price and made me wait for her to fix it and sell it to me at a higher price. Bah.
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Jul 2, 2013 14:58
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MaxDuo posted:At Bed, Bath, and Beyond we'd have done this poo poo My store has the "30 day price guarantee," meaning basically that if you buy something that later ends up going on sale in the next 30 days you can bring in the receipt and get the difference between the two prices back. But like I said, it's on the back of the receipt and no one ever reads those of course so I've gotten maybe one customer in the entire time I've been at the store actually ask for it (and it was for a really expensive item, so I could understand them going to the trouble to get that money). I think I hate the coupons more than anything else at the store. Like I said earlier, no one reads the things so then I get stuck being the bad guy who has to explain why their coupon isn't working. And they almost never work since the store puts in so many qualifiers, technicalities and exclusions for every one of them. Also got another e-mail lecture yesterday that sounded more like a thinly veiled threat of cut hours or firing and someone I let into the dressing rooms apparently stole a bunch of poo poo right before I clocked out, so I'll probably be hearing about that one. We have a 3 garment limit on the dressing rooms as an anti-theft thing, but I don't know how the hell to enforce the policy when customers won't listen and then some manager will swoop in and be like "Oh go on ahead it's no problem."
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Jul 2, 2013 15:30
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Kimmalah posted:but I don't know how the hell to enforce the policy when customers won't listen and then some manager will swoop in and be like "Oh go on ahead it's no problem." This used to annoy the poo poo out of me when I worked in retail. You would spend 10 minutes arguing with someone, trying to maintain the rules that the management has out in place only for said management to descend in a blaze of light and trumpets and say "Just let them do it," before swanning off, leaving you looking like a complete fucktard in front of some smug customer who you then have to refund/process/apologize to. No support
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Jul 3, 2013 11:44
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An Assistant manager in one of our stores in New York was murdered Monday morning. It's a terrible tragedy. He had a family and kids. The rear end in a top hat broke in through the front door while the AM and some other employees were doing some opening duties. He managed to go unseen until he got to the Manager's office where he ran into the AM. Nobody knows exactly what happened aside from the AM being stabbed and the intruder running back out of the store. The AM died on the way to the hospital. The only evidence they have so far is a lovely grainy security camera and the baseball cap he left behind. I really hope they catch this bastard. I can only assume he thought the money was kept in the manager's office and when he found it wasn't, he stabbed someone and left. As far as I know he didn't even get out with anything. So he just killed a guy for nothing. I didn't know the AM but I am SO MAD over this. It's such a stupid crime. I hope they catch the son of a bitch.
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Jul 3, 2013 16:02
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Ulysiss posted:This used to annoy the poo poo out of me when I worked in retail. You would spend 10 minutes arguing with someone, trying to maintain the rules that the management has out in place only for said management to descend in a blaze of light and trumpets and say "Just let them do it," before swanning off, leaving you looking like a complete fucktard in front of some smug customer who you then have to refund/process/apologize to. No support From what I've seen online, this sort of behavior is particularly bad in our chain no matter what store you're in. The only time I've seen a manager refuse to do some kind of override or bend/break the rules is when our computer system absolutely would not allow it. So I'm sure if I tried to stop the lady arguing with me to take 10 things into the dressing room at once, they'd probably just look at me like I was stupid and unlock it themselves. Buggiezor posted:An Assistant manager in one of our stores in New York was murdered Monday morning. It's a terrible tragedy. He had a family and kids. The rear end in a top hat broke in through the front door while the AM and some other employees were doing some opening duties. He managed to go unseen until he got to the Manager's office where he ran into the AM. Nobody knows exactly what happened aside from the AM being stabbed and the intruder running back out of the store. The AM died on the way to the hospital. That's terrible. Kind of makes me wonder about my own coworkers, since we usually only have a solitary manager in the store to open things before the associates get in. I hope they catch the guy.
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Jul 3, 2013 17:18
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Ulysiss posted:This used to annoy the poo poo out of me when I worked in retail. You would spend 10 minutes arguing with someone, trying to maintain the rules that the management has out in place only for said management to descend in a blaze of light and trumpets and say "Just let them do it," before swanning off, leaving you looking like a complete fucktard in front of some smug customer who you then have to refund/process/apologize to. No support I used to hate this before I reached the dizzy heights of Management, and believe me I do feel your pain, but there is generally a reason for it. A lot depends on the company you work for. There are basically two types of company. The first company (the common kind) will overrule it's own policies and procedures as soon as a customer officially complains (by this I mean they contact customer service) in the name of "good customer service". The second type of company (and very hard to find) will not automatically do this. Instead they will either enforce the policy (if it's something that cannot or will not commonly be done), or they will contact the store first, before they make a decision. I've worked for both types, and if you are a manager working for the first type, you override the decision because it causes less hassle than arguing. Generally if a customer complains "officially" then Area/District managers tend to be informed, and you end up getting more hassle because you haven't given "great customer service". I work for the second type of company now, and generally I only override my staffs decisions if it is going to cause me more hassle, or if it's not worth the argument. 95% of the time it is worth the argument, especially if the customer is being obnoxious or has a lovely self-entitled attitude. If someone comes in and is genuinely nice about it, and I can solve the problem, then I do. My store gets great customer satisfaction responses, along with the usual mystery customer scores etc, and I refuse things on a daily basis, especially when it comes to refunds. I have had a couple of run-ins with customer service, but they have backed me up every single time.
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Jul 3, 2013 21:45
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At my store, you don't even have to "officially" complain. If you just question a decision at all, usually management will bend over backwards to fulfill any request they make. Which in itself doesn't bother me much since I understand arguing is a hassle. What does bother me is when they act bewildered about the fact that we don't care enough to enforce policy when it's really obvious that there's no point.
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Jul 3, 2013 23:18
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I accidentally "injured" a customer today I was carrying an opened case of frozen pork ribs to our meat case. As I set them on our case, one slides off and onto a customer's foot. She wore flip flops so there was no protection to her foot. She pointed out where it fell, but I didn't see kind of aggravated mark on her toe. No skin scratches, no bruising, not even a red mark that would at least show some sort of irritation. I didn't actually see the slab of ribs hit her foot, but it definitely looked like it was close. Any how, she of course made a little fuss about it so not sure what she'll get out of it. Also I really want to tell the customers to back the gently caress off and give me a little personal space while I take 2 minutes to put product on the shelves.
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Jul 4, 2013 02:29
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The receptionist at work that I can't stand was finally let go. I feel bad that she lost her job but she was the most hypocritical, lazy, selfish person I have ever worked with. The task of taking pathology to the hospital across the street fell on her after I was laid off. She had been doing it for months until a few days ago she told the doctor and office manager that samples were no longer going to be accepted at the designated dropoff location. Which would have meant us having to pay to get the samples couriered to the hospital across town. The office manager was in the middle of typing a strongly worded letter to go to the head of the pathology department when she thought to get me to call the hospital and verify that this was in fact true. It wasn't. Boldface lie because she didn't want to do it anymore. This is really the last in a long line of bullshit and I'm so glad shes gone.
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Jul 4, 2013 03:37
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Trigger warning! customer abusing policies! This lady travels all over socal buying several thousand dollars worth of outdoor furniture, doesn't care if its floor model, prefered unwrapped, and needs them all that day. Its a multi store operation and everyones happy. The next day, she brings her u haul around the next day and comes into our store(we were not apart of her sell) and demands she returns them all. Her story? It was for her grandmother and she didn't like it. The truth? What we found in the cracks of the chairs, settees and cushions. Cigars, ash, wrappers, party confetti. Other stores got the profit, we take the loss of several thousand dollars return equating to a few days of labor. Not to mention all the furniture we are stuck with now. We knew what she was doing. Our managers had a idea. But the customer knew how to play the game. A person like that can and WILL climb the corporate ladder to get that return. Only a person that evil has the time and dedication to get that return. She planned out everything perfectly, she could argue that it came like that, 1 day later return. Instead of fighting her the entire way, wasting our time and lives with her, we just bit the bullet, ate her poo poo, and smiled. In the long run, it just isn't worth fighting for. The regional manager threw us some payroll to help cover the hit. So it wasn't too bad. Edit: this is one of those once in a lifetime events. We were not her first retail chain nor will be the last. I knew people did this but I never thought it would happen to us! *takes a chomp* fucked around with this message at 08:13 on Jul 5, 2013 |
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Jul 5, 2013 07:29
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*takes a chomp* posted:We knew what she was doing. Our managers had a idea. But the customer knew how to play the game. A person like that can and WILL climb the corporate ladder to get that return. Only a person that evil has the time and dedication to get that return. She planned out everything perfectly, she could argue that it came like that, 1 day later return. Instead of fighting her the entire way, wasting our time and lives with her, we just bit the bullet, ate her poo poo, and smiled. In the long run, it just isn't worth fighting for. The regional manager threw us some payroll to help cover the hit. So it wasn't too bad. On the one hand, I understand why you guys went ahead and did the return. But on the other, I hate it because giving in to them just encourages this lovely behavior and gives them incentive to keep abusing policy/the employees stuck trying to enforce it. I think that's what bothers me the most about it anytime someone gets a pass just to get them out of the store - they think they've "won" and they'll just keep doing it. Anyway, how many of you got stuck working on the 4th of July? I live in factory country so most of the people I know are off basically the whole week, but not me! It was dead in the store pretty much the whole day so I just stood around with nothing to do...until closing time came at 6:00. Apparently everyone in town suddenly needed sporting goods at that time, so they start coming in one after the other around 5:45 and at least two kept right on shopping after multiple announcements that we're closing in 15 minutes, 10 minutes, we are NOW closed. The last guy out of the store stayed probably 15 minutes after close trying on shoes that apparently he had to have right then, but not enough to be bothered to come in during our clearly posted hours. Then after we had finally locked up and the manager was counting down the last drawer, we got at least 3-4 phone calls about "What are your hours today? "
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Jul 5, 2013 15:00
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*takes a chomp* posted:Bitch This is one of those times where I wish I could have no desire to keep a job and work in a situation like that. And just tell the lady to gently caress the Hell off and quit being a dirty loving scumbag. Instead that wish will forever be stuck in fantasy land. edit: VVVVVVVV It was mainly for personal satisfaction. I would like to treat her like the piece of poo poo she is. MaxDuo fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Jul 5, 2013 |
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Jul 5, 2013 16:12
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MaxDuo posted:This is one of those times where I wish I could have no desire to keep a job and work in a situation like that. And just tell the lady to gently caress the Hell off and quit being a dirty loving scumbag. Well, as they mentioned even if you told them to gently caress off, someone as scummy as that will just keep climbing the chain of command until someone gives in to her ridiculous request. So really the only way for it to work is for the company, from the individual store all the way up to corporate to collectively say NO to her. And I think we all know how likely it is for a company to agree with something all the way up the line.  I mean, I guess you would at least get some personal satisfaction out of it but there would always be the knowledge that the second you refused she would just go straight to a manager/DM/RM/corporate hotline to get the green light. This is the reason I pretty much just send it straight to management whenever someone is trying to pull something weird like this. Everyone thinks I should just refuse them, but I know they're just going to escalate it to management so I just cut to the chase.Of course as the cherry on top, this store is now stuck with a bunch of used chairs that probably smell like rear end thanks to all the cigar smoke/ashes. I know pretty much every return we've gotten so far that absolutely reeked of smoke we've had to defect out because the smell just won't go away. I don't know, maybe it's different if you can shampoo the chairs or something. Kimmalah fucked around with this message at 16:50 on Jul 5, 2013 |
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Jul 5, 2013 16:47
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Majority of the large items. Infact most of them were in decent condition. Its more the 500 plus worth of cushions were bad. And not to mention they are all in the same color! Ahhhhhhh. No one is ever gonna need 8 settes in mocha
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Jul 5, 2013 22:51
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