“I’ve Been On Hold So Long That I’ve Forgotten What I Wanted.”

     I would’ve updated this blog sooner but I was on hold with an electronics store for the last six days.  Wow, it really does take a long time to get through to someone, doesn’t it?

     Okay, maybe not that long, but there are times when I probably could’ve constructed Noah’s Ark in the time that it takes me to get through to someone on the phone.  To paraphrase - you can judge the health of a nation by the time it takes someone to receive an answer from a retail store on the phone.  I guess you can’t really put that on a bumper sticker, but I’m sure it’ll catch on.  It’s an issue you hear about nearly every single store, HR helpline, or manufacturer’s customer hotline.  And everyone’s own personal delay is a catastrophe, I’m well aware, but what do you really expect?

     Think about the amount of people living in your town.  If more than 5 people are calling up with a question or issue, chances are you won’t be getting through any time soon.  Magnify that if you’re calling a Sony, or Nintendo, or Whirlpool hotline for a question.  That company has only so many call centers set-up to deal with issues and I’m sure no amount of jobs they could fill would come close to handling the amount of calls they must receive.  A company only has a finite amount of resources available to them and incoming calls will always be shortchanged in that equation.  So suck it up and wait.  If you can make it through in under 10 minutes, just be happy to finally get your question answered.

     Customers come into my department and tell me how they couldn’t get through on the phones so they were forced to come into the store.  They always have the same idea, too:

     “[Blank Store] needs to hire more people to answer the phones.”

     Thanks, now all we need to do is install more phone lines for those new hires to work! Brilliant!  If every person in the store was devoted to just answering the phones then people coming into the stores would have no one around to assist them.  A store can only do so much for the number of incoming calls they receive each day.  If you really want to have faster service on the phone, spread the word to every person you know who meanders on in a phone conversation.

     You know the type – the person who gives you way too much information than what’s needed to tell a story, or the person who isn’t prepared for the conversation so they stumble on their words or repeat themselves a million times.  If they’re that slow talking with someone they know, imagine how they are when they’re talking to us.  To find you the cable for your computer or the filter for your vacuum, we don’t need to know that you received that vacuum from your grandma ten years ago because you moved into a new apartment and had a pet dog named Spot who, god bless him, would shed like crazy.  WOW, really?  Like Dave Chappelle would say, “Wrap it up!"

     If you want help finding something, just tell me the company who made it, the model number, and how old the product is.  Cut and dry, people.  The quicker you are with us, the quicker we are with you, and can proceed onto the next phone call.  If you don’t like waiting in a long phone queue, imagine how the people behind you feel once you get through.  If we need more information, we’ll probably ask for it.

     That’s not to say that some customers are justified in their complaints.  Just the other night I was caught trying to call up another store to see if they carried something in-store.  I was on hold for over an hour trying to get through.  After 10-15 minutes of holding, I would hang-up and try another extension but I got the same response.  I then tried other stores to see if I would have better luck and, eventually, I did.  That luck only occurred after calling 2 other stores and waiting about 5-10 minutes on hold for each store.  That is no way to run a business.  I can understand if someone has to wait 5 minutes or so but over an hour of trying to get through?

     Don’t think that employees don’t understand your frustration.  We get it more than anyone out there.  I have to call other stores, warehouses, etc., for customers who are too lazy or too stubborn to call them up themselves and I am the one left on hold.  Just remember to be calm like the Buddha.  Have patience and eventually your call will be answered.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to pick up this damn phone that’s been ringing for the past hour.

     More soon from the frontlines...

"I Will Tear Your Head Off The Next Time You Do That! Oh, And Thanks For Coming In Early To Work!"

     One of the biggest apprehensions I have before going into work each day is, “What kind of moods are the managers in today?”  Now, my first big apprehension is, “Am I going to have to deal with customer issues today?” but manager moods run a close second.  Do you ever work at a place where it seems like the managers are suffering from multiple personalities or some severe emotional imbalance?  How fun is that?

     It’s not like there are several insane managers running around my store, there isn’t.  It just feels that way because of the amount of time spent around them.  The crazy people tend to stand out from the calm, fun managers that are at my store.  They can go from pleasant to axe-wielding maniac on the same shift.  The phrase "walking on eggshells" was probably invented because some crazy grocery store manager went berserk one day and threw eggs all over their store.

     One moment the manager will act like he or she is your best friend and the next moment they’ll tear you a new asshole for coming to them with a question.  What’s really frustrating about these managers is when they seem normal for a good month or two, making you think you can get along with them, and then they return to their bitchy attitude.  For the longest time I couldn’t stand one of our head managers when (s)he first began because every interaction was a combative situation.  Everyone (and I do mean everyone) despised having to work with her/him.  (S)he’s been there now for over a year and it is just now that I’m starting to not feel as apprehensive about working around that person.  Yet, I know that given the right circumstances that could change in an instant.  Not that I feel like we’re buds or anything – I still walk in with the same level of unease as I did before – but I don’t dread every interaction.

     When I worked in the grocery retail world, I remember most of the managers being in better moods than the managers at electronic stores.  That kind of strikes me as unusual since, per day, grocery stores tend to see more customers than electronic stores, and there are more employees at grocery stores than electronic stores.  How come management at grocery stores can keep more of a level head than management at electronic stores?  Is there some sort of training they’re going to that we can export to the electronics world?  If so, let’s get on this!  Or is it because customer issues in the electronics world tend to feel like larger headaches than at grocery stores?  I’m probably leaning toward that being the case than anything else.

     Do I expect every manager to be my best friend? No.  I do, however, expect them to not treat me like their five-year-old child and fly off the handle whenever they don’t like something I’ve done or didn’t do.  If every training video or coaching seminar I’ve ever went to for this job expects me to act like everything is all sunshine and rainbows in the world, the same should be expected of our managers.  We’re supposed to give every customer the royal treatment but apparently there is no training video telling managers to give their employees the royal treatment.

     If the frustrations of being a manager are too much for someone, then they shouldn’t be a manager.  If having to deal with customers bitching at you, corporate eyeballing you, and employees coming to you with every little issue is too much for you – then you shouldn’t be a manager.  That’s why I’ve never tried to move up in the retail world.  I know that I’d be like the bitchy managers I’m describing here.  I also don’t expect managers to shoot rainbows out of their eyes and toss candy to all the employees as they walk by, but you can be upset without being insane.  That’s something a few of my managers haven’t learned just yet.

     For all of the nice managers out there, you’ll get your own post, don’t worry.  I think I speak for all retail workers everywhere when we say that you’re presence at our stores make a world of difference.  Never let anyone take whatever place you draw your levelheaded and fun attitudes from away from you.  As hourly employees, we need you there all the more because even though your numbers might be larger than the psycho managers, their presence makes it feel like there are more of them than there are of you.

     More soon from the frontlines...

In-Store Music

     There are a few music artists I believe owe everything to their music being played at retail stores or grocery stores on endless loop.  Rod Stewart and Neil Diamond, I’m looking at you!  “Cracklin’ Rose” needs to be banned from ever being played, sorry.

     An in-store radio, if you’re lucky, has more than 10 songs played on a constant loop.  The grocery store I worked at had a decent selection of music that they played.  I could almost go an entire day without hearing the same song played twice.  I’ve also been quite amazed with the good music I’ve heard being played at a grocery store.  From David Bowie and The Beatles to The Killers and Jimmy Eat World – some grocery stores really try to make the sounds around you pleasant enough.

     The same can’t be said for electronic stores I’ve worked at, which is kind of surprising.  At one store, the music would repeat after the sixth or seventh song.  You’d think a place that sells CDs would be able to play more to show the diverse tastes they offer customers.  What fills me with dread about hearing those same handful of songs being played on repeat is the fact that some of the songs I know to be bad tend to grow on me.

     Hey, that song by the Jonas Brothers isn’t half-bad. I wonder if the CD is out yet, I’d think to myself before realizing, Wait, what? No!  You’re not a 12-year-old girl!

     But, by that point, the damage is already done and my taste in music is ruined.  Oh, who am I kidding?  My taste in music was never that good.  I digress!

     The music only gets worse by the holidays.  That music selection dwindles even at the grocery stores.  Just because you play “Jingle Bells” five different ways does not mean your selection is any better, either.  That minor irritation is probably why employees feel like tearing into customers during the holiday seasons.  It’s like when a parent has a headache and they want to yell at their child for doing nothing out of the ordinary – the headache just makes everything seem more annoying than usual.  Same concept.

     The holiday music drives me nuts because my job feeds a local radio station into their system each year to get people in the holiday mood.  Sadly, with the ever-expanding Christmas season, the holiday music begins November first.  One can’t even come out of their candy overdose from Halloween before being bombarded with Burl Ives or Bing Crosby.  No offense, if there are still days where the weather can reach fifty degrees, that is not Christmas music weather, and stores should zip it with the tunes.  This encroachment by Christmas needs to stop and holiday music on in-store radios is the first line of defense.

     Please, stores, if there’s one thing you could do to improve your workers’ experience while on the job, it’s the music.  We spend 4-10 hours there a day and if the music selection repeats after an hour, well, you can do the math.  That’s a whole lot of repeated songs in a month, let alone a year.  Or just increase our pay, you know, which ever.  Is that a no on the pay?  Okay, I had to try.

     I know it’s a matter of copyrighted materials and being allowed to air them at the store level but please, if I have to hear “Suspicious Minds” by Elvis one more time, I’m going to check into Heartbreak Hotel.  Yeah, that joke’s bad but maybe if my jobs played more than the same 10 songs, I could think of some other song to end that joke on.  Now, to go download that new Jonas Brothers song…

     More soon from the frontlines...

Me, Me, Me

     This entry ties closely to a few previous entries but I’ve had enough annoying situations of late that I wanted to expound on this subject a bit more.  That subject is the greatest bane of every retail worker’s life and the worst two-word phrase in the English language:  customer satisfaction.  Don’t get me wrong!  I don’t think companies should tell customers to go fuck themselves.

     Well, maybe not all customers.

     Companies should promote a relative level of warmth for customers when they enter the stores.  I don’t, however, believe in companies bending over backwards to make sure every customer feels like they can treat the employees like homeless people or relatives they didn’t like.  Often, there are customer interactions where I feel like the store’s the girlfriend who never feels good enough for their boyfriend no matter how hard they work on their looks or try to keep them happy.

     For instance, customers come into electronic stores and often believe it’s a flea market and not a retail store.

     “How much for this stereo system?”

     “Three hundred bucks.”

     “How about two-fifty?”

     “How about you keep the two-fifty and kiss my ass?”

     Since when are prices adjustable?  I’ve mentioned that before but really, it’s the store’s fault for letting customers think they can get away with that.  In a desperate attempt to get every dollar they can, I’ve seen retail companies take money off of products for no reason other than to just to get a sale.  Then the customer thinks, “Oh, great, next time I’m at the store, I’ll just ask for money off and they’ll do it!”

     It’s great to make a person feel like they’re being taken care of but they should feel that way just by the store having good prices as is.  There shouldn’t be a need to discount something just for the sake of discounting.  If someone can’t pay the price of a $300 I-Pod, maybe they shouldn’t buy the $300 I-Pod.  Don’t live beyond your means – or hasn’t this economical clusterfuck taught us anything?  I don’t go out and eat at 5 star restaurants every night because I can’t afford it.  I don’t go there and ask if I can get a discount on the steak just because I’m a good customer.

     There are also retail companies that allow returns without receipts. What!  There are ways to look up most transactions in a store’s computer database but there are times when that isn’t the case, and yet in those instances people can still return items.  I’m sorry but a store shouldn’t accept your shit back for no reason (and let’s be honest, shit that probably isn’t from the store they’re returning it to). 

     Then there are some grocery companies that do any tiny thing that the customer could easily do at home just to create a friendly, helpful atmosphere.

     “Cut this whole chicken up into ten million pieces for me.”

     “Do you own a knife at home?”

     “Yes.”

     “Oh, so you’re just lazy on top of being rude.”

     People are infants when they walk into a store and they expect everything done for them or done their way.  It’s become so bad that normal sales aren’t good enough for people.  They need discounts on top of discounts.  They expect it because it’s a “special” price just for them.  Well, if everyone expects it, then it’s not so special and the store’s not so profitable.

     “I know this refrigerator is nine-hundred dollars off but is there any discount on that?”

     “Besides the nine-hundred dollars you just saw as the sale?”

     “Oh, but it’s still so expensive!”

     “Then go by one that you can afford.”

     Retail stores & grocery stores shouldn’t be afraid to tell a customer “no”.  Just like you had to learn to tell your child “no” when he or she wanted to eat Twinkies as their breakfast.  Maybe, if the customer hears it enough things will go back to being normal.  Customers won’t think they can walk all over a company just because they know the company will do anything to please them.  And if a customer threatens to walk out the door and shop elsewhere, well, to paraphrase the line, “If you love something, let it go.  If it’s meant to be, they’ll return.”  I can’t tell you the number of people I’ve seen walk through our doors and tell me, “I never thought I’d be shopping here again…”  Time heals all wounds and all egos.

     Again, customers:  live within your means.  It’s nice to have the BMW but maybe you’re just a Ford kind of guy.  It’s okay if you weren’t born in the top 3% of the income bracket.  Shit happens!  Do you think I like slumming it with the rest of the 97%?  Let me put that in a more friendly way…

     Welcome to our store!  How can we help you??
     More soon from the frontlines...

Why Show It Online When It's Not In Your Stores?

     This is a quick recap of an interaction I had the other day with a customer over the phone.  I hope you are as amused by this as I was.

     I received a call from a customer who was looking for a product he had seen online.  He wanted to come in and see the product before making a purchase.  We get these phone calls often and it’s typically no big deal.  He gave me the store’s special product number for the product he was looking for and I proceeded to look it up in our computer system.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t finding anything.  I figured that I had misheard him or he just gave me the wrong number.  That second option is a much more likely scenario:

     “Sorry, sir, that isn’t the model number.”

     “Are you sure?”

     “As sure as several years here can make me.”

     I asked for the model number as a second option but I still came up empty.  I asked him where he found the item that he wanted and he told me it was my store’s website.  I went online and sure enough it was right there when I typed in the model number.  There was just one problem.

     In big letters it said, “NEW ARRIVAL” and the “Add To Cart” button was blocked out.  Now, whenever a company is blocking you from purchasing something, you typically can’t buy the product because the manufacturer hasn’t released the product for sale yet.  Why would a retailer, in the business of making money off of the stupid shit people buy, want to withhold said stupid shit they could sell?

     I tried to explain to the customer the situation.

     “I’m sorry, it looks like we can’t order this product just yet because it’s not in stock at our warehouse yet.”

     “But it’s on your website.”

     “I know, but it just hasn’t arrived to our warehouse yet.  It’s a new product.”

     This is where most people would realize that it’s out of our control and they’ll just have to wait if they really want the product.  Most people.

     “Well, alright, I tried to make a sale with you but it’s your fault that I’ll have to go get it from somewhere else.”

     My fault?  I’m sorry, did any of you see the part where I was promoted to CEO of my company?  By the way, I can guarantee you all that that has not happened.  How can an hourly employee be in charge of who puts products up on our website or the time it takes manufacturers to send their products to our warehouses?  And the product he wanted wasn’t even more than $300.  My store was not going to close because we lost a $300 sale.  Had I been on commission, I wouldn’t be losing sleep over letting a big sale like that get away from me.  Don’t try to make it seem like you were doing me a favor by throwing me such a large sale.

     Don’t shoot the messenger, everyone.  I’m not paid enough to feel heartbroken because you couldn’t receive your Snuggie and have to trudge to another store for it.  I have no special powers that can make something you want appear out of thin air.  If something can’t be gotten, it can’t be gotten.  Simple as that.
     More soon from the frontlines...

More Meetings Than The President

     Something I miss from my job at a grocery store was the lack of store meetings I had to attend.  That is something quite different from my current job in electronics.  I don’t know where this idea that people pay attention the best or learn the best before 8am but it needs to stop.  Unfortunately, it seems that the more I hear stories from others in both grocery and retail chains, the more I hear that store meetings are becoming more common.  Is that something all of you out there can attest to?  I’d be real interested in hearing how many of you have to attend store meetings as part of your training for your position and how often those meetings are.

     What confuses me is just how a grocery store can have a store meeting.  What do typical hourly workers need to know about their job that requires everyone?  Every meeting I ever had was in my department whenever we had some extra time with our supervisor.  They typically took 5-10 minutes and we would bullshit whenever we had them so we often stretched those 5-10 minutes into 20-30 minutes.  They were great because I learned what I needed and I didn’t need to waste time on some big production.  In the world of electronics?  A totally different mindset.

     At my store, it seems we have at least 1 a month.  Generally, however, I have 2-3 meetings a month.  These meetings often last anywhere from a half hour to 2 hours and can involve either the entire store or specific departments within the store.  Most go over information that I could probably sum up in a third of the time.  Not to mention I could do it at a fraction of the cost it’s costing the managers to bring in everyone for an additional 2 hours of spent labor.  For someone who is just a normal, full-time employee working a job that I didn’t have to go to school for, these meetings feel like overkill to me.

     It’s not even the fact that we’re having meetings early in the morning, although that is a HUGE part of my frustration.  It’s about having to leave after the meeting only to return later in the day for a regular shift.  And in a typical electronics store that closes by 10pm or so, that gap between meeting and shift tends to be only a few hours or so.  This is hardly enough time to get anything meaningful done in your day.  Not to mention, you’re generally too tired after the meeting to want to do anything else.  So, you just go home, nap, and come straight back to work, having felt as if you’ve never left.

     These meetings can be helpful, no doubt, but generally they just go over information I’ve already been told from one of my supervisors or the store manager in a one-on-one situation.  So, really, these meetings are just a rehashing of information I already knew.  My store does it on the worst possible day, too – Saturday mornings.  Wow, thanks for getting me up at 6am on a Saturday for no reason!  I think that bugs me the most about these meetings.  It’s just such an inefficient use of labor.  With all the managers and supervisors that complain about a lack of money for scheduling, they sure don’t know how to manage their time properly.  Give me ten minutes during someone’s shift and I could relate whatever information you tried to relate in your 2 hour meeting.

     But to mention this to anyone in a position of “power” in the store is futile.  The supervisors don’t want to counter anything the store manager says, in general, since they tend to be the key for them to move up in the business.  Nobody wants to rock the boat in a store.  Whenever I suggest we change the time for these meetings or suggest a different method of delivering store news to my supervisor, I’m just given a nod and a, “I know but this is just how things are.  I have to be at these things, too, you know?”  Well, if you resent having to be at them, why not try and change that?

     The job appraisal meetings are generally a waste for me, as well, for a few reasons.  I don’t have any desire to move up in the world of retail so I’m fine in the position I hold.  I’ve been there so long that there’s no room to really move for my pay (at least that’s what they tell me).  Plus, I’ve been there so long that I’ve pretty much got the operating duties down pat for my department.  So when I go into these meetings, it’s basically a carbon copy of the last meeting.

     “You’re doing a great job.  Keep up what you’re doing.  We appreciate your leadership in the department.”

     “Okay, cool.”

     I’m glad to have gotten up so I could find out that nothing is different from last month/quarter/year/whenever.  The supervisor who is doing the review seems just as bored with the process as I am, too.  That half-enthused gusto they try to put into your meeting to make it seem like what you do is earth shattering and unique is just pointless hype.  I’ll go more into appraisals elsewhere.

     1 big meeting that occurs every year is the “Christmas season training” where we prep everyone for what is to come.  When you’ve been at one company for longer than two years, this meeting should be option.  How hard is it to know that there’s going to be a long line (for increasingly less impressive sales with each passing year), people will be running around like mad, and you’re going to feel like passing out two-thirds through your shift?  I attend these meetings and find the same information given out and each year it just gets more depressing because I used to enjoy the holidays but retail has made me hate them.  Only the new seasonal employees should have to attend these meetings.  It’s all about cutting out the wasteful spending in a store’s budget.  I’ll have more on the holiday season elsewhere but I’m just laying the groundwork for now.

     This overload of meetings does nothing more than to increase my annoyance with my company.  Like I stated in my subject, I feel like I’m going to more meetings than the president would.  How does that seem right?  It’s great to be trained but the time spent training shouldn’t outweigh the time spent actually doing your job.  Otherwise, if you’re going to make me feel like some board member or some high-ranking public servant, you better pay me as such.

     More soon from the frontlines…

"I'm Going To Repeat Myself Only Louder In The Vain Attempt You'll Change Your Mind!"

     A fun common thread that all retail work includes is the amount of yelling customers tend to do.  Fortunately, it’s not a common thread, but it’s a thread none-the-less.  It is an issue that generally occurs at the customer service desk at each store.  In all of my time, I would calculate that the amount of issues that got resolved to the customer’s satisfaction because they resorted to yelling stands at about a 30% success rate.  The other 70%, the customer’s acting like a complete asshole for no reason and get tossed out of the store once they begin to attract attention.  Well, other than they were too stupid to comprehend what they were buying, that is.

     First, the 30%.  The only reason managers or employees cave-in to a customer’s yelling and ranting is because they are tired of dealing with clearly insane people and have ten other things to get to more important.  Sorry to hear you left your new I-Pod in your car in 100 degree weather and now it won’t play, but you want us to take the product back, because…?  “WELL, BECAUSE YOU GUARANTEE YOUR PRODUCTS TO WORK FOR THE FIRST x-amount OF DAYS!  IT’S NOT MY FAULT!”  Riiiiight.  Customers who fuck up don’t ever want to admit they fucked up and will always claim an issue isn’t “their fault”.  They get pissed at stores for not taking responsibility but when there’s an issue that’s clearly their fault, they will not own up to it.

     If customers want to be treated like children, don’t be surprised when you are.

     So, the 30% shouldn’t feel like they won the Indy 500 just because they got their way over some small issue that probably wasn’t the store’s fault.  Calm down – you threw a tantrum and got your way.  The same thing works for 3 year olds.

     Now, the 70%.  Personally, I wish more people would resort to yelling, because I love watching people get escorted out of stores because they were screaming.  Who let’s an issue escalate to the point where they start yelling?  I don’t know 1 time when I’ve yelled at someone because of an issue at a restaurant or retail store.  Plus, like I mentioned, it’s the 70% that never get their way by yelling.  So, what does it accomplish?  Does it make you feel big that you screamed at, most likely, an 18-24 year old behind a customer service desk who did nothing other than repeat business procedure to you about a return or a defective product?

     People DO realize that the people working at the retail stores don’t actually MAKE the products they’re buying, right?

     “Your store shouldn’t sell crap that just breaks down on someone five months later.”

     Well, imagine how many people are out there who probably purchased your product and didn’t have an issue.  There’s always a lemon, remember.  A farmer’s yearly yield of oranges sometimes produces a few individual oranges that go bad by the time they reach the grocery stores.  Should grocery stores stop carrying produce from that farmer because they can’t guarantee every single item put on display will remain fresh by the time you get it to your table?

     If you really want to get your way, go in with a level head and a pleasant attitude.  A cheerful, understanding customer who politely asks if there’s anything the employees can do to help you works a million times better than a screaming, idiotic, customer.  I will go 10 times beyond what’s asked of me for a customer who is polite and friendly than I would for a dick who demands or rushes me when I’m trying to help them.  I know we all have bad experiences with retail but there’s no need to let it affect how you act now.  Again, the only people I know of that can get away with acting petulant are 2-4 year olds.  Everyone else should grow up.  Got it?

     There are plenty of issues that arise in the store where customers yell, or snap, and I’ll be getting into specific stories later.  But for now, just remember, if you get a product you’re not 100% satisfied with, it’s not going to do you any good to go into the store and yell and attract attention to yourself.  Unless you want to make the employees working at the store laugh at you after you storm out of the store.  Then, by all means, feel free to act like a jackass!  I work in retail – I need the laugh.  Breathe and calm down, everyone.

     More soon from the frontlines…