Folks, with all due respect I have some thoughts.

I spent 18+ years in retail and I can tell you from first hand experience that the behavior of customers is as much to blame as the employers of these "customer service associates".

The public in general treats stores with little to no respect. Throwing merchandise on the floor, or knocking a display over and not caring a thing about it. Kids allowed to run rampant thru racks and into other customers. And heaven forbid they actually put something back where they found it! Nooooo, that would be too considerate. People complain that they can't find anything. Well if the last person would have replaced it when they changed their mind, there would be no issue.

Now you might say...."Isn't that the job of the employees?", and yes it is. But just because you are the shopper doesn't mean you get to turn into a bull-in-a-china-shop when you come thru that entrance. Respect people, simple as that.

To that end, I ALWAYS wish the associate good luck after they have finished my transaction. They need it. In addition I also put back what I don't get. It only takes a minute and makes a big difference. Here's a concept....you knock it down, you pick it up! Whoa.

You want the cheapest prices possible. Well guess what? PAYROLL is the biggest controllable expense in operating a business. Less associates at lower wages = lower operating costs = lower prices.

I pick up a retail job now and then, just to earn a few bucks (and I mean few). However I never miss working during the Holiday season. The job stinks, and the customers don't help the situation.

Anyone else that works(ed) retail can vouch for me.


p.s. Now I may be preaching to the choir since I am in the "Vintage" forum. I would hope that as we age, we have learned to respect others and not behave in such a way. Unfortunately I see the parents act as poorly as the kids in alot of cases.

 

Your post reminded me of my Dad. All his adult life he worked in a grocery store as a meat cutter. He worked in small stores before the likes of Kroger's and Albertson's. He knew his customers by name and how thick they wanted their steaks cut. Personal service!

Nothing irked him more than finding stuff in the aisles where it didn't belong because someone was either too lazy to put it back when he/she decided it was not needed, or just didn't take the time to hand it back to the clerk at the register, with an "I'm sorry I realized I don't need this."

I think of him if I get to the cash register and find stuff thrown in the magazine rack by someone who could not be bothered to hand it to a clerk.

Working with the public in retail, no easy task.

 

Hockey

You do raise some valid points, but I respectfully disagree with some of what you've said. Regardless of whether or not a customer returns merchandise to where he or she got it from, or even how the customer behaves, there is never any excuse for the sales help to have an attitude or to treat customers with the disrespect that I have seen in recent years. Yes, I agree that the shopper should have consideration, but the shopper's lack of manners is not a franchise for the sales help to behave in that fashion. Two wrongs still don't make a right.

That said, my point wasn't so much about that, but rather about the lack of customer service. Today it is just plain difficult to find sales help. This is a management decision, and not a reflection on the help. Moreover, when you can find sales help, they are usually poorly trained and have little knowledge of the product. Again, this is not the fault of the sales help, but rather a reflection on management. Management refuses to spend money on training, and sends poorly trained help to the sales floor and the cash registers.

Carmen and others came close to explaining the problem, the perceived need to sell cheaply and it's impact on the amount of pay available to the help and the amount of help hired, but even here, I have an argument. I think the lack of help, lack of decent pay and lack of training is short sighted on the part of management. Again, look at Home Depot. When they believed in customer service they did fine, as soon as customer service, in terms of sales help was cut to better serve the bottom line, sales and profits suffered. In the long run, the most successful stores probably will be those that offer a higher level of customer service. Those stores that choose to compete only on the basis of price very quickly become commodities themselves, and very quickly become yesterday's news. All it takes is for the new "kid" on the block to be able to sell a little cheaper. Just consider what Wal-Mart did to K-Mart or even Toys R Us. Had Toys been more careful about the look of its stores, its customer service, training it's help and all of the other things that make a retail operation go, they'd still own the category. Today, because of the bad choices their management made, Toy's R Us is probably going to leave the toy business. Imagine that.

 

Fair enough Ralper, fair enough.

To your point......there needs to be a happy balance between price driven marketing and customer service expectations.

 

I'm going to have to weigh in with Rob. Yesterday I went to the local Barnes & Noble and spent 25 minutes trying to find someone to help me find a book (which they did NOT have). It would have been so nice if the ONLY customer service center in the store didn't have a line stretching through several rows (like Disneyland). I left without buying anything at all even though I would have been interested in several items had I been able to get some assistance without the long wait. I came home and effortlessly ordered what I wanted from Amazon online. I did a great deal of my shopping online this year so I would not have to deal with grouchy overworked salesclerks, crowds, horrible parking situations, etc. I'm afraid this is a sign of the times and many smaller stores who've cut back on the sales force (and large retailers as well) will find that people are no longer willing to deal with the nastiness of retail shopping when we can find whatever we want at our fingertips, from home, via the net. The only people who'll be out shopping in the retail stores are the less computer literate -- I'm saddened, however, I want to be treated more nicely and fortunately for me, Amazon and other internet stores meet my needs and are nice about (ie free shipping and no sales tax).

 

Val

That is very interesting because yesterday Liz an I also went to our local Barnes & Nobles, but we had a very different experience. After I picked out my computer books, the two of us went into the CD section. Liz wanted to buy a few CDs but couldn't think of the artist's names or the album names. There was a young man and a young woman behind the counter. We bombarded them with questions and they gladly answered every one, even escorted us to the shelf and helped us to find the CDs. The store was reasonably busy, but they helped us and all of the other people who needed assistance. I was so surprized by them that they were, in fact the inspiration for this thread.

Coincidently, there are about 4 Barnes & Nobles within a 10 mile radius of my house. This one is the biggest, busiest but the best managed of them all. It is the one where customer service is usually good, and the merchandise is usually well maintained.

I think it all comes down to management, and the vision of the people running the store.

 

I have worked retail sales and as a teller in a bank. The average customer treats the sales clerk and teller as second class citizens. I have been chewed out in a bank for not being open Christmas Day when the customer needed us. It was a holiday for her, but it shouldn't have been for us. I have been chewed out by a customer because I didn't know where her child was. No place in my job description did it mention babysitting.

When I first went to work in the prison system, I worked in a store selling to the inmates. I always told the inmates what I liked about the store was I finally got to tell my customers what I really thought of them. Of course, it the inmates were rude to me or my staff (inmates), the transaction was over.

 

I could go on for hours, but I'd only be echoing most of what's said above on both sides. In the end, I think Rob is correct that a modest number of difficult customers does not give the store help an excuse to be rude... period. It's their job, and they are paid to do it. (I spent last X-Mas working at my local Macy's as a brilliant scheme to get most of my gifts at a discount. NEVER AGAIN!!! )

I'll just add this little anecdote:

My daughter has a close friend who's always been terrible with technology. Whenever he gets something new or a new program, she has to go over to his house to hook it up or tell him how to use it. She even had to fill out his online college applications because the whole process was too daunting to him. He's a nice boy, but due to his limited skills, he was having trouble finding a job. Last month he finally found his niche; he's the newest computer/electronics specialist at his local Best Buy!

 

In our small inner suburb, we are very lucky b/c the land values preclude ANY 'big box' within 8-10 miles Also, there are NO main roads that bi-sect our community. As a result, we have (right within our 1 square mile town with 3500 residents):

1) great old-fashioned hardward store, with wood floors and sales ppl who know the merchandise
2) independent movie theater....just re-opened as a twin screen w/ stadium seating....playing Ocean12 and Phantom of the Opera
3) family grocery store with an owner who KNOWS THE CUSTOMERS and their preferences.
4) liquor store with great (for PA ) wine selection
5) both a Greek and an Irish tavern
6) new Japanese grocery/deli/sushi bar....one of the few in the metro area
7) our own Post Office, where even the USPS employees (normally blase`) know the regular customers
8) a gourmet french pastry shop, and a toy store, and a Citizens Bank branch, and a Vintage clothing re-sale place, and a local florist....etc

Yes, the prices are 5%-10% higher in many of these stores, but we gladly pay them to support the community. We can WALK to any of these places in less than 10 minutes. Folks recognize many of these attributes and so have the real estate prices over the past few years

 

Sadly enough it does seem like this is the way things are done these days.

I used to joke about the cashiers at Wal-Mart. When they applied for the job, they were given a test. If they failed the test, they got the job.

Unfortunately, a big part of the problem is in the training, or the lack of it. I think Angela hit the nail on the head when she suggested that very few of today's store help are taught about customer service. I think that is a big part of the problem. Like everyone else, sales help need to be taught how to do their job. If management doesn't want to spend the money there will never be customer service.

An aside to all of this is that the internet is now becoming the cheapest seller. If you've been following the sales reports, most of the stores had a very disappointing Christmas season while the internet sales are up by big numbers. Even Wal-Mart had a disappointing season. The lesson is you cannot compete for long solely on the basis of cheap prices. Sooner or later, usually sooner, another store or source will come along and sell cheaper. Those stores that compete only on the basis of price become commodities, interchangable with no customer loyalty. Customer service is the only way, in the long run, for a store to get customer loyalty.