See the first paragraph under “domestic segment.” One supposes that will really help employee morale. :rolleyes:
This kind of thing has always struck me as sacrificing long-term viability for short-term gain. Employees are like all other things that cost money: you get what you pay for. Even if the newer, cheaper kids they hire are good and motivated, the company is still losing a lot of accumulated experience. And I doubt that customers will think it’s an improvement. The company isn’t going to be cutting any prices. So for a customer, things will be the same except that every employee in the store but the manager won’t know how to be helpful beyond ringing up an order. I guess the publics’ expectations have been lowered to the point that the company can write off the loss of business due to bad service from newbies.
So, why were they paying these people more than other employees? Did they have better performance records (which in CC would mean selling more stuff)? Had they been there longer? Whatever the reasons, one hopes that they were being paid more because they were worth more. If not, then CC should sack the peoplw who made the decision to pay them more: it would save more money in the long run.
I just love the corporate speak:
Separation? :rolleyes:
I bet they’d just been there longer. The non-management folks at my husband’s store* that make the most are the ones that have been there the longest.
Way to keep the trained employees around, CC. :mad:
*NOT a CC store
I think they’re just following suit as to what Best Buy did a decade and a half ago. Got rid of commisioned sales people. While CC got rid of the commisioned sales person also a few years back I think they were still stuck with sales people who shifted from commision to non-commision and were being payed inflated hourly salaries.
The sad part is people want the info and customer service of a well informed well educated sales person but when it comes time to plop their money down they just rather grab one off the shelf at Costco for the cheaper price ala HDTVs.
Maybe they hired a lot of conjoined twins? 
Information is available to consumers who are smart enough to find it. I don’t trust the people that are are trying to sell me something, I trust the people who have used the product I am buying. (Internet forums, reviews, etc.).
It is unfortunate that our economy is putting more emphasis on the bottom line then customer service. It is also unfortunate that these people are losing their jobs at circuit city. But if these are the experienced people that value customer service they are laying off, I think they will be better off somewhere else anyway. Somewhere that respects their experience.
Merit pay cuts for everyone!
Most customers have one expectation: that they are entitled to the lowest price possible with the highest level of customer service available. To acknowledge a correlation between the two would cause their heads to implode from cognitive dissonance.
Not to mention, if a customer actually has a decent shopping experience, they miss out on the fun of posting to an internet message board bemoaning the Epsilons they had to navigate on their way to purchasing their 40" plasma television.
As a retail hourly wage slave who is paid more than $7 an hour, but not enough to support myself or my family at anything more than “barely making it” level, I have great sympathy for these employees. Sure, Circuit City says, we’ll hire you back…after 10 weeks, and at the much lower starting salary. Okay, wait, let’s be honest here. The newspaper article I read said that anyone making more than approximately $10 an hour was axed. That’s not “considerably more” than starting wage. That’s hardly an “inflated” wage. I just know that Circuit City will no longer be on this family’s list of places we shop.
No, that’s what customers think they deserve. What they expect is crappy service and they’ll do whatever it takes to make that prophecy self-fulfilling. Customers complain and bitch about bad employees but they still expect to deal with them. CC must figure that having inexperienced employees won’t really hurt the bottom line because customers already expect crappy service.
Shit, and just when I was getting comfortable shopping there because the workers seemed more knowledgeable than the other big box employees. I guess that’s about to change.
Add that to the fact that they’re closing down the only CompUSA in the area and now we’ve got nowhere to shop where the employees actually know more than the customers.
How can these chains expect to motivate employees to learn about what the hell they sell when they don’t pay 'em enough to motivate them?
And now the average employee there will be the typical high school kid who’s always on the lookout for a higher paying job. Sucks. And I was willing to pay their (slightly) higher prices for the better service and knowledge.
Also, at this point, they probably realized that if they want to stay afloat, they will need to follow Best Buy’s model.
Where I am, it is a lot easier to find a Best Buy than a Circuit City. For what it is worth, I’ve never found the service at Circuit City to be much better than the Best Buy.
‘Transformation?’ Abracadabra! They will ‘generate a more consistent in-store customer experience’ by making sure all staff are equally stupid! There’s yer consistency, folks!
My daughter’s boyfriend works at CC now, and he’s allowed 30 hours, not enough for benefits. I wonder, besides the pay cut, how many of the full time jobs being cut are going to be replaced by part time jobs.
My experience is that I have always received much better cutomer service at Circuit City than at Best Buy.
Motivate? Learn? What makes you think the big box chains have any expectations that their grunts are going to do anything more than stock shelves and ring up sales?
Hampshire has it 100% right, paying good money to a knowledgable staff is GREAT for giving your customers answers, it’s worthless for getting customers to buy stuff at your store. People want the lowest price, if they can get the thing $50 cheaper at Wal Mart or Costco, they will, in a heartbeat, and they won’t shed a single tear for the half hour they spent picking your skilled worker’s brain.
This is especially true in the retail jungle that is electronics and other pre-packaged goods that are identical from store to store.