I’ve finally joined the ranks of those who hate Best Buy. I still like the product selection, but the fucking gauntlet of sales people one has to go through just to shop for a DVD is aggravating in the extreme. I went in there today, looking for a couple of movies and was asked no less than SEVEN FUCKING TIMES if I “needed help finding something”. Lessee, the films are in alphabetical order by genre; I’m pretty sure it ain’t gonna be a goddamn problem. Ya know, if I did need help, I’d probably ask one of the FIFTY GODDAMN SALES PEOPLE who are wandering about counting coup on customers. Enough, already! In addition to the automatons who keep swooping on you while you’re looking around, there’s the greeter when you come in and the receipt checker when you go out and the cashier, who all ask you the SAME FUCKING QUESTION!
As a rant, it’s not much, but I needed to get it off my chest.
God no. When I want to browse, the staff are on me like a Bangkok whore. If I actually want to buy, I could I could do a fan dance with a fistful of fiftys and get absolutely no one to take my cash. Tres peeve.
When I worked at a major toy store chain over the summer we were told to ask everyone if they needed help. A part of it was being friendly. Another part was letting the customer know that associates were always around in case they needed something or were thinking about stealing something.
Its’ annoying for all parties, but occassionally someone will think twice about pocketing those Yu-Gi-Oh cards or will actually get help.
Dear Og. I went into Office Max to purchase a computer. While I was waiting for the one sales person that *I had to go and find * to check on the availability, I was asked for help no less than seven times and asked twice by two of them.
Every other time I’ve been back, I have to search the store for help.
Not entirely. Although inventory shrink does encompass losses due to theft, it also includes loss due to accidental damage, inventory miscount, delivery errors, product expiration, price devaluation and all other causes of inventory value losses.
It’s based in fact. We were always told that our physical presence and asking potential shoplifters if they needed help would discourage them. It doesn’t stop the pros. They know you have to pee sometime.
I know it’s annoying but salespeople are supposed to ask people if they need help. We can’t always tell if one or more people have already asked you, or how long it’s been since they asked you. Working retail it always surprised me how few people will actively seek help if they need it. They just stand by the things they have questions about and wait for help and if they don’t get it soon enough then they are royally pissed. “I guess no one here cares about me as a customer or wants my purchase so I’ll take my toy truck and go elsewhere”
I will usually ask my coworkers if customer x has been helped so I don’t ask them 30 seconds after someone else has. You can’t just ask once though. You do have to go back and see if they are still doing okay.
I don’t get annoyed by several asking me if I need help. I just smile and say no thanks until I actually do. I do mind someone trying to pressure me into making a purchase or upselling me to something I don’t need. I also don’t like it when sales staff guesses at an answer they don’t know. Go look it up and then answer the question. I don’t need help guessing. I can do that myself. It also annoys me when I have to circle the store several times looking for an employee to help me. Unless they are very busy I shouldn’t have to do laps to get help.
You could actually get a BB salesperson to talk to you? More than one, even?
Every time we go there to buy something, I have to wander the aisles looking for an employee. Last time, it took nearly 20 minutes to find somebody who was available to get a monitor down off a high shelf for us, and a further 10 minutes to find somebody to sell it to me!
My son and I went to BB together and parted ways once we got in the store. I left empty-handed after I gave up trying to find someone to answer my questions and help me determined exactly what I needed. My son, on the other hand, could hardly walk down the aisles because of all the associates hanging all over him.
I just assumed it was because no one took a middle-aged woman seriously, whereas they thought a young man would help them meet their quotas.
It never occurred to me it was simply becuase he was a higher risk!
Perhaps some of those overzealous sales people could go get hired on at Lowe’s or Home Depot.
It’s exactly the OPPOSITE there. A person can never find help, and even if you do manage to nab a sales person, they never know anything about what you’re trying to find.
Folks, please. They were literally swarming all over the place. The only profile I fit is that of somebody’s grandfather. This has to be more than making sure nobody is shoplifting. There are what - five rows of DVDs, and I get accosted seven fucking times? How many sales people do they need in this area? What the hell does their payroll look like every month?
CanvasShoes: Man, ain’t that the truth. These places used to be well staffed, but the last time I went into Lowes, I had to get the hell out of there to get away from the incessant: “Sales associate to plumbing. Sales associate to plumbing. Sales associate to plumbing. SOMEBODY GET THEIR ASS OVER TO PLUMBING, GODDAMNIT!” Nobody seems to respond to these calls, ever. And when you approach one of the clusters of sales people who are apparently plotting ways to NEVER respond to these calls, they all suddenly find an intense interest in something else they need to do. And forget Home Depot, where they actually sneer at you. Is it like this elsewhere?
While I don’t want sales people swarming all over me, I would at least like someone to respond when I push the fucking button to, you know, summon the demon spawn.
When I worked at Kmart, they actually had this thing called the “10 Foot Rule”. If anyone came within 10 feet of you, you were supposed to stop and ask them if they needed help.
They have that at Wal-Mart too. And they specifically said that one of the main reasons they did it was to stop shoplifters. Luckily I worked at night so I didn’t have to talk to anyone except a few stoned people now and again.
It has been the policy of every store I’ve ever worked at.
Yes, it’s to provide good customer service, superficially. But any retail employee training program emphasises that eye contact, and making sure customers know you are walking around the store and are aware of their presence, is the biggest form of theft deterrent. Stores lose a lot to theft, and I imagine especially that things like DVDs are stolen pretty frequently. Retail theft by anyone but pros is usually a crime of opportunity – if you don’t give someone an opening, they aren’t going to steal. By asking someone if they need help, you’re saying “I’m right here watching you,” without saying, “I’m right here watching you.”
If a customer needs help, really, they’re going to find the employee or come to the service desk. Theives are going to hang around until the employees are absent. I worked one Christmas job when I was a teen solely as a “greeter” in a toy store, but my real function was pretty much nothing but loss prevention. I was on the sales floor to make sure people weren’t pocketing/walking out with merchandise.
I doubt most stores are going to have their employee handbooks or training manuals online for anyone to read, so you’ll have to take my word for it. Or not.