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The most common question that customers ask is “Where are the restrooms?”
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If a customer asks me a question, they will usually only say “Thank you” if I gave them the answer they wanted to hear. If a customer asks for a brand of jacket and I say “Yes, we have those over here,” they will almost always say “Thank you.” If I say, “I’m sorry, we don’t have those in anymore,” they will almost always say “Oh” and walk away.
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Expecting things such as an employee handbook, or basic info about our merchandise, was obviously a silly delusion on my part.
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Often times, customers ask such meticulous questions that I have to answer with something that “sounds about right.” Don’t ever expect associate-level employees to have confidence in their answers, especially if you’re asking about factory-level processing or about some handbag brand that was in stock six months ago. I’m not any more “informed” about our merchandise than you are.
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You know the beeping sensors in the entryway of the store, the ones that scan sensor tags for shoplifters? Those go off about every half hour or so.
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Broken plastic hangers cause more cuts and injuries than slippery floors, broken merchandise, and processing accidents combined.
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Parents love the opportunity to take a break from controlling their kids by letting the little monsters loose in the toy section. As long as they don’t have to pick up the mess, they don’t care.
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If an employee tells you “The people at the service desk can help you,” that usually means “I have no effing clue what the answer to your question is.”
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Customers have the most unscrupulous ways of trying to cut deals for themselves. That includes returning purchases in order to repurchase them on markdown.
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That rare customer that takes a moment to think about our side of the situation and say “Must be tough workin’ in here all day, huh?” is more appreciated than we can admit or they will recognize. The person who treats us as more than just leisure instruments will be the one we think fondly of when closing up that night.
I used to work in a store with over 200 different wines. It is amazing how many customers expect me to know how each one tastes. I knew the most basic descriptions, but if you expect me to tell you the difference between two Cabernets, you have deeply flawed expectations of a liquor store employee.
Yet people hate doubt in their wine choice. They go in without any knowledge of what they want from their wine and expect to leave with a good bottle of wine. If I tell them the truth they usually blame it on me. So I stopped doing that real fast.
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Sales associates don’t purchase inventory for the store. Customers should not ask them for outrageously detailed things (“I need a sweatshirt with no hood and a panda on the front”) and then yell at them when they don’t have it. Take that up with management.
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Don’t. Phone. Walmart. Hey, it’s your time, I’m just warning you.
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Yes, please god, leave your brats at home.
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Be polite in the fitting rooms!
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No, the sales clerk by the fitting room cannot measure your inseam, sir. How long did you say it’s been since you’ve had a shower?
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Those beeping sensors don’t catch a tenth of the stuff that gets out the doors. Finding empty, cut open digital camera boxes wrapped in sweaters is common. Unfortunately, killing work hours by thinking up ways to steal stuff is also common. I find this truly sad.
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No, I can not go in the “back room” and find you a size 17 pair of jeans with butterflies embroidered on them. Maybe if you were in a boutique, that would be possible. Have you SEEN the “back room” in a giant discount department store? It’s approximately the same size as the front of the store…vast! I could tell you, “Sure, I’ll be back with what you need in three days.” Or I could say, “Absolutely, be right back” then go have a cup of coffee before coming and telling you we don’t have them. But a better option is if you just realized that whatever is stocked is what you have to choose from. My apologies.
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Your telephone question disorder is not the fault of the person who answered the phone. If you and 468 other people were transferred to electronics, I can not do anything about the people who did not pick up the phone in electronics. I don’t even know who’s back there. And seriously…my deepest apologies for your inconvenience…but I’m just not getting paid to care. Your best bet is honestly to just ask whoever answers the phone to transfer you to management. They USUALLY pick up the phones when paged. If all else fails, please see #12.
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Don’t expect every person in an ugly uniform to know where every single item in every department of the store is. If the place is gigantic, assume they only know where things are in one department.
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While working in a gigantic discount store, a sales clerk should never wave their hands toward the southwest corner of a cornfield-sized building and say, “What you’re looking for is over there.” Walk the customer over and show them. They probably just came from “over there” and didn’t find what they wanted. If the store covers more than an acre of land, the old guy with the cane is going to need more guidance than a shrug and a gesture.
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Don’t respond to customer questions in “store speak.” That is, if someone asks you, “Hey, do you have panties that match this bra?” Don’t respond by saying, “Well that’s a NRPL [pronounced nurple] so if there aren’t any on the shelves, we don’t have them.” Responding in that manner in a condescending way is even more inappropriate.
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Making nine dollars an hour doesn’t make you a superior retail godess who knows all and sees all. If you’ve been working at some horrible discount store retail job for nine years, but you’re still cramming socks on a shelf next to me, lose the attitude.
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No matter what the calendar says (i.e., if it’s black Friday or Christmas Eve), we are not filming a redneck version of “Lord of the Flies” here. So while I know you’re in a hurry and are desperately looking for the correct size of Spongebob Squarepants pajamas for four dollars, please have the common decency to at least wait your turn before throwing items in the display all over the store. The “deal” doesn’t REALLY run out at 11:00 am, it runs out when we’re out of junk.
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Oh! And while I’m at it…to the snobs: I’ve laughed hilariously when I overheard you saying, “This looks cheap!” With disgust. Yes, it IS cheap. You’re in a warehouse-sized discount store, shopping for four dollar pajamas. They are cheap because they are CHEAP. There is nothing wrong with cheap. If you want something else, go to Nordstrom.
Oh, sorry. I guess I was annoyed and went overboard. Thanks for the thread that gave me the opportunity to vent!
I’ve spend plenty of time on the front lines of retail so I can identify and agree with most of that. I didn’t get many questions about restrooms, but cashiers probably get that a lot more than floorpersons. My most frequent question would have been, “Do you have <product>?” 99.9% of these people just walked in the store and haven’t even bothered looking. A significant percentage of them asked me while standing in front of the endcap the product they were looking for is being displayed on.
I’ve also done my share of “baffling 'em with bullshit,” but only if I am confident that I know just enough about the subject to make it sound plausible. Otherwise I’ll just own right up and say, “I have no idea.” Customers do appreciate candor, but mostly it’s a good way to get them to shut up and stop asking questions best answered by someone who actually has something to do with the product beyond selling it. Occasionally it just causes them to ask the same questions in progressively more general terms in hopes of getting something out of me. There have been really dense ones whom I’ve told, “You’ll probably have to ask the manufacturer that question,” which should indicate my limited knowledge on the subject, but which just goes right over their head causing them to ask more questions I don’t know the answer to and have to repeat the same line several times.
Some other truisms from my own experiences:
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Forcing staff to place security tags on CDs and DVDs is a completely pointless endeavour, since thieves don’t steal the whole damn package. They find some secluded place to slit the package open and just take the disc.
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“Loss Prevention Officers,” in attempting to enhance security and reduce shrinkage, usually just make shit up in order to make it look like they’re doing something and justify their position. I’ve got stories about one in particularly absurd officer.
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Further to your #5, those sensors go off so often with false alarms that 99% of the time they end up being completely ignored.
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90% of the stuff that gets returned at the customer service desk either A) Works fine and the returnee just made something up to justify returning it, or B) Doesn’t work because of some dumbass thing the customer did with it that he won’t admit to because then he won’t get his money back.
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Almost all 90% of those people don’t get the same product in exchange.
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Sadly, the ratio of people who take the time to treat you like a human being compared to those to whom you are just a talking fixture is measured in fractions of a percent. Those who actually compliment you to a superior either personally or with a letter is so rare that it’s only talked about in terms of an urban legend. (I’ve only had it happen once. Ever.)
I truly only ever ask for assistance in two situations: 1) if I’ve been asked right at the entrance to the store “Can I help you find something?” (which happened to me at REI last week, I said “I need earmuffs” and the helpful clerk led me right to what I needed); and 2) if I’ve looked everywhere that makes sense to me in terms of the product and the layout of the store.
In the case of the second situation, it infuriates me when the clerk walks over to the very same area I’ve been perusing for 30 minutes and begins to scan the exact same shelves. DUDE or DUDETTE, I asked you for a reason. I can stand in front of a set of shelves and look lost just as well as you can. If I ask you for help finding something that you advertised that you have, I expect you to do something that I CAN’T do, like look up in your inventory computer and see if you still have it and where it would be.
Some people don’t have your skills. They will look in the area where the item is supposed to be and still won’t find it. It happens. Don’t blame the stock boy/girl for the failings of society.
Also, sometimes the selves have markers that tell the employees that the item is out of stock. Also, sometimes the employee knows that the store is down to its last two items of something and can figure out it is no longer in stock by seeing that it is no longer on the self. So by looking at the same spot you’ve looked at, an employee can figure out more things than you can.
It’s been 10 years since I’ve worked retail, but I still remember a few things keenly.
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If you’re answering the phones, and say “[store.] We’re open from [time] to [time] today, how may I help you?” 65% of people will immediately ask “What are your hours today?” I know this because we got bored on Sundays and kept track. Very few people in that 65% give any indication that they’ve heard you say the hours before asking.
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The giant 8’x10’ signs hung above restrooms and fitting rooms are invisible to a huge % of people.
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While it’s acceptable to rip open packages of socks and underwear to “see how they feel” it’s not possible to bring that package to the register. Instead you must throw the opened packages on the floor of the aisle and take an unopened package to check out. Even if the package is designed to be resealable!
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It is apparently more efficient time-wise, to hold clothing up to your kids to see if the item will “fit” and drive back to return it when it doesn’t than to bring kids over to a fitting room a few feet away and have them try the clothing on.
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After you’ve begged a sales person to look out back for something and have been warned it might take a few minutes to find it, it’s perfectly acceptable to disappear without a trace, never to be seen again by the person lugging what you asked for (like a crib mattress) back to where you’d been three minutes before.
Oh! Oh! This drives me nuts! (Yes, I am the queen of the exclamation point this morning!)
The manufacturer packaging vs. messy customer thing is very much on my mind after spending 8 hours picking up an apparel department. So…
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I understand that you want the store to look fully stocked and you want to get stuff out of the inventory room and on to the floor to sell it. But PLEASE…do we have to cram every peg so full of stuff that any time a person turns down that aisle 57 things fall from the pegs onto the floors? I HATE being buried in bags of socks while I’m shopping and now that I know it happens on purpose, I’m even more annoyed. Shoppers don’t want to stand in an aisle for 20 minutes and re-stock shelves with stuff that just fell on them.
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Items that people wear in particular should never be packaged in such a way that you can’t see how big the item is or how it feels without destroying the packaging. This is annoying for customers AND for the people who have to re-package and re-sort all the burst open underwear wrappers. I’m sick of getting home and finding that my panties don’t fit. And speaking of that…
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Don’t return underwear. And don’t exit a fitting room with a pair of panties and hand them to the clerk, saying, “These don’t fit.” We instantly fill out a claims ticket for these things and they end up getting thrown out. I would think anyone with a grain of sense would know that, but it happens EVERY SINGLE DAY. Gross.
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Back to packaging. Inventory does not need to arrive at a store in 17 layers of packaging if it’s not breakable. Opening a box of clothing that a store received is like playing with Russian nesting dolls. There’s a box wrapped in plastic inside a box and inside that, there are 48 boxes wrapped in plastic which hold items of clothing, also wrapped in plastic. Hasn’t anyone figured out that this is wasteful?
Dang, I’m really bitter. I’m also an idiot. I am a professional who took a part time job in retail just to get out of my house and away from my computer for a few hours a week. I’ve worked in mall-type retail stores before, in college and for part time jobs here and there, and my illusions about what it would be like to work in a gigantic discount store were numerous. One odd thing I’ve found is that the other employees are MEAN. Sure, at any job, there are a couple of mean people and you just deal. But in this case, it’s the norm not the exception. And it really brings out the worst in ME…I find myself becoming nastier as the day progresses, ready to snap at anyone.
The greeters should really hand out helmets to everyone who enters the store instead of carts. Both for shoppers AND store employees.
I learned that people think that posted store hours are suggestions, and don’t understand why you’re not thrilled at the idea of letting them in “just to look at something real quick” at 8:58 when the store closes at 9. And the reason why is that I know once you are inside and it’s past 9, I will never get rid of you and I will be leaving my job at 10:30 instead of 9:30 like I’d hoped.
If you enjoy being put out on the sales floor, talking to customers, and helping them find what they need, chances are astronomical that you’ll get assigned to a cashier position where all you can do is point.
Corollary: Such customers have no idea what it means to “close out” a till, and therefore can’t understand why your decision not to let them in the store is not merely based on the fact that you don’t want them there past closing, but you couldn’t sell them whatever it is they want anyway because the tills have been closed out for the day, and reopening them for just one customer is just not happening.
Gadzooks, I’m glad I’m no longer working in retail.
I really have nothing else to add, except, “Yep. I’ll go along with the OP, because I’ve paid my dues.”
I’m working at a store that doesn’t close. Ever. Okay, they are closed on one day of the year, Christmas day. Otherwise, if you want to try on shoes at 3 in the morning, you’re free to do so. Ack!
Much wisdom has been added to this thread, I see!
Inventory computer? We have no such thing. Associate-level employees at my store also aren’t allowed access to any computer except the ones used at the registers (which only log into the register display, they can’t search inventory). The reason we often search the exact same shelves the customer searched is because half the time, the product is there, the customer just didn’t look hard enough. Even when they say something like, “I looked everywhere,” half the time they clearly didn’t. I’ve learned to just ignore that statement at this point.
Oh do I ever hear ya. What really riles me though, is when the store closes at 9:30, having had PA announcements saying “Our store will be closing at 9:30” for the fifteen minutes previous, and yet, at 9:45 we still find people casually perusing the aisles. Not even at the register yet.
I never think of people in retail sales that way.
Whacked-out borderline functional drones, yes. 
*when I’m buying a bottle of a vitamin supplement and you start into your “wanna become a customer club member with undreamed-of benefits” spiel, and I interrupt with “Not interested, thanks” - it is not a sufficient reason to practically throw my purchase at me after I’ve paid.
I cannot remember a time when the employee went to the shelves I had been perusing for the last 30 minutes and either reached out to find the product I needed or was able to tell me that the product was out of stock just by looking. They’ve either said “Oh, if they’re not here, I don’t know where they would be” (I don’t know either, which is why I asked you if I had been looking in the right place) or “hmmm, let me check the computer” and then they went and did that.
Confirmation bias being what it is, I’m willing to concede that there has probably been some times when the associate did reach out and pluck the product from in front of my very nose, and I just don’t remember it right now.
Of course, there have been times when the associate was able to tell me that I had been in the wrong section, and the widget I needed was on aisle 10 instead of aisle 2.
Great, so next time I’ll become one of those annoying customers that doesn’t even bother to look for myself before coming to an already-overworked associate and asking them to do my shopping for me. Since I’m going to be ignored anyway.
Look, I worked retail for one horrific year in high school, and believe me, I am aware that customers can be morons. I just wish that there was some middle ground, some way to communicate to the associate that I actually DID look for a significant period of time in the most logical place I assumed the product would be, and now I need to know if you’re out or I’m looking in the wrong place.
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The theory that Black Friday doorbusters (that you lose money on) bring customers into your store to spend money on other profitable things is a complete myth. These people are the cheapest MF’ers on the planet. They want their $30 DVD player, $150 laptop, and “free after rebate” scanner and not a single thing more.
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Product information/price signs are invisible to the majority of customers and serve as cue cards for the majority of sales people.
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Problems of maufacturers, suppliers, vendor automatically become the stores problem. Product is a piece of crap? Manager’s fault. Can’t get enough supplied of product X? Manager’s fault. Vendor never sent you your rebate? Managers fault. Software won’t load on your PC? Manager’s fault.
KnitWit, I had what I think was exactly your job at the same store for a bit over a year. And you have already posted every point I can think of. I have escaped but I still cringe when I think about that job. You have allllllll my sympathy!
I once showed a guy to the pillow aisle, whereupon he yanked the plastic off a pillow, lay down to “test” it, then put the one he “tested” back and grabbed a wrapped one. “Um…sir, why don’t you just take that one?”
“I want one that hasn’t been opened!”
I swear to Og it really happened.
Please, share!
How about asking, “Are you out or am I looking in the wrong place?” 
But, seriously, there should be a test tacked on as part of getting a driver’s license. When you pass, you get a little sticker on it, and you can show it to waiters, retail clerks, etc. It also gets you a discount at thousands of businesses, because they know they’re not going to have to spend as much time invested into customer service for sticker holders.