My first job out of high school was at a gym. Near the end of my time there, I worked the night shift at the front desk. The owner impressed upon me the importance of the members coming in and handing me their membership card so I could scan it for them, as opposed to putting the scanner where they could do it themselves. He told me that it was important to establish that connection with them, that the act of them handing me their card made us bros for life, or something. When he later sold the gym and I was still a member there, they changed it so we could scan it ourselves as we walked in. I, and I’m sure most everyone there, liked that a lot better. I know that I’m not trying to establish some sort of rapport with whoever is working the front desk (well, maybe that hot blonde with the belly button ring). I just want to get in, get my workout on, and get out.
Also, when I moonlighted as a bouncer at a pool hall a few years later, I overheard the manager telling the servers to make sure that they checked in with each table every five minutes to see if they need anything. I don’t know about most of you, but I don’t need to be bugged that often. Check in every once and a while, but other than that just be prepared to help me if I make eye contact and summon you over. I’m not here to be waited on hand and foot, I’m here to enjoy a meal with some friends and don’t need you interrupting me every two minutes.
What else have you noticed in your career that your bosses seem to believe is true but you know is just not?
Somebody must think it is a good idea for a waiter to say, “Hello, my name is Brian and I will be your server for this evening”, but it isn’t.
I think the worst is the supermarket owner who is terrified that some day a checker might be unoccupied and it will cost him money. He doesn’t appear to realize that every single dollar that goes into his till has to go through a checkout clerk and by restricting the number of them he is reducing his total take. It shows up in customers deciding not to shop there; it has to.
Amen! I’ve pretty much given up on shopping at the Ikea near here. There will be 7-10 people lined up at every register, and only half of the registers open. Meanwhile, on the display floors, there are employees wandering all over the place, asking if you need help finding things. Yes, I need help finding a register I can pay at in under 10 minutes.
Music- Apparently someone has convinced business owners that louder is better, expecially in restaurants. If I can’t hear my dinner companions, I’m not likely to become repeat business. My friends are much more interesting than your sound track.
Indeed, add bars and clubs to this. Where is it written that the louder the music = more fun? I do kinda like to talk to the people I’m with, without getting hoarse.
“Hello, Welcome to <business name here>” does not need to be shouted at every customer as they enter your fast food/Qwiki-Mart-esque establishment. Really. I don’t want to feel obligated to respond to your underpaid and harried staff on my way to the beer cooler. I am not going to buy more beer because the cashier shouted his welcome. I won’t buy less beer if he fails to greet me at all. I’m in your store because I’m thirsty. Sell me my beer and shutup already.
I don’t need to be bothered when I’m clothes shopping - if you obviously look like a clerk, I will come find you when I need assistance. Otherwise, I’m just here to look through the racks - if I find something I like, then we can discuss trying it on. Likewise, if I actually AM looking for something particular, I will look for you when I come into the store.
Calling me Mrs. My (mangled) Last Name after I’ve finished grocery shopping does nothing but annoy me. I don’t use Mrs. for anything, and you mis-pronounced my name - how am I supposed to feel about that? Like your corporate policy that you force your cashiers to follow has made me less of a walking wallet to you?
ETA: Forgot one - my husband no longer talks to me when we go out to eat because there’s a tv on every wall in every restaurant. Thanks.
Yes, the ridiculous and untrue idea that customers are just dying to hear people say their name. “Okay, I’m ready to take your order, Mrs. Johnson. Now, Mrs. Johnson, if you’ll just give me the number of the first item? Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. Now, Mrs. Johnson, that item is out of stock, but we can substitute . . .” Just knock that the fuck off.
And the “I feel your pain” statement: “I understand that it must have been very frustrating for you to learn that the item was out of stock. Please accept my condolences. Now, Mrs. Johnson . . .”
Disney psychology. Music a little higher than is comfortable forces everyone to talk louder than normal and the idea is jazz them up and get them excited so they’ll feel like they’re having a much better time and spend more money.
If a business has bigger, larger, taller and brighter signs, they’ll get more business. Auto dealers often believe that those buying cars base their decisions not on test drives, recommendations from friends, reviews from magazines and Web sites, and so on, but on the size of the sign in front of the dealership, the number of pennants draped from the light poles, and the presence of an inflatable gorilla or flailing arm man on the premises.
In reality: the market size and area’s disposable income do not increase if sign sizes increase. When meeting with businesspeople opposed to signs, I always ask them this: if signs are bigger and taller, how many more people are going to find themselves in the market for a new car, refrigerator, or Happy Meal? How much more gasoline will they buy? How much more money will they have to spend? Reality: the market won’t change a bit, whether everybody has 6’ tall monument signs or Texas-sized high-rise signs that can be seen from space.
In many retail stores, such a greeting as you enter (and from floor employees as you wander around) is an anti-shoplifting measure as much as anything else. “Hi, we know you’re here, and we’re watching you . . . to see if there’s anything we can help you with, yeah, that’s it.”
But, I agree, the lady back in the kitchen area yelling “GOOD MORNING! HOW ARE YOU?” when I walk into Chipotle when she should be making sure the barbacoa is actually hot for putting into my taco instead of . . . sorry, I got off track. That one I don’t get at all.
Likewise, whoever decided it’s good for call center workers to apologize constantly needs to spread the word that they were wrong. I can’t decide if it’s worse with off shore call centers in India or if it’s just my imagination. I find it particularly grating to deal with given my polite-but-assertive approach to customer service reps, which calls for rejecting their apology in lieu of actual resolution…
It’s a fire code thing, I believe. If it’s possible for people to be in the store, then the door has to be unlocked. I’m assuming that it is specific to non-crashbar doors which can be opened from the inside even if locked.
"Hello, thank you for calling Business Name. This is MyName, how can I help you?"
You can help me by not wasting so much time answering the damn phone. I resent the delay in being able to transact my business far, far more than I appreciate being thanked for the laudable magnanimous act of calling you.
The ones who say “Would you like to try one of our new whatever-we’re-pushing-todays?” are worse yet, by several orders of magnitude. If I ask for one of those, it sure as hell isn’t because the clerk brought it up.
Or another reason: it’s loud back in the kitchen, so the people working there turn the music up so they can hear it. But since the owner was too cheap to provide separate volume controls for kitchen & dining area, the music is then too loud in the customer dining area.
Another one: waiters who say “good choice!” or similar when the customer gives them an order. Rude and annoying. They’re paid to take orders, not to critique them.
The thing you have to understand is what is good for the business, isn’t necessarily good for the customer.
I worked in a hotel and I HATED pushy reseravtionists and upsales by front desk clerks.
I did a Six Sigma study with using scripted sales versus, free sales for upsales and reservations.
When you didn’t let the consumer take control and “forced,” for a lack of a better word, them to respond to your script the sales went WAY UP. I mean WAY UP. I am talking at least 50%. In one round of testing it was near 70% increase.
So no, people don’t like to be scripted and talked into things, but it works. Sales DO GO UP.
So what’s is good for the business, is a pain for the customers, but because it works, the customers are subjected to it.
When I first did those studies, I couldn’t believe the results. I even participated in them myself to see, it just blew my mind that so many people could be manipulated into buying things. But they can.
My time is not so precious that the half a second difference between that and “Business Name, this is MyName. How can I help you?” matters.
It’s possible, I suppose, but I regard it as unlikely. My experience working in the kitchen and dishrooms of food establishments is that if you can’t hear the music, tough titties.
Blame Dale Carnegie, and his moronic assertion that the sound people most like to hear is their own name. I wear my name tag on my belt at the side at trade shows so I don’t have to be assaulted by some booth weasel repeating my name over and over.
If you ever come to Kansas City, do NOT go to a Gates BBQ. Their trademark is some girl screaming "HI, MAY I HELP YOU? at you as soon as you walk through the door.
My pet peeve is the belief that customers want their bills and receipt laid into their hands with the fucking coins piled on top! Damn it, the bills go into my wallet, the coins go into my pocket and the receipt usually gets thrown away.