ZIP CODES!

[Imogene]

First off, a hearty F YOU! to my employers for requiring us to get zip codes from every, single, customer! I get so many hearing impaired and non-English speaking patrons... I can only get zip codes most of the time. And our store is STILL in the bottom for zip codes.

I had a guy and his daughter (young daughter, no older than ten?) come through my line yesterday. They were non-English, but the daughter could speak it.
I ask for Zip code, daughter doesn't understand it. Guy tells me, "Cero Seis Cero Uno."
I look at him, and say, "That's not enough digits for a zip code."
Guy repeats.
I tell him again, "That's not enough digits."
Daughter is no help, she can't translate zip code...
I finally just hold up all my fingers on one hand, and guy suddenly understands, and gives me his zip code.

It took way too long, and I could NOT think of a way to describe Zip code that would make sense... Anyone know how to say 'zip code' in spanish?

[Pedersen]

Well, perf http://translate.google.com/ it's "Código postal"

[trunks2k]

You want use "postal code" instead of "zip code" when doing the translation.

Código Postal

Edit: darn, I was beaten to it.

[rvdammit]

I guess I'm slightly sucky when shopping in the states and asked for phone number or zip code:

Phone number starts with +44
Zip Code: I don't have one

[LifeCarnie]

Language isn't the only reason people can't give you a proper zip code.

We use zip codes to look up customer account numbers and when we ask people for their zip code, a common response is to give any number but a zip code, due to lack of listening.

Zip codes are 5 digits (or more if you include the part after the dash)

Area codes are 3 digits.

Yet SC's consistently confuse the two.

You'd be suprised at the number of people who honestly don't know their zip code. Even fewer know the zip code for the town that they work in.

[Kara]

Phone number starts with +44
Zip Code: I don't have one

Which makes it all the more fun to deal with. Of course, it isn't your fault corporate feels they need this information from every single customer. it isn't your fault the system can't accept a foreign phone number or postal code with letters in it. So the customer service drone puts in a local zip code and enters a random phone number (usually the store's #), and calls it good.

Then they realize the futility of the entire stupid thing (if they hadn't already).

[Megg]

First off, a hearty F YOU! to my employers for requiring us to get zip codes from every, single, customer!

The town I live in has 2 Zip codes. I know them both. In such a situation, that SC would have lived in one or the other.

It's a good thing I don't work somewhere they ask for Zip codes. Ooohhh ... maybe I will start asking my customers - that would really mess them up!

"I will have 4 hard tacos ..."
"Can I have your Zip code please?"
""

Pure awesomeness!

[bigjimaz]

I used to have to do this at the grocery store. When they refused or in some other way didn't cooperate with the program, I just put the zip code of the town.

[simplyanother]

The town I live in has 2 Zip codes. I know them both. In such a situation, that SC would have lived in one or the other.

The assholes who shop my location can come from one of...oh about 20 localities, each with a minimum of 5 zip codes--most with many many more. I still get people who think it's cute to just say the last two digits of their zip. Because I'm supposed to guess which city they live in and the other three digits.

I rarely use the code for refusal. If the customer doesn't seem to understand what I'm saying, or can't hear me, I generally put in whatever random zip comes to mind. Probably against the rules.

I had a customer who'd just moved here say "I just came from...-whatever state- they don't have zip codes there". Yeah. Riiight. Dumbass.

This is a military area. We get lots of people who are from elsewhere, who move a great deal--who have dozens of zips in their heads. Sometimes, they'll conflate a couple and give them to me. I don't care. ANY five digit number works.

The way our system works is that it..holds the receipt hostage...if you don't input a zip (or a refusal code or the Canada or Mexico code)--it won't give it to you. Pain in the ass.

And right now, we have these ridiculously long receipts. And they wonder why we keep running out of receipt paper. Lets see, a person purchases ONE item, and their receipt is longer than my arm....

(Sorry to always chime in on your threads Juwl. I hope you don't mind)

[ArcticChicken]

Zip codes are 5 digits (or more if you include the part after the dash)

Area codes are 3 digits.

Yet SC's consistently confuse the two.

I know this one so well.

"Do you have your bonus card with you today?"
"No, I forgot it."
"OK, if you'd like, I can try to look up your card by phone number."
"234-5678"
"Sir, I need your area code first."
"12345"
"No, sir, your area code."
"12345!"
"Not your zip code, sir, your area code."
"I told you. 12345!!"
"No, sir, you told me your zip code. I need your area code, the first three digits of your phone number."
"Oh. 912."

Seriously, how can anyone not give me their area code with their phone number? You have top have the area code to call anyone whatsoever, here, because the city alone has three or four different ones.

[Andara Bledin]

I guess I'm slightly sucky when shopping in the states and asked for phone number or zip code:

Phone number starts with +44
Zip Code: I don't have one

Ah, the UK country code. I dial that one quite often.

And while you don't have a ZIP code (the ZIP code being a peculiarity only found in the US) you do have a postal code, which is functionally the same thing.

As for what I know, I know my current, my last, my work, and my work's PO Box's ZIP codes. I also know a number of the local area codes as well as several different country codes.

^-.-^

[MyChelle]

My favorite is when the SC thinks you are somehow going to be able to track them down and call them because their zip code is in the system.

[StevieJD]

I was asked for my zip code at Crackerbarrel.


Hmmmm, take a quess. I am picking up two bags of food orders to go. Maybe I am local?

Actually I went brain dead. I have so many telephone numbers, passwords, other people's zip codes memorized that I could not remember my own.


Hey stupid business owners and marketing departments, how about asking if the customer is local or visiting the area? Local gets the local default zip and then MAYBE the visiting cutomers zip codes get entered.

[Fandangoose]

Thankfully, I haven't had to deal with customers for well over five years now. Instead, I've been working for the US Postal Service - and our "customers" still make me shake my head. My job involves viewing pictures of mailpieces which have been transmitted from processing facilities to our computer screens. Zip+4 is called PLUS 4 for a reason, folks!!! Yet you'd be surprised how many people write something like 12345-23456 and try to pass it off as the correct Zip+4 code. Amazing. Sesame Street is still on PBS if I'm not mistaken - some of them need to watch it.

[jb17kx]

A mate of mine encountered this problem while in the US a few years back. Being the sheltered lad he was, he didn't know what a ZIP code was.

The cashier eventually put it as postal code, and he responded "4061". A perfectly valid Australian post code, but...

And "07" as an area code didn't work either. So somewhere in that store's computer is a sale by a customer who lives in the cashier's own ZIP district and has the same phone number as the store.

I can appreciate the usefulness of demographic data, but I would also have though that the stores would have come to realise that such inflexibility only compromised the integrity of the data they collected...