Customer Avoidance Techniques

[Catwoman2965]

You're not the only one on duty. Let your co-workers deal with them.

What are your best ways for sneakily avoiding interactions with annoying customers?

Some suggestions:

1. Keep a vigilant eye on the parking lot, and who's getting out of cars and approaching your store, especially if they're carrying your logo bags which means RETURNS!

2. Detect an annoying customer appoaching? Go to the ladies'/men's room.

3. Detect an annoying customer approaching? (ALTERNATIVE) State: "I'm taking my break now!"

4. You're supposed to greet every customer & inform her/him of special store promotions, right? Don't. Come on, the signs are up there - can s/he read?! If s/he buys something, s/he'll be oh-so-thrilled when s/he's informed of a discount at checkout.

5. When customer enters store, say: "Hi! Just feel like browsing? Oh, OK, sure! Let me know if I can help you later on!" This puts the "burden of help" on customer. You gave them "permission" to browse; in exchange, they must seek you out if they need "help." Try not to be on the floor. There's always plenty of stockroom straightening out to do, isn't there?" Or, don't you need to step outside to make sure that that the window displays look right?

PLEASE add your own suggestions to this thread!

With great appreciation,

RetailActress

t

Are you sure we don't work in the same place? hahaha - these are all tactics I've used! As far as informing customers of all our promos, etc. most of them don't really care, and as you say, they CAN read. I hate being bombarded the minute I walk in the door, so I have a hard time doing it myself.

[Slytovhand]

I'm on the phones, so those tactics don't work.

But, we have our own lot.

The thing most loathed is account openings... 'Do you have access to the net?" or "We've got our CSC at... if you go there, you can get all your stuff over the counter".

Being graveyard shift, I've heard a few times "You'll need to ring back in the morning", and "We don't have access to that database", and the always useful "The network seems to be down at the moment, can you call back later?".

Dodging calls altogether... go help one of the newbies with a simple question, print off a stack of forms that need to be stocked up, a quick bit of personal time, and no doubt... many have just hung up mid-call!

[Boozy]

I just pace back and forth polishing my knife and muttering to myself. People tend to give me a wide berth.

Really though, I hardly ever duck customers in my current job. The only exception is this one man we get whom all the females avoid if possible. If our one male co-worker is available, he takes this customer. And he's happy to do it for us.

When I was waitressing, me and the other server had a very complicated system for ducking certain tables. Like, whoever runs to the bar and slaps the cappuccino maker first gets out of it. There were different rules for every regular SC. Playing those silly games was so much fun that we never minded losing all that much.

[Phone Jockey]

When responding to a customer's e-mail:

1. Respond in a language not spoken by the customer.
2. Answer a different question than the customer asked.
3. Upon receiving an emergency e-mail that requires immediate attention, take a break or go to lunch. If it is close to the end of your shift, just ignore it until the next day. No use worrying about it now.
4. Try to sell the customer something they said they don't want. What do customers really know about what they want??

[StarsAreFixed]

'Sorry, I can't leave the fitting rooms to check' *points to employee on the floor*. Technically, I'm right, I can't, unless I have cover but what's the point, might as well get the person on the floor. Can't leave them unattended, they get fleeced enough as it is..anyway, how sucky would it be to work in a shop where you are made to spring on customers 'Can I help you!!!', I'd die with shame.

[Naaman]

I just grabbed an office job where my role means I don't have the qualifications to (legally) speak to the customer (we produce Pharmacy software, 95% of the questions to my department have to be answered by a Pharmacist).

[Dips]

I had a friend who would wash the floors of his convenience store with undiluted cleaning product 15 minutes before closing. It was pungent enough that last minute browsers quickly made a purchase or left.

He always closed on time.

[Mr. Rude]

I tend to fall back on the old "Fixing the busted/jammed printer" ploy

Duck down with a mess of paper, start muttering & pressing buttons. Always works

[katie kaboom]

At my last job i would conveniently have to go get change for the register, or go help a new employee, or check the fitting room 3 departments away that no one else checks and so it gets trashed. I also used to spend a good amount of time in my manager's office reading all the endless memos and reminders they post for us that no one ever reads.

[chahuahuas]

We did those at the car wash I worked at. There was this gay guy that came in on a regular basis. The problem was not that he was gay, but, rather, that it was well known that he worked as a male stripper. This would be less of a problem if he didn't pay in ALL SINGLES. All thing considered, we all had a good idea on where that money had been, so the vets left the n00bs to deal with the cash, but they were told to leave it aside. Said cash got washed in the back room.

Dick $$$ *shudder*

OHMYGOD this guy did that to me one time. it was like $100 in ones... that i had to count, individually. he was like the manager at a strip club. and the bills were greasy, i swear. i def had someone watch my register after that so i could go wash my hands.

[Dips]

I thought of one that I do, although rarely.

We have three incoming phone lines and sometimes I'm the only person covering. If they won't stop ringing while I'm helping another customer (usually it's just ONE very impatient caller hitting redial repeatedly because he thinks he'll get faster service that way), I'll put the open phone lines on hold to shut the phones up for five minutes while I catch up with customer emails and return calls to customers who left messages in voice mail.

[Automan Empire]

Slacking techniques

Append thread to how to get fired thread....

My first job was for a corporation that was waaaay understaffed on the busy weekends. I was the ONLY person mounting tires, and the line quickly grew to five hours, EVERY weekend. They'd crack the whip on me but not assign another person to the task until the line grew longer than hours left in the workday. I started taking a lot of half-hour shits until finally quitting and going for better wages, duties, and hours elsewhere.
Now I own my own business, at a younger age than some of my co-workers there. Wallow in customer-avoidance techniques too long, and they thwart the urge to seek better. Beware.
-Automan

[Dips]

Wallow in customer-avoidance techniques too long, and they thwart the urge to seek better. Beware.
-Automan

Unlike the tire store you described, we are not chronically understaffed. We are open 9 to 5 Monday through Friday and have three full time people who answer three phone lines. However, as human beings, sometimes one or two of those people is at lunch, on vacation or sick. It's not slacking to take care of the people who called before the people who aren't patient enough to wait their turn and LEAVE A G/D MESSAGE AS INSTRUCTED. My boss has no problem with my shutting off the noise of a Button-Monkey while I call back the people who DID leave a message as instructed. As long as I don't abuse it or use is as an excuse not to do my job, he's cool about it.

This is a small family-owned and run place that's been around for over 35 years. The way we do things works for us and works for the vast majority of our customers who appreciate the service we provide for the price we charge.

If we got caught up in the idea that the PHONE MUST BE ANSWERED within seconds, we'd have to hire a lot more staff and raise prices so much that we'd lose a lot of our wonderful customers and go out of business.

The good news is that we are revamping the phone systems to shunt calls right to voice mail when someone calls while all of us are busy with other customers. We'll see a blinking light letting us know that we have to check voice mail when we are done. We might experiment by setting up a hold queue, but most of our customers actually prefer leaving a message and getting a call back. They know us well and trust us to get back to them as soon as we can. Mainly because we consistently DO get back to them as soon as we can.

[TheTigress]

You're not the only one on duty. Let your co-workers deal with them.

What are your best ways for sneakily avoiding interactions with annoying customers?

Some suggestions:

1. Keep a vigilant eye on the parking lot, and who's getting out of cars and approaching your store, especially if they're carrying your logo bags which means RETURNS!

2. Detect an annoying customer appoaching? Go to the ladies'/men's room.

I do these two the most. I used to do the bathroom one a lot more but co-workers found out and started bitching. Nevermind that most of them need smoke breaks every 30 minutes. (I'm a non-smoker and hardly get any breaks at all) The bathroom sneak tactic was brilliant while it lasted.

I'm always the one to keep an eye out the front door. If I see a car pull up without anyone else knowing, I will usually decide that I'm going to take out boxes or something else in the back. It works quite well.