Corporate spies suck

[evilone]

Okay, so I don't know if this should go in the sucky co-workers area cause technically I don't work with them. now corporate likes to use my store as it's little expirment to use it's bad ideas on. such as a blue dot glued to the floor that we had to stand near and greet 'n' smile like a jack-ass at certain times a day. that lasted a month. or when we permenantly switched to... khakies as our uniform. god i wish i had a time machine so i could kill the prick who invented them. so, the latest disaster they came up with was to send in corporate spies to enforce the new greet EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER YOU SEE!! rule... joy. so one day a family comes in looking for shoes for their kids peewee soccer games. so i'm on the floor pulling out boxes from the bottom shelf looking for cleats to fit this 6 year old. nice family so far. what I don't see is the bitch behind me giving me the evil eye. now what happens next is told to me by my boss who saw it go down. the next thing she sees is the bitch take out a piece of corporate paper and mark me down as failure to greet the bitch. now my boss being awsome goes up to her orders her to hand over the paper and get that shit don't fly, then ordered the bitch out. this idea died very soon after this incident was brought to light.

[DesignFox]

That blows.

Our company used to use secret shoppers. What a pain in the ass that was. Thankfully they got ride of the program when instances similar to what you just described were occurring.

Some things that happened to me:

1) secret shopper came in at closing.

2) shopper walked out the door while I was trying to answer her questions. Despite the fact that I introduced myself AND gave her a business card, she got my name wrong on the form, so fortunately that strike didn't count against me.

Plus, we work partially commission based. The secret shops were never buying anything. It was downright irritating to know you had a shopper in front of you, while an actual potential sale was waiting for you to finish, or went to your co-worker because you were stuck with the fake. (selling a phone, especially with contract can take 30 mins or so- if the person is just plain clueless, it can take you that long just to explain everything...without processing or activating.)

[EricKei]

"Gamestore" liked to do this -- failure to greet the SS'er within X seconds caused a 10% deduction on the test, causing the store to automatically fail the audit (passing = over 90%)

[drunkenwildmage]

The big box office supple store (think stick figure) I used to work for had the same policy..Greet everyone withing 60 (30?) seconds of walking in the front door, and you had to acknowledge any "Guest" withing 10 feet of you regardless of what you or they were doing.
When I worked there, I was in electronics, and it was right the first thing that people saw when they went in the front door, so my department become the unofficial greeters.

"Sorry Boss, I would've love to had sold the $1000 computer system to the couple that left for Best Buy, but your policy forced me to be tied up helping someone decide if they wanted the $.97 box of black pens or $.97 box of blue pens."

[Rapscallion]

I recently did some secret shopping, but it was on behalf of my company. We're looking at using another distribution company to handle retail sales through the post. I ordered from them and then started with daft questions I get from certain groups of customers before it had arrived - stuff about how raw the products are etc.

I picked up a polite way or two to say 'piss off' from them over email. They did well, and I didn't push it.

Rapscallion

[TheSHAD0W]

Heh.

I did some secret shopping for a family business, commercial rental property in NYC; there were two businesses looking for space. A haberdashery (they sell business suits) and an electronics shop. The clothing store was very nice in my opinion, the staff tried hard to fit my oversized figure; the electronics place had no one who knew their products and they weren't selling well to customers.

My father was very surprised by my report; he'd expected me, being a techie, to gush over the electronics shop. My family rented out to them anyway. They were out of business pretty quickly.

[evilone]

yeah but here's the kicker. if i got too many of these failures to greet i was looking down the barrel of write ups pay cuts suspention and even termination. bitch tried to get me fired so to speak

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My company used to use secret shoppers who'd grade us on our service expectations, which were the following:

• Greet the customer
• Offer to help the customer in a sincere manner
• Walk the customer to the product
• Offer further assistance
• Thank the customer

You had to do all of these things without fail, every time. Even if the customer decided they wanted a bunch of things in different departments, one right after the other. Even if you were doing a carryout or busy with another customer. Even if the customer insisted they didn't need to be walked to the product, just tell them what department it's in.

It was maddening, it really was. And since our scores on these secret shops tended to be rather low (in some cases among the worst in the company), there was a lot of pressure put on us to get our scores up.

We haven't been using secret shoppers for over a year now, though I keep expecting them to come back, what with the economy being bad and sales low, so of course that's because our service isn't good enough.

[LillFilly]

Funny how corporates often have no idea how a store actually works and implements horrible ideas that hurt rather than help. If these people are in such high positions, shouldn't they be smarter?

[EricKei]

If these people are in such high positions, shouldn't they be smarter?

I believe that there is a Dilbert quote that can answer this -- (I'm paraphrasing):

"Management is life's way of removing morons from the productive flow"

[Primer]

I ordered from them and then started with daft questions I get from certain groups of customers before it had arrived - stuff about how raw the products are etc.

how RAW the products are? Are there different levels of raw??

I picked up a polite way or two to say 'piss off' from them over email.

Care to share? I'm always looking for new ways to tell someone to "piss off," politely, of course!

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

That blows.

Our company used to use secret shoppers. What a pain in the ass that was. Thankfully they got ride of the program when instances similar to what you just described were occurring.

Some things that happened to me:

1) secret shopper came in at closing.

2) shopper walked out the door while I was trying to answer her questions. Despite the fact that I introduced myself AND gave her a business card, she got my name wrong on the form, so fortunately that strike didn't count against me.

Plus, we work partially commission based. The secret shops were never buying anything. It was downright irritating to know you had a shopper in front of you, while an actual potential sale was waiting for you to finish, or went to your co-worker because you were stuck with the fake. (selling a phone, especially with contract can take 30 mins or so- if the person is just plain clueless, it can take you that long just to explain everything...without processing or activating.)

"Sorry Boss, I would've love to had sold the $1000 computer system to the couple that left for Best Buy, but your policy forced me to be tied up helping someone decide if they wanted the $.97 box of black pens or $.97 box of blue pens."

Now this is absolutely the wrong way to use secret shoppers, but it seems to be the only way retailers use secret shoppers. So maybe secret shoppers just aren't very useful (No offense to anybody who does that kind of work).

This teaches that procedure is more important than actually selling stuff. Everybody has their own individual ways of dealing with customers that may not involve a corporate-mandated script or routine. But when you force people into doing things one way, and having to do them every time, you wind up situations like this. The employee might be closing in on a big sale, but if somebody else enters their department they have to drop everything and do a dog-and-pony show just in case that person is a secret shopper.

Then when they get done, they find their original customer has left because they couldn't wait any more. The secret shopper might only buy one or tow small things--and then return them later to observe how the return is handled. All this because the suits have some magical vision of a "shopping experience" that will cause people to spend money they otherwise wouldn't.

Yo, corporate drones? Want a really great idea for a shopping experience? Here's one I came up with myself: Leave me the hell alone. Don't have every single employee step up and say hi to me as I pass. I can usually find stuff on my own, but have people around I can ask if I have questions. They don't need to walk me to the product; telling me the department it's in will do just fine. And get me through the checkout quickly and efficiently. I don't need to hear "Do you want the extended warranty? It's just $X.xx. It's peace of mind, you should consider it? Are you a member of our Super Happy Fun Club? Do you have a membership card? Would you like to sign up for one? Can I have your e-mail address for coupons and valuable offers?"

I'd sure like that. And you don't need undercover spies to make it happen.

Sorry if I veered too much into mode there.

[Rapscallion]

how RAW the products are? Are there different levels of raw??

Well, more whether they're raw or not. However, when a raw food numpty calls me, they always have a different temperature to everyone else that they don't want it heated above.

Care to share? I'm always looking for new ways to tell someone to "piss off," politely, of course!

Notes are at home, but it was along the lines of, "We don't buy our products based on a raw criteria, only an ethical one, so perhaps you ought to contact the manufacturer of those products for more details."

Passing the buck. I can't use it most of the time, since we'd like to keep our suppliers. However, I can point out that we don't buy on the grounds of rawness or otherwise.

Rapscallion

[anyanka2]

My employer relies heavily on mystery shoppers. It's not a practice I like or agree with. For the most part, I think most mystery shoppers have little or no experience working in retail, so as a result, they don't really understand how hard it is to keep the facade of forced friendliness up for a period of 6 to 8 hours. I also think that mystery shoppers are human too. They don't seem to have a sense of impartiality when evaluating their experience. Their evaluations are colored by their preference and prejudices.

I know that several co-workers including my boyfriend have not passed mystery shopper reports. My bf failed because he wasn't chatty enough and didn't thank them for their business promptly enough for the mystery shopper. Another cw failed because he was too chatty. The head cash office bitch failed because she was too abrupt with customers - a very deserved criticism. To my knowledge, I haven't gotten one or have passed all of mine because I haven't been spoken to about them.

I wonder if due to sales dropping, corporate is using them with more frequency to figure out a reason for this development. Hint, it's the economy and high prices, not our poor service. I think I may have spotted several in the past month and a half because I have never seen them before and they ask about the lottery, which we quit doing in January due to the increased fees. Most regulars or semi regulars would know that fact.

[Racket_Man]

Yo, corporate drones? Want a really great idea for a shopping experience? Here's one I came up with myself: Leave me the hell alone. Don't have every single employee step up and say hi to me as I pass. I can usually find stuff on my own, but have people around I can ask if I have questions. They don't need to walk me to the product; telling me the department it's in will do just fine. And get me through the checkout quickly and efficiently. I don't need to hear "Do you want the extended warranty? It's just $X.xx. It's peace of mind, you should consider it? Are you a member of our Super Happy Fun Club? Do you have a membership card? Would you like to sign up for one? Can I have your e-mail address for coupons and valuable offers?"

I'd sure like that. And you don't need undercover spies to make it happen.

Sorry if I veered too much into mode there.

my biggest complaint recently is that when I go to my favorite auto parts store, they have taken out the paper books used to look up simple things like oil filters, lamps and lights and such. now I have to go to the counter give my make and model and year of my car (and wait 5 minutes while the scroll around to find the right car) and then they have to WALK me over to whatever I am trying to find, then pull the item off the self or off of the peg.

look all I want to do is get my headlight or oil filter or light and get out. not play 20 questions