Long long ago...

[MournBlade]

In a small town far away

I remember helping a gal price out several items in the S mart electronics section also explaining the differences in models and helping her decide what to get.
So when she told me you guys suck and are too expensive I'm going to mal wart I just come here for the service I wanted to slap the stupid grin off her face.
The kicker was the price difference was within 10 bucks and the mal of wart in our town was notoriously bad for service and only ever having 2 registers open.
I don't get comissions but thanks for slapping me in the face after going out of my way to assist you it makes me feel extra speshul.

[Food Lady]

Even if I thought it, I wouldn't say it. I would thank you for your help and say I needed to think about it, then just go elsewhere. But I'm not an SC.

[earl colby pottinger]

What makes her think you will service her Walmart electronics?

Walmart has a habit of having cheaper versions of electronic items made that have similar but not identical part numbers. Partly this is to help with price matching since they can then prove the model in a competing flyer is not the same as their model.

A side effect of this is that some parts in the Walmart versions may not even be available to authorized repair centers for certain suppliers.

I confirmed this out the last time I was looking at laptops but when I booted them with my OS (Haiku-OS), the OS could not find the WIFI on said models but could find the WIFI on what appeared to be the same model in Best-Buy.

She may be in for a big surprise!

[emax4]

I agree. I would like to say out loud, "ok, well when you come here again I'm telling the rest of the staff not to waste their time with you", but something like that is best said to other staff and not the customer themselves.

[blas]

I will admit, I feel genuinely bad when a person has gone above and beyond to help me, and I just don't like the options given to me.

As of late, it's really only been clothes and makeup and girl stuff, so it's not like it's a car or expensive washer or refrigerator. But I still feel bad.

I don't always need help, but when I venture for new jeans or new makeup, I go to department stores or places where the employees are generally made more aware and familiar of their stuff, so someone can actually give more info and help about their clothes or makeup.

It just happens, some days, I cannot for the life of me find a pair of jeans I like, or maybe they just don't carry foundation light enough for my vampire face. But I always try to make them feel like I appreciate all their help, and that they did their job the best they could, even if I wasn't purchasing anything from them that day.

I would never pound my chest and blargle "I'm going to Wal-Mart!"

[Merriweather]

That's just SO rude & insulting.
Sure, a person may go to a full service store to learn about items if they don't have a clue what to look for. And yes, if they're on a tight budget & find it a lot cheaper elsewhere, they may buy it at the cheaper place to save money, even if they'd prefer to get it at the place that helped them out (no one wants to eat Raman noodles for a month just to get it at the better store). But geez, you just don't throw that in the face of the nice, helpful salesperson. (Myself, if I know I'm going to buy at the absolute cheapest place, I try to do my research on-line and by reading boxes, only taking time from salespeople I know I won't buy from for the odd answer I just can't find anywhere else).

One of my pet peeves is the person who gets a salesperson to help them on a complicated item, explaining this, comparing that, often taking up hours of their time - then they leave and come back another time and buy it from a salesperson that spends 3 minutes with them. I don't think I could handle working on commision because of that, I'd want to kill someone too often. And for the record, if a salesperson helps me for anything more than a minute or two, and I can't buy right then, but do plan to buy from that store, I always ask if they're on commission or get credit for sales in any way, get a business card if I can, check when they'll be working, etc. so I can see they get all the credit when I do buy. It's only fair.

[rose_metal_nz]

Agreed - very rude.
I feel embarrassed if it's obvious I'm leaving the store to go somewhere similar, even if it's through no fault of their own. But then I hate to say "maybe we'll come back" knowing I won't - just in case they do wait all day for me to come back :'(

[earl colby pottinger]

Computer Store

That's just SO rude & insulting.
Sure, a person may go to a full service store to learn about items if they don't have a clue what to look for. And yes, if they're on a tight budget & find it a lot cheaper elsewhere, they may buy it at the cheaper place to save money, even if they'd prefer to get it at the place that helped them out. [BIG SNIP]

One of my pet peeves is the person who gets a salesperson to help them on a complicated item, explaining this, comparing that, often taking up hours of their time - then they leave and [Another BIG SNIP]

Then buy it at a cheaper box store.

But we usually made our money back anyway when they found that even the hours of discussion with a salesperson is not the same as learning a product in detail.

Example: Salesperson spends hours helping a person decide on which high end colour laser to buy for their networked office. They go to a box store and buy it for $400 less than our store. Then they come back to boast about how much money they saved by not buying from us. Days or weeks later they come back begging for help because of some non-warranty problem, usually a problem we would fix for free for one of our customers but for them $125.00 per hour/one hour min. is the standard.

[Catwoman2965]

I will admit, I feel genuinely bad when a person has gone above and beyond to help me, and I just don't like the options given to me.

As of late, it's really only been clothes and makeup and girl stuff, so it's not like it's a car or expensive washer or refrigerator. But I still feel bad.

I don't always need help, but when I venture for new jeans or new makeup, I go to department stores or places where the employees are generally made more aware and familiar of their stuff, so someone can actually give more info and help about their clothes or makeup.

It just happens, some days, I cannot for the life of me find a pair of jeans I like, or maybe they just don't carry foundation light enough for my vampire face. But I always try to make them feel like I appreciate all their help, and that they did their job the best they could, even if I wasn't purchasing anything from them that day.

I would never pound my chest and blargle "I'm going to Wal-Mart!"

And as someone who might be helping you, we appreciate this! Not everyone who comes in will find something to buy that day, but my feeling is, if you treat the customers well, even if they don't find something that day, there's a good cahnce they'll be back.

[Sleepwalker]

Ten dollars?!? Unless it was some 99 cent cable that you were getting ripped off on, I can't see why anyone would do that. It's not worth the time and gas to go somewhere else, rudeness aside.

[MournBlade]

In this case the mal warts was just across the street so gas and driving time was'nt a big issue so we had a lot of this - not always to this degree though.

[thansal]

Yah...

When I was workign for RadioShack, apparently a number of the large box stores' employes would tell people to go to RS if they had any problems with a product.

This was one of the few times I liked my asshole manager as his total lack of tact and obsession over people ripping him off* was the PERFECT thing for the idiots that came in trying to get us to help them with a product we don't even SELL!




*He thought that people coming in and buying anything that didn't get us a large bonus was ripping him off. He regularly drove customers away from the store, they would come in and ask if he was there, leaving if he was

[Lyse]

One of the local scrubs shops has my repeat business and me talking it up because of their service - even though my school offers a discount through another scrub shop. I am a *ahem* full figured woman and finding scrubs that fit and are comfortable to move in is challenging.

One store just looks at me when I tell them what size I am looking for and says that they *might* have some in that size. The other shows me what they have, has me try different things to get ideas on sizes and then orders in what I need - and then has me try in the order when they come in to make sure it doesn't need to be exchanged. Yeah - I think the 5-10 dollar difference is well worth the service.

[Shalom]

I think the 5-10 dollar difference is well worth the service.

That's how my grandfather made his living. From about 1939 to 1965 he owned a small grocery store across the street from a supermarket. Couldn't compete with them on price, but he always made a profit regardless.