Ding Ding Ding...

[SushiSteph]

My first SC story...

I work at Kmart at the Service Desk and am Front End Supervisor. FES sounds ok but means nothing really.
Anyway, at the service desk we have a doorbell. When people are at the fitting room and need service they ring the button. The person working at service then pages for someone to go to the fitting room.
Well, I punched in yesterday and not 5 minutes into my shift the bell goes off. My cw who was leaving was letting me know what was going on for the day...then a customer comes up so we help them and then before I can even register what is happening the doorbell is being pushed repeatedly...about 10-15 times in a row.
I didn't even have time to page for help over there from the first ring. Everyone stops and looks over at the fitting room. I grab the key and tell my cw that I will go get it.

Here is what I said! LOL

ME: Ma'am, we try to get over to you as fast as we can, but ringing the bell 20 times in a row will not get us here any faster.

SC: Ok then...*storms off without trying anything on*

ME: Eye roll and start back to service desk...walking past her.

SC: Thank you. (Snotty)

ME: Sure! And I hope you have a good day!

SC: I hope so too. (Snotty)

Later she ended up checking out with me and she was really nice, calling me honey and stuff! WTH?

[Dips]

When Button-Monkeys go shopping...

We have serial redialiers (aka "Button-Monkeys") who, instead of leaving a message, keep jabbing the redial button.

This results in having to listen to a jangling phone while I'm trying to help a customer who called first.

I NEVER answer the phone before I check voice mail and return the calls of those who left messages while I was busy. Hitting the redial button gets you SLOWER service than leaving a message.

I love how you informed your Button-Monkey how her behavior did not result in faster service. I wish I could find a way to explain that to mine.

[Jay 2K Winger]

I often get people who gripe at my store because the food court worker stepped away for a moment (usually to use the bathroom, talk to one of the managers about restocking something, or getting more supplies), or because the food court worker was in the back of the food court, getting something out of the freezers or whatever.

And inevitably they will suggest we put a bell in to ring for service. And when they make that suggestion, we always tell them the same thing.

"Not going to happen. Because for every mature, sane person that comes along and dings it once, you're going to have a hundred immature, crazy people who are going to ding it like crazy until they are served, not to mention all the little kids who will see a bell and ring it just to ring it. We get enough headaches as it is without making it worse for ourselves."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Somebody will probably say you were rude. I won't. I don't blame you one bit for calling out that SC.

Ringing the bell 15 times or more is not going to make the employee move faster that if you just ring it once.

The closest thing my store has to that is certain cashiers who will page for a carryout, then repeat the page 15 seconds later if nobody has answered it yet, and keep doing this until it has been answered. For fuck's sake, give us a chance to respond!

[Reyneth]

At my part-time bookstore job, we have a bell at the register. We'll come when it rings, but we have a pattern to summon other employees there if you're ringing and need help - and then we come faster!

At my main job in insurance subrogation, many of our voice mail outgoing messages say something like "If you do not leave your claim number and the best number to call you back, we will not be able to return your call." Period. I'm not going to go through all of the 25 "James Doe" possible claims to find out which one I called 3 days ago. Although w/my new position, I already have figured out I need to re-record it to be a much stronger "give me the info I need or tough shit no call back" message.

[Hyndis]

The closest thing my store has to that is certain cashiers who will page for a carryout, then repeat the page 15 seconds later if nobody has answered it yet, and keep doing this until it has been answered. For fuck's sake, give us a chance to respond!

There's one of those cashiers at the store I work at. She'll call for help at the front lanes at the drop of a hat, often times for such trivial situations that its a joke. Two customers in line, each with a couple of items? OMG CALL FOR BACKUP!

She also expects us to be able to teleport at will. Its a big store, and walking from one side of the store to the other takes at least a full minute. I'm also not going to bother running unless things are on fire. If we don't respond within a few seconds, she'll keep paging the entire store for more help, nevermind that the time she allows for a response is physically not possible, and thats if I could walk in a straight line. I need to finish up my current task and I'm often accosted by swarms of customers while on the way.

The funny thing is that this cashier often takes very long breaks or lunches, so if she's even a few seconds over her allotted time, the other cashiers have begun paging her.

[Bright_Star]

That's like paging for maintenance to clean a spill or whatever upfront & then paging again not even 5 minutes later! Maintenance could be all the way in the back of the store & it takes a while for them to come all the way upfront with the cleaning supplies needed to clean up a mess. It's not like we're gonna ask Scotty to "beam us up" cause we could be fast but not fly at warp speed!
So if you ever page for maintenance then give them time to get there cause they could be all the way in the back of the store doing some other task. Where I work at, Sam's Club & Wal-Mart are pretty big.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

There's one of those cashiers at the store I work at. She'll call for help at the front lanes at the drop of a hat, often times for such trivial situations that its a joke. Two customers in line, each with a couple of items? OMG CALL FOR BACKUP!

Thing is, at my store under those same circumstances, we technically are supposed to do the same thing. Company policy states that if there are two transactions in each checkout line, we have to call for backup cashiers.

This is because "we value the Customer's time" and "we are committed to a fast checkout" and other horseshit corporate-speak.

That said, we don't do this. We wait until there's 3, 4, maybe even 5 people in each line. Otherwise the floor people would do nothing except run registers for most of their shift.

The only exception is if we have big-time corporate suits in the store, because they do make a point of enforcing this policy to the letter while they're there. "There's two people in all the lines; why haven't you called for backup yet?"

If you ask me, having floor people drop what they're doing and run registers all the time is a bean counter's wettest dream come true. If I were in charge I'd make sure the store always had enough of them on hand so we didn't need to call other people. If things slow down, they can always be sent to the floor to help straighten or do returns or something.

[Hyndis]

The problem with calling people up right away is that by the time we actually get there, the crisis is averted. The two customers each with a bagel and soda have already paid and gone on their way. Then we waste more time going back to our other task and resuming it, only to get called back up to the front end because a guy wants to buy a donut.

With the average checkout speed and the size of the store, there's enough time for a checker to process 3-4 customers before backup arrives, and if you're calling for backup when there's two customers in the line....


Well, I guess getting paid for walking around and doing nothing isn't so bad. It is annoying to have the trigger-happy checker constantly paging people though.

[South Texan]

Because for every mature, sane person that comes along and dings it once, you're going to have a hundred immature, crazy people who are going to ding it like crazy until they are served, not to mention all the little kids who will see a bell and ring it just to ring it.

My office at a university had one of those bells at the reception desk along with a sign that said "Ring For Service." Our department director thought this would be a good idea even though someone always was at that desk. I cannot tell you how many times a student would walk up to that desk while our student worker was sitting at it, hit the bell and state they needed service while giving the worker an "aren't I clever and original" grin. We had professors who did it too.

Strange how that bell broke after six months…

[BookstoreEscapee]

Company policy states that if there are two transactions in each checkout line, we have to call for backup cashiers.

Two?! B&N's standard is 5 people per cashier (they have the 1-line-multiple-cashiers system). Any more than that and you call for extra help (frankly, 5 people in line is nothing for me unless there's a large transaction, but I've worked with people who think it's a huge rush at 2 or 3).

So glad I never had to deal with a bell. We had a hard enough time getting them to put in a doorbell at Store1 so we could get someone to open the door when we got there early in the morning without having to either bang on the door to get someone's attention or go next door to Starbucks and ask to use their phone (before cell phones were quite so ubiquitous); the bell only rings in the breakroom. But the bell is around the side of the part of the vestibule that juts out of the front of the store, and you have to look up to see it so most people won't even notice it (otherwise I can imagine lots of teenagers ringing it during the day just for the hell of it). Store2 had a bell when I was there but it didn't work. They have better acoustics when you bang on the window, though.

[mattm04]

If we had to call for backup every time we had two people in each line we would never get work done. It depend on the total numebr of registers open and the general business of the store.

If we have a lot of registers open and have two or three in each line, no big deal. If we only have a few registers open and two or three people n each line w will call up one cashier.

If we really need help in the front, it will start as "One associate from dept X, dept Y, etc to the front." If that doesn't help than the will page "All available associates to the front," which means, if what ever you are doing can wait a few minutes STOP NOW and get you ass up front.

[Retail Associate]

. . . the doorbell is being pushed repeatedly...about 10-15 times in a row.

This is the reason all our 'Ring Bell for Service' buttons were removed during the remodel about 3 years ago. If an employee didn't appear immediately, the SCs would push those damn buttons non-stop until someone showed up.

They've replaced the buttons with these stupid red phones all over the store. Problem is, very few SCs know what they're for so they end up walking around until they find an employee and that employee will page for help rather than call the correct dept on the phone.

Now, instead of ding-ding-ding-ding-ding we hear, 'Customer Assistance to Pets Please' about 50 times a shift.

Very annoying.

Of course, everything about the place is very annoying.

[NightWatch]

Strange how that bell broke after six months…

It took SIX months to break? Funny, when I had a bell it took 3 weeks... There was a freak accident involving a trash compactor... <.< >.>

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

That reminds me: apparently many years ago, before I started working at the store, they had a bell by the fitting rooms you rang if you needed to try something on.

Nobody knows who did it or how exactly it was done, but the bell had a run-in with the forklift after about a week and was never seen or heard from again.