Ding Ding Ding...

[KellyHabersham]

We've got a bell in the church office, but no one ever uses it......I rather wish they would, because if I'm doing anything in the office area other than sitting at my desk, I'm not always able to see/hear when someone comes in.

[Chromatix]

I once saw a system in a hardware store where, if you needed assistance, there was a button provided. (And there was a good reason for this - there were heavy machines for preparing wood in the appropriate sizes, for example.)

But it was no ordinary button. It had a countdown timer attached, so if you pressed it again it would do nothing, while the countdown was supposed to indicate the deadline for an employee actually showing up.

A good system, actually.

[Peppergirl]

But it was no ordinary button. It had a countdown timer attached, so if you pressed it again it would do nothing, while the countdown was supposed to indicate the deadline for an employee actually showing up.

A good system, actually.

Now THAT is actually quite clever. Of course in most places, if it costs the company an extra 5.00 or so to have it that way, management will cheap out and not do it. God forbid pay extra for something that *gasp* annoys employees less.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I once saw a system in a hardware store where, if you needed assistance, there was a button provided. (And there was a good reason for this - there were heavy machines for preparing wood in the appropriate sizes, for example.)

But it was no ordinary button. It had a countdown timer attached, so if you pressed it again it would do nothing, while the countdown was supposed to indicate the deadline for an employee actually showing up.

A good system, actually.

Only if the store doesn't skimp on employees and has a realistic time expectation for them responding.

I've heard Target does something similar. Their customer assistance phones/buttons are hooked up to the corporate office so if the employees in one store are taking too ling to respond, some suit will know about it, and fire off a snippy memo to that store about the importance of responding the call buttons in a timely manner.

[Leopardmadcat]

Strange how that bell broke after six months…

A Local restaurant has a "Push for complaints" button on the wall next to the cashiers. It's a mousetrap with a button glued to the pressure trigger... I LOVE IT!

[LadyAndreca]

I've heard Target does something similar. Their customer assistance phones/buttons are hooked up to the corporate office so if the employees in one store are taking too ling to respond, some suit will know about it, and fire off a snippy memo to that store about the importance of responding the call buttons in a timely manner.

Oh, god, I hated that. It got to the point where our spastic front end manager (who was already in big trouble with district for things like not ordering necessary supplies like register tape and plastic bags, as well as us having a red front end safety score for 9 months solid after she was hired) started following up every "Guest needs assistance in personal DVD players" with an INSTANT "Come on teeeeeam, who's getting that call button?" in a really grating 'encouraging' tone. Being at the service desk (and therefore having a walkie), I had to hear this about every five minutes.

Call buttons weren't even her responsibility. The sad thing was, it worked, because about the time I quit we had only one or two missed call buttons a day, despite being understaffed. Why? Because if a department responded 'busy' she'd send another department over to cover it.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Call buttons weren't even her responsibility. The sad thing was, it worked, because about the time I quit we had only one or two missed call buttons a day, despite being understaffed. Why? Because if a department responded 'busy' she'd send another department over to cover it.

Fuck, at my store, there are no "other departments" to handle call buttons. We usually only have 2 people on the hardlines side of the salesfloor, 3 if we're lucky, 4 if we're extremely lucky.

Breaks and lunches reduce this number even more. Electronics cannot respond the call boxes outside of, say, toys and housewares, because there's an emergency exit in the electronics department and there has to be somebody around to deter would-be shoplifters.

So let's say you're alone on the salesfloor and helping a customer in toys when the call box in HBA on the opposite end of the store goes off. You can't just push that customer to the side to answer the call box, so you have to finish up with them first and then go over there.

When I started, I was told the goal was to never have a call box go off more than once before it's responded to. Which simply will not happen in the above instance unless you literally run over there. It may go off three or four times before you finally get over there, prompting the manager on duty to page you over there anyway.

We also have a call box over by pet supplies (used to be electronics) that was supposed to be taken out during the remodel but was left there instead, and doesn't shut off when you hit the little button when you respond. So that one goes off about 5 times after it's pressed and management starts paging people to go over there, even though the customer has probably already been helped.

[Chromatix]

I think the "special" buttons I saw were in a B&Q or a Homebase - both of which are decent-sized "hardware warehouses". I suspect Homebase, actually. I think there was one button by a cutting machine, and another by the paint mixers.

Bonus: the staff actually did turn up on time when we used them.

[LadyAndreca]

Fuck, at my store, there are no "other departments" to handle call buttons. We usually only have 2 people on the hardlines side of the salesfloor, 3 if we're lucky, 4 if we're extremely lucky.

My store was seperated into three "departments". One was electronics, toys, sporting goods, office supplies, luggage, automotive, and domestics. (If we were fully-staffed, domestics was its own department, but that happened VERY rarely.) One was all of softlines except for luggage...so, clothes, jewelry, shoes, and infants. The third was EVERYTHING else: Health & Beauty, market (food), seasonal, small appliances, home furnishings, furniture, lighting, etc etc.

Ideally, during our peak hours, we had 3 scheduled per department, but the electronics boat and the fitting room had to be manned at all times, effectively reducing those departments to 2. On Saturdays, we also had someone manning the jewelry boat.

Reality, of course, usually meant one per hardlines department and two in softlines (one in the fitting room). Occasionally, NO ONE would be scheduled for a few hours--like the day I injured my back lifting something too awkward alone. I was ticked off, because the manager got to put 'no callouts in the department that day' because...there weren't, there was literally no one scheduled. And they wondered why our safety score was in the red for 9 months...