If I can't fart rainbows from now on, I'm going to lose my job

[KellyHabersham]

We're kind of getting to this sort of thing at my job - can't remember if it's something being looked at with all city departments or just something our department head came up with, but we'll definitely be using "customer comment cards" or something of that nature.

[EricKei]

"That's it, Jester....you're fired!"

When my brother managed a little Italian place, his favorite way to send drivers home for the night was "Hey Jester, yer fired. Be back here tomorrow at 5"

So not farting rainbows every day--even though we are friendly at best and cordial at worst--could cause job loss..

Please forgive me, but, the second I saw this, THIS is all I could think of

[Jester]

When my brother managed a little Italian place, his favorite way to send drivers home for the night was "Hey Jester, yer fired. Be back here tomorrow at 5"

Actually, this is not the first place I have gotten fired from on a regular basis.

Back in Phoenix, when I DJ'd weddings, my first boss Dave did the same thing. At least once a month (and we only saw each other once a week), he would fire me or I would quit. This went on for the better part of 4 years.

[pageantmama]

We need to covertly start a revolution .... We need to somehow force the dweebs with the fancy college degrees that think they own the employees to stop relying on comment cards and actually get out and observe in the field as it were, use their tiny brains and actually see that customers are abusing the system thanks to their assinine policies. We need to blog, contact bloggers, write op pieces for time, newsweek, newspapers, we need to do *something* to show these morons that they are forcing their employees to follow pretty much unsupportable business practices.

Sometimes I wonder if the reason that higher up management always sides with the sucky customers and expect the "lowly" cashiers and floor workers to be able to take abuse from a customer and still have a smile on their face is because they are a sucky customer themselves and expect that kind of service. Most management I have had came straight out of school to management with no retail experience at all. That is what I liked about one manager I had. We were a "trainer store" for new management for the company. Our store manager was supposed to train new management and send them off to their permanent store when he thought they were ready. He would make them work registers so they had to deal with the sucky customers from start to finish and not just after they had already went off on an employee. Some did NOT like this and thought they were too good to do such a lowly job since they wore a manager tag

[Jester]

Some did NOT like this and thought they were too good to do such a lowly job since they wore a manager tag.

One restaurant I worked at years ago had a very simple policy. If someone was heard to utter the phrase "That's not my job," they were fired on the spot. This included management.

Those of us who busted our asses loved this policy. After all, the basis of the policy was that anything that needed doing in the restaurant was the job of all of us. The lazy fucks and superior assholes, however, were not overly fond of this particular policy. But somehow, they were never stupid enough to directly utter that phrase.

[MoonCat]

Going to a random customer, grabbing their name off their card, and using that to personally address them is awkward, and some might even consider it creepy.

Before long the manager agreed that corporate has their head in their ass and personally asked people to actually refrain from using customers' names if they don't know them personally, unless of course they have reason to believe one is a secret shopper or the district manager.

See, THIS is why I don't mind being called "Ma'am"! It's a lot less creepy than some total stranger (usually half my age) addressing me by my first name without my giving them permission to do so.

As for why corporate and managers do stuff like this--I really think it's because corporate culture teaches that you must do literally anything and everything to attain and keep customers. There is no differentiating between SC's and customers you want to keep. A customer is a customer. Period. WE WANT THEM ALL!!! (We also don't care if our employees get ulcers, migraines and butt pains from dealing with idiots, scammers, the rude, the abusive and the homicidal).

[mikoyan29]

It's funny how much attention retail stores and what not pay to these customer surveys. Most of the Quality magazines I read say that customer surveys are about the most useless thing to measure customer satisfaction. After sending them out for my company (admittedly different focus but...), I tend to agree with that because the people that bother to fill them out are the people that are pissed off about something or the people that are completely enamored. As a result, you never get the results that I would consider the average experience.

And I believe it was Deming who thought that using stuff like to evaluate things like promotions and raises was pretty counter productive.

I imagine the same thing goes with mystery shoppers as well. These are people looking for wrong things. And as such, will tend to find them. 9 times of 10, these wrong things are completely out of context. The sad part is, I'm not sure how you would effectively measure customer satisfaction without being a part of the process yourself. But then again, only those crazy Japanese teach things like empowering the workers.

[Evil Cashier 411]

wow

I hate when people think that were all rainbows and happy rabbits. I'm a cashier and most of the time I rather kick someone than smile and pretend that I like them.

The reason why we don't smile is because:
1. we're tired from standing with little or no breaks
2. we deal with assh*les everyday
3. we disagree with "Customer is always right" sh*t
4. we're tired of repeating the same answer to our constant customers
5. We tend to put up with customers price complains a lot.
6. if our light is on, then don't bother asking us whether if we're open, It drives us nuts.

Of course service with a smile

[dragon_wings]

It's amazing how out of touch corporate retail workers are with reality. Back when I was working at CVS corporate required us to ask each customer their name if they are cash customers, or if they use a check or credit card, we use the name on their card and greet them accordingly.

I went to Safeway once with my sister (she's married she she has a different last name). She bought her stuff then I had my stuff rung up and I used her card. The cashier said 'Thank you Mrs. <sister's last name>.' Spawning a conversation about how some places will call her by her last name, and other places will address her by her full first name (her name is Jennifer but she usually goes by Jen.) I just found it creepy that the Safeway cashier called me by my sister's married name (I love my brother in law. He's a great guy. )

[Kara]

some places will call her by her last name, and other places will address her by her full first name

At T-Mo, I once spoke to a very nice Vietnamese woman. This was shortly after we went from addressing the customer as "Mr/Ms last name" to "First name." and her first name was Bich. And it was pronounced just the way you think it is. So, as I had to put her on hold for something else anyway, I went and talked to my sup. I said I had no problem whatsoever calling her by her name, but wanted every assurance I wouldn't get in trouble if the call got recorded. She came over and looked at my screen and said, "you can call her Ms Whatever."

And I was so close to being able to get back on the line and saying, "Thanks for holding, Bich!"

EDIT - Now that I think about this, it didn't help things that I offered to set a new company record for using the customer's name the most times on a single call. My sup knew me well

[Jester]

Speaking of Miss Bich....

A while back, when there were two of us behind the bar, my coworker noticed that every time I addressed this one very attractive Asian-American girl at one end of the bar, I would say things like, "Yo, how is everything?" Or "Yo, do you need another drink." And so on, and so forth. Finally my coworker, who had been giving me funny looks, asked me, "Why are you trying to be so ghetto, man?"

Me: "Uh, I'm not. Her first name's Yo."

Coworker:

[IStillNeedToSeeYourBadge]

How do I file a complaint about our beleaguered cashier's managers so they can experience six lovely months?

@the huckster: Seriously? How the fuck did that ever seem like a good idea, especially at a H&B shop? So some customer comes up to the counter with an embarassing product (feminine care goods, adult diapers, antifungals, hemmeroid cream, etc.), and the cashier starts asking questions as to their identity? Fucking brilliant.

[crazylegs]

One thing that I love about my job is that we're expected to get complaints.

That's right.

Whenever we attend a job at least 50% of the people we deal with are not on 'our side' and we're in conflict with them. If we never got a complaint then my boss would be really rather worried (I tend to get a couple a year but none have gone anywhere).

[Little Retail Rabbit]

We have comment cards but we put them almost out of sight (you'd have to be observant to spot them) partly because there is no room on our counters aftre the space is taken up with lip gloss displays and little signs telling people that student discount is 10%. But I'm so glad we don't really hand them out anymore; this experience demonstrates how corporate definately over-estimates SC's intelligence. We had a customer come to our store who was really pissed with the service she had recieved at our sister store, and they had been, apparently, kind of rude to her (possibly, but I know the manager of that store, he's actually a decent bloke and she said it was the manager who was rude to her...following her next stupidity, its quite likely he tried to fart rainbows for her and she still wasn't happy). We managed to get her the product she wanted and she then asked if she could fill out a comment card to make a complaint about our sister store. We obliged; she filled it out and left. My assistant manager had to NOT give it in, in the end; she showed me the card. The SC was just such a poor writer (and not just grammar and spelling), that even though it was NOT her intention to complain about us (she had been very happy with our store), the poor choice of wording on her comment card implied that WE were the ones who were rude to her! I can't remember the exact wording. It definately wasn't deliberate, we knew that she hadn't actually tried to pass the blame onto us, but her writing and choice of wording was just so crap that she might as well have said WE did it.

[MelodiousBubbles]

--Speaking of which, some jerk complained that instead of saying "thank you", the cashier told him/her to have a good day. This was wrong because we shouldn't be telling people what kind of day to have, blargle.

This could be someone who is traveling from elsewhere. I have friends in a few European countries who, quietly and only to me, complained about the "Have a nice day!" pleasantries we tend to exchange at the end of an order.

It's just not something they do where they're from, but it's still not grounds to send in a complaint.