Round and round and round....

[Spork4pedro]

"Please hold." *puts on hold, activates intercom* "Manager, phone call on line two. Manager, line two please."

>.>

Haha! I just did that to my manager earlier but in person not over the phone. A lady came up to me and asked "What do you have here that you can give as a gift?". Not a weird question except that we are a GIFT STORE! EVERYTHING in here can be a gift. I told her such and tried to get her to narrow it down a bit to maybe point her in a direction, but she kept saying "But what in here is a GIFT? You know, to GIVE to someone?" so cue me paging the mgr since I apparently broke the record.

[Jetfire]

A GIFT card, that's what you offer her in that case.

[thatcrazyredhead]

Oy. I used to work at a Hallmark store in the mall, and I once got a phone call asking if we carried everything on the internet. o.O I'm pretty sure he meant did we carry everything on our website, but the answer to both questions is no. Each store is independently owned and has it's own inventory, whcih is limited by space. He seemed confused, so I asked if there was anything else I could help him with. He asked if we had a gift for his girlfriend, and I cheerfully told him we had many things to choose from, and we looked forward to seeing him when he came in to pick something out before I hung up the phone.

[emax4]

Most business will fire you if you do that *shrugs* Does it make sense? Nope, but that is the way it works. Some people have no choice, but to bite their lip..be as nice as possible..and sit and answer the same question a billion times.

But then you have businesses that require a handle time of x minutes or less as an average. If they don't set boundaries, the employee suffers and not the customer who is holding everyone else up.

I'm currently looking for work and ask them if they have handle time goals. If not, then I'm still interested in working for them. If they do have goals, I look elsewhere. If anyone IS working for a company with mundane and unobtainable goals regarding handle time, esp when the customer goes unpunished, I urge them to leave and look elsewhere.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

Most business will fire you if you do that *shrugs* Does it make sense? Nope, but that is the way it works. Some people have no choice, but to bite their lip..be as nice as possible..and sit and answer the same question a billion times.

But then you have businesses that require a handle time of x minutes or less as an average. If they don't set boundaries, the employee suffers and not the customer who is holding everyone else up.

Businesses want to offer "the best customer experience EVAH" and they want to accommodate as many customers as possible, so they set mutually exclusive policies like that.

With a call like that, I'd be escalating to a supervisor so they can break the policy instead of me breaking it.

[Mytical]

But then you have businesses that require a handle time of x minutes or less as an average. If they don't set boundaries, the employee suffers and not the customer who is holding everyone else up.

I'm currently looking for work and ask them if they have handle time goals. If not, then I'm still interested in working for them. If they do have goals, I look elsewhere. If anyone IS working for a company with mundane and unobtainable goals regarding handle time, esp when the customer goes unpunished, I urge them to leave and look elsewhere.

Unfortunately, again, corporate has a bipolar attitude toward this. One is, all calls should be handled in x amount of time, you should try everything in your power to 'deescalate' (not transfer to somebody who actually might be able to do something, you are 'empowered' to make the customer happy..etc. While at the same exact time "Never hang up on a customer (some let you hang up in very specific circumstances, some don't), if you give out too much/too often then you get yelled at/fired, and even when you get the go ahead to transfer you get complaints that you should have handled it." does it make sense? Again no. Is it right? Nope. Nobody ever said it made sense. As for 'quitting and finding another job'. Yes..absolutely possible. When you live paycheck to paycheck, not always FEASIBLE, but possible. In the current economy you might not find a job soon..and since you quit..no unemployment for you (most of the time) so yeah..good in THEORY, not so much in practice.

[XCashier]

"I want a catalog."
"We don't have one."
"But I want one."

"And I want a 24 inch waistline, 20/20 eyesight and a billion dollars in my bank account. We can't all have what we want. Life sucks that way. Now, is there something you want that we actually have?!"

[Lovecats]

"And I want a 24 inch waistline, 20/20 eyesight and a billion dollars in my bank account. We can't all have what we want. Life sucks that way. Now, is there something you want that we actually have?!"

I love this! Actually, I was thinking pretty much the same thing when I read the OP.

[emax4]

I have a solution and I think I may have done this on a few occasions: If you go beyond your handle time, esp when the customer is repeating the same thing over without actually listening, let them know that you'll call them back in less than a minute. This way you can hang up, make an outbound call, and get credit for another call and hopefully stay within the companies call timer boundaries.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

One of my joyful childhood pastimes rendered obsolete by the cruel march of technology was the annual arrival of the JC Penny winter catalog, with all the Xmas toys/loot.

But dude, even I know that 1985 is gone for good and ain't coming back, get with the program

For us it was the Sears Wish Book as well as the annual catalogs from Brendle's, Best Products and Ellman's (later Service Merchandise.)

Of course by the time I was 11 I wasn't looking at the toys but the electronics.

And what do you mean 1985 ain't coming back? I found the Sears Wish Book from 1983. . .and I didn't need a DeLorean to find it.

[Treasure]

And what do you mean 1985 ain't coming back?

It's here

[Redbeard]

Come on now. Cats are made of sugar and spice, and they love to catch mice . . .

They taste closer to rabbit to me...

What?

[ADeMartino]

Oy. I used to work at a Hallmark store in the mall, and I once got a phone call asking if we carried everything on the internet. o.O I'm pretty sure he meant did we carry everything on our website, but the answer to both questions is no. Each store is independently owned and has it's own inventory, whcih is limited by space. He seemed confused, so I asked if there was anything else I could help him with. He asked if we had a gift for his girlfriend, and I cheerfully told him we had many things to choose from, and we looked forward to seeing him when he came in to pick something out before I hung up the phone.

Spencer Gifts, about a bazillion years ago. Just because it has the word 'Gifts' in the name, doesn't mean that we carry gifts for EVERY walk of life. It was always amusing when the prim and proper 'uptights' would come in looking to buy a gift for someone, and flee in terror when they got a look at the 'gift products' we sold.

For those who've never been in one, Spencer caters (or at least, used to) to the more liberal-minded individual.... paraphernalia, adult materials, psychedelic posters, blacklights.... you get the idea. Sort of a 'head shop', but toned-down just a teensy bit.

Despite my relatively short tenure there, it was one of the most fun jobs I ever had, because the people I worked for/with and the customers were all so damned laid-back. Damn, I miss those days.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

It's here

That was freakin' HILARIOUS!!!