To think that when customers are queuing 5 deep at your counters you really ought to try servinga few of them

[WetAugust]

In Boots today, 5 staff are behind the pharmacy counter and one staff memebr is trying to serve a queue of about 12 people. The rest appear to be stock-taking.

Oh you are not being unreasonable! This happens all the time.

Absolutely reasonable. I usually approach staff and say in a loud voice 'are you till trained?'

Probably too busy tripping up customers and blocking aisles with their "stock taking"...

I went in there the other day, a Friday and they were very busy. NOBODY on the tills at all, they were forcing everyone to use self-service (which I hate). They had to have staff standing by the self-service though, to help customers use them!

Oh this drives me mad - stocking the shelves should not take priority over waiting customers. Aldi have the right idea here - as soon as a small queue builds staff appear from nowhere and start serving on the tills - it's brilliant.

Shouldn't the one person on the tills alert other staff that they are needed?

They had to have staff standing by the self-service though

This is another bugbear. I went to the library recently - the library assistant refused to issue my books but instead directed me to the self scan machine - and then stood beside me to show me how it was done. Another woman couldn't her books to scan, so the assistant had to take her over to the issue desk and issue them there. Utterly ridiculous - hate hate hate self scan machines that I'm directed to. They should be optional.

On the other hand... there's NOTHING people who work in retail hate more than constantly being dragged away from the jobs they're trying to do to serve on the tills. There's probably a very tight deadline for the stocktaking, and if there were 5 people counting it was probably very close!

YANBU, where I used to work we used to ring a bell to let people know they were needed.

I used to work in a shop and they would always stick me on the till on my own, then another staff member would stand behind the till and start pricing something or look for a pen or something then when it got busy and a customer would go to them they would say sorry I'm not serving. Grrr used to really annoy me they had 4 tills but only used 2 most of the time.
One of the many reasons I was glad to leave

Oh and we had a bell, when I rang it normally 5 or 6 times the q would be about 10 people long and someone would turn up look at me and say yes what do you want?

On the other hand... there's NOTHING people who work in retail hate more than constantly being dragged away from the jobs they're trying to do to serve on the tills

Tsk tsk, what IS the world coming to? Sales assistants having to serve customers? Whatever next?

No, sales assistants you jolly well count those goods properly and bugger the customers!!! (Not having a dig at retail assistants...I realise they are probably being bullied into it....I know I was!)

I was in boots the other day. The one person on the checkout was ringing the bell like mad and no one was coming.
No self checkout in that branch

It is annoying but as a retail worker it's equally annoying when just because you work in the shop you must work on the tills. I was a visual merchandiser and wherever I went near the till customers expected me to serve them, which I was unable to do!

YANBU
Our Boots has done away with the quick service till by the door. So now everything has to go to the pharmacy counter. Clearly, a couple of questions or something hard to find and it all grinds to a hault.

As for ASDA replacing people with useless self service tills, there aren't enough swear words in my vocabulary

I also hate it when retail staff answer the phone while in the middle of serving on the till, deal with the customer in front of you first! Very rude IMO and I have done a lot of retail work!

This is why interenet shopping is so popular. My local Boots is like this. Loads of staff milling around, customers waiting to be served. I very occasionally go in there but mostly avoid the place like the plague. Everything that Boots sell can be purchased elsewhere, I am amazed they are still in business.

Yanbu, I work in a shop and the priority is customer service. Never mind that we have a huge delivery to unpack and put away, we have to drop everything and serve. Quite rightly too.

internet!

Boots is a pain for this, however the best shop for putting staff on the tills is B&M. 3 people apparently means a busy period and suddenly staff grow out of the ground and into the chairs behind the till!!

lanbro What is a visual merchandiser?

Which is why I now shop in Waitrose rather than Asda and will go to any chemist in preference to Boots.
If they don't want my trade I won't pester them to sell to me.

I fucking hate Boots. The irony is that DH works for them. They are expected to run branches on a bare skeleton staff with no allowances made for annual and sick leave. They are in a difficult position. If they take staff off shelf- filling and put them on the tills, you will find the shelf empty of the stock you want. It's catch 22. I'll tell you something else... the company's profits were not as high as expected. So not a single member of staff got their bonus. Even staff whose performance far exceeded expectations whom had been promised their bonuses. They are a shit company to work for and a shit company to shop in. I guess shop on line, or elsewhere.

bonzo think what you've just said is true of loads of shops now - they're making less and less profit and man hours are the first thing to go. If they are adequately staffed on the tills then the shelves are empty, stock is out-of-date and nothing is priced right.

grunt it's a fancy display person! Dressing Christmas trees, designing and constructing displays as well as merchandising stock, shop floor not check out based