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.

Can I say most staff where I tend to shop are very good, very helpful, and friendly without being too intrusive.

there are a few exeptions though.

same with customers, some nice and respectful, some downright rude.

After all, we wang to keep out job so if we are told to make small talk/encourage self serve use etc what are we to do? Just go against instructions?

I'm sure that Boots tell their staff to serve customers first. The people behind the counter either were not shop staff (stocktakers are often external) or they were shop staff but they were already serving customers (i.e. customers who had left prescriptions and would be coming back for their medicines shortly).

Of course we realise that management are in charge and you have to do as you are told, just as with any job - but surely at some point you do customer surveys? If so, what are they telling you? If not, can you suggest it?

Thing is, people simply vote with their feet and go elsewhere if they don't like the service - and this is really not a time when any shop can afford to lose customers.

Actually i don't mind if shop staff talk to each other whilst they serve me as long as it doesn't distract from my transaction!

However my local m&s foodhall recently stopped doing cash back why?!

And the boots removed its advantage cards machines so I can't print the offer vouchers. There's still plenty of room for them they had 2 machines before. I don't shop in boots much now.

I hate when assistants carry on conversations while they serve me - that is the height of rudeness.

H&M can sometimes be ok for putting another member of staff on tills. I just walk out of any shop with a long queue and no one else serving.

Yes but sirchenjin I'd rather they do that and look happier rather than have a face like a slapped arse!

I can remember starting a new job in a bank. It was really quiet and then suddenly panic stations... two people were queuing and that was apparently an emergency and all staff raced to help.

That was the lovely Bradford & Bingley (RIP) that got gobbled up by Santander and all the customer service ethos was sucked out :(

I haven't bought anything in Boots for about 20 years! Life is perfectly possible without it. And they are terribly expensive.

I once failed a job interview because the boss told me that it was company policy to answer the phone within 3 rings...even if I was dealing with a client who was sat in front of me!
She asked me what I thought of that and I answered that it must be a trick question as it seemed extremely rude!
Opps.

Customer surveys? No. I gave up passing on suggestions to management a long long time ago. However, do you email I. Suggestions, complaints or, date I say it, praise for a member of staff who has gone the extra mile?

I don't work for boots. But I work in retail. Everyone likes different kinds of service, as this thread shows. We can't win. And clearly retail staff are seen as lower than the low. Nice

Super - I'd rather they didn't talk to each other, focussed on serving me, and smiled. Plenty of shop assistants manage to do just that!

Joules - yes, I email and complain/give feedback/praise staff, I really do. Not all the time, obviously - that would make me a bit of a loon . The thing is, most people like a choice of how they check out (tills and self scans), they like a smiling assistant who says hello, please, thank you, and they don't like queues. It is not rocket science, and plenty of shops and assistants do get it right. Unfortunately, as with any profession, you get some who really don't give a shit - and that's what bugs customers. I've worked in retail too, and I know that some customers can be miserable shits - but it shouldn't be a case of competitive awfulness.

I work in retail and always serve customers above and beyond anything else but I'm always being told I don't get enough 'other' work done, there is so much pressure to get so much done in my four hour shift and it just can't be done with jumping on and off of the tills all the time. I refuse to sacrifice customer service for this and just argue my corner but I know a lot of the other supervisors will leave a queue as they are scared not to get xyz done within a certain time!! :(

I don't shop in boots because they are awful. Half-empty shelves, massive queues and really, really expensive.

I made the mistake of popping in to pick up some antihistamines while I was passing recently. The kind that cost about £2 everywhere else were about £7.50. Of course, there was no useful info on the shelf to tell me how overpriced they were so I got to the front of the (self service) queue before I found out. Needless to say didn't buy them and went to Asda on the way home instead (where they cost me about £2).

I am a manager in a large food hall. The powers above us decide how many people are to be on a till at a certain time and how many are to be doing certain jobs on the shop floor.

There is so much pressure on the staff to get their certain jobs done in the time that they are given to do it. It is so unfair when customers are rude and sarcastic to staff regarding this sort of thing because they are usually working really really hard already and are only doing what they have been told.

I sometimes wonder if people speak to others they way they speak shop workers

Surely the problem isn't the workers but policies devised by company management though. It's not like the shop floor workers choose for there to be too few of them, or for there to be unrealistic and unfair demands about how they use their time.

Boots being stupidly overpriced, for example, is very unlikely to have anything to so with the person stacking the shelves.

They possibly are because they haven't really thought it through.

It really isn't the assistants fault, f we don't follow procedures we will be disciplined for it.

You can't win really.

Our stock take staff were a completely different company and nothing to do with our store.

Of course company policies and procedures have nothing to do with the staff on the shop floor and often people get no response when issues are escalated further. But for as long as customers keep walking through the doors companies will continue to do things as they are

I loved the self service tills when they were first introduced. They were ideal when you only had a small amount of shopping, especially when supermarkets still had the basket tills (remember them)! Now my local Asda has replaced over half of it's tills with those awful self service tills for trolleys. And they don't put staff on the few manned tills that are left. I hate taking a trolley full of shopping through the self service as it takes about 4 times as long and you have to be approved for almost every fucking item. I refuse to use them now and make a point of using the manned tills, if there aren't any open I go to Tesco up the road. It's disgraceful that staff are being done out of jobs because shops are putting in so many self service tills. I'm all for a few of them making things quicker but when they replace people it's ridiculous!

trollies not trolleys