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.

No, Boots being overpriced FUCKING OBVIOUSLY doesn't have anything to do with the staff on the shop floor . Its just another reason not to shop there.

Poor library staff getting it too, you know we have to meet the targets for using the self service machines that we know most people hate and took the jobs of our colleagues and will take mine too soon

A friend of mine works at boots and they are very rigid about staffing, the people there are doing their best, but will be under enormous pressure to complete the task in hand-no excuses.

Yes, mintyy. It seems obvious, but the shop floor staff do get ranted at about it. Presumably the rangers have lost sight of the fact the the assistant they're talking to didn't decide to charge nearly 4 times what every other shop does for an item.

You know i don't buy the idea that the staff can't do anything. I say this having been part of teams where we could and did do something about poor service and on occasion I had to fight my corner and take a bollocking from above because I was the manager and so the buck has to stop with me. I've also been in teams who couldn't give a shit and teams with a prevalent "computer says no" attitude.

I think how the teams are compiled, led and how empowered the individuals are makes a massive difference. I like many places would do well to learn/remember this.

There's never an excuse for rudeness from anyone.

Explain that to the jobcentre then! When I'm jobless and back there.... Can just imagine the convo. Sorry, I got sacked for insisting they were doing it all wrong and changing it to do it my way!

Some people on this thread are being deliberately thick I think!

Yes hugoagogo I feel your pain!
The conversation went like this :-
Managers - these library self serve machines cost a lot of money to install. You must make sure that over 95% of library transactions take place on the self serve.
Staff - ok, that is what we will do.
Staff instruct all customers to use self serve machines. Customers do not like this and make many complaints.
Managers - we have received many complaints about the poor customer service in the libraries. You must improve this.
Staff - ok, we will do what we can to keep customers happy.
Managers - not enough customers are using the self serve machines and now people have to lose their jobs to pay for the machines.

Where I used to work we were told off if we didn't answer the phone within 3 rings, customer or no customer. I was once pulled aside by a supervisor and literally screamed at (no exaggeration) for failing to do so despite a queue of customers in the Christmas rush. Trust me, when you've been left almost in tears on multiple occasions, you bloody well run to answer that flipping phone....

I was the store manager at the end but I wasn't responsible for area policy or some of the other nonsense. I also had a manager, who had a manager who also had a manager. But I always ran my teams to do the best job and so they got something out of it. They were able to have some autonomy which is really important and had benefits for everyone. Actually that's not true, I learnt to do that. I also learnt how to say "yes of course we'll do that" to the latest ridiculously prescriptive edict and then go ahead and give my team free reign to use their sense to do things the way that would work best for the store, customers and clients because they knew much better what would work locally than somebody in an office trying to apply a single solution to 400 different branches.

I was also not always the manager - not when I started out and then had to work my way up. I still worked in great teams where we did what we could... and not so great teams where we didn't. There had to be a collective will.

I've had shit store managers and great store managers. The stuff coming down the line from the top is fairly constant "do the impossible more with less" shtick but guess which ones had the best customer service scores and the best sales results? The good ones who can go "well that's obviously unreasonable and that bit doesn't make sense and won't work in this particular store because of XYZ and we'd do better to do ABC". The shit ones who only care about box ticking don't compare.

X-posted with some excellent examples of shit, jobsworth managers who made shit, jobsworthy decisions. Or rather just parroted some stuff without engaging brain. It makes me really cross because it's just so disrespectful to the people working on the front line and presumes you're incapable of making reasonable, business critical decisions.

I really do think so much would be solved if companies employed managers who have common sense, the balls to use it and the ability to listen to feedback and look at what is actually happening, not what they have been told "from above" needs to happen. Less prescription and more empowerment of those on the front line is the key. Measure outcomes, not how well am arbitrary process was followed.

It's all a big chain really from assistant to manager to area manager to regional manager.

Too many!

The assistants are at the bottom of the pile though.

I think you are all being extremely harsh on the person serving on the till as previously worked on the tills in a well know retail store when I was younger. Do you know how frustrating it is to be constantly moaned and complained at for something that isn't your fault? I used to have to deal with this day in day out and was regularly put on the tills on my own knowing this would happen and it used to fill me with dread knowing what was coming, ffs have some consideration for the poor person behind the till who is simply trying to do there job. If you really feel the need to complain then complain to the person above who can solve it not the poor person who cant do anything about it. I was 16 btw and it made me realise that working with the public in retail really wasn't for me , far too many twunts and yes I was regularly sworn at there is just no need for rudeness.

Sorry just read the updated thread some of you not all of you

I bet they were busy preparing prescriptions and repeat prescription for the community nurses coming to pick up stock before doing their rounds.

This is why after a decade i will never go back to retail. Its nothing to do with the staff on the floor they cant do anything. I lost of track how many times i was sworn at by customers simply because i was told from above to make sure i was following procedures.
Staff on the floor do not make the policies. Just because they have to enforce them does not mean they are giving bad customer service! Iv gone home in tears because of how customers have spoken to me.
I would never go anywhere and speak to somebody the way iv been spoken to.

It's inexcusable to rant at the staff on the shop floor for management deficiencies, the only way to deal with this is either complain to the CEO or take your business elsewhere, I choose the later, Boots has no unique selling points as far as I can see. It's not just Boots either, WH Smiths, PC World, off the top of my head are places I don't frequent anymore due to poor customer service. Eventually they will "get it" or close.

I used to work in boots and some of it is down to the customer service staff. If a queue built up I used to ring the bell but some staff seemed immune from hearing it and would just carry on doing what they wanted. Other staff would purposely not ring the bell even if a big queue had built up because they saw it as some personal sort of challenge or had no concept of team work.

I hate shopping in m and s food at lunchtime for the same reasons. I also refused to buy a bag I really like from Warehouse because the staff member talked to her friend about her weekend plans for nearly ten minutes before even looking at me

I was in a book store the other week. Me and another man were at the till to pay.

A member of staff walking back and forth shelving books, smiling at us, making no attempt to come over. The member of staff then went into the backroom just behind the till, came back out with a ladder, walk off and disappeared into a labyrinth of books with his ladder. Me and the other man were looking at each-other rather bemused, but impatiently. 5 minutes. I really needed the items I had selected, so did not walk out. Then I discovered a discrete little bell next to the till, and tinkled it.

Immediately Tinkerbell descended from the room behind the till, the very same backroom that had 5 minutes earlier stored a ladder.

Could the other member of staff not have told her that there were customers waiting to pay when he went in to get the ladder?

The mind boggles.

In future, I will look for the bell, and I will use it.

Bump - that's so true. There is an assistant in our local Boots who makes it clear she hates being 'summoned' by the bell to serve customers. I always pray I get her, just out of badness

Tesco first began to pull ahead of its rivals when it introduced its "one in front" policy ie started opening up more tills if there was a queue. They did a lot of market research and discovered that customers were much more influenced by that than by pricing. And it was cheaper to sort out than to reduce prices! Most of you will be too young to remember the STUPIDLY long waits there used to be at supermarket checkouts before Tesco changed the game. And also sorted out parking. It has made them into the world beating brand they are now. Boots is destined to eventual bankruptcy if they can;t serve their customers in a timely fashion.

I was told, answer the phone, because the person at the other end can't see you're busy, whereas the person in front of you can!

I seldom to be honest meet rude staff in retail. yes sure I have often waited at a till but nothing extreme. BUT I have witnessed many an eye rolling phone talking rude customer. its a queue, you wait your turn. I think everyone is in such a rush and have absolutely no patience.

plus a sales assistant often has stats to turn out every day, no of calls answered, shelves stacked, tills, etc and has to adhere to a rota that was not made up by themselves.

imagine a day of tutting, money thrown at you, customers talking on the phone as if your not even there, grumpy faces ... I witness that more often. and no I do not work in retail (except a summer in tescos about ten years ago).

The longest supermarket queues I ever encounter are in Marks & Spencer.

A queue quite often builds up in Peckham Lidl but the checkout operators in there are the fastest on the planet - they fling your purchases at you in the manner of being served a drink in a bar in the Wild West .

But I do have to steel myself to buy food at M&S due to the interminable wait. The checkout bods always say "thank you for waiting" and I always think it would be a novelty to come in here and only have to wait a minute.