AIBU to wish Superdrug would row back on the hard sell at the till?

[Shortysoso]

On Saturday I was offered three items, not a problem, it's the weekend, I wasn't in a hurry. The assistant went on a bit about the mascara but it didn't really bother me. Today I nipped in on way back from medical appointment to buy one thing quickly and the assistant just wouldn't stop - hand gel, mini hand gel, then how about two nivea lip balms for only £2?

Enough already! I know what I want to buy, by all means stick offers in baskets so the generally very long line of people waiting to pay can view them at leisure but stop holding up the queue, irritating the customers and asking staff to do something which can't be enjoyable.

It seemed the assistant today had to get through the script even though I politely indicated I only wanted what I had already chosen to purchase.

NB I wasn't rude and never would be but it's a bit wearing for all concerned surely?!

Unpleasant, upselling needs to be done tho

Savers are bad for this.
I always feel sorry for the workers having to do that customer after customer.

It does annoy me in most shops but Clinton's always tempt me.

Would you like a small tape dispenser/pocket calendar/pink glitter gel pen/dragon egg for 99p?

Fucking sign me up!

I used to work at savers which is a branch of Superdrug’s and I always hated having to do the upsell as most customers just wasn’t interested

But like PP said, if they don’t hear us saying it, we get in trouble

Are you American by any chance?

I'm guessing from 'row back' and 'enough already'?

If so, it's not common for shop staff in the U.K. to go in for the pushy sales tactics so almost certainly just doing what they've been told.

@myusernamewastakenbyme

I suppose the only way to stop this is if we all email the head office of these stores and tell them how much we hate it.

As an ex-retail employee, I can tell you that, sadly, it makes no difference how many customers complain about it.

My old job required you to upsell - you were penalised and pulled up if too many of your transactions were only one item I didn't matter if your one item was worth £400 - it was only one item so that's not good enough.

If you didn't upsell/offer an additional item to a mystery shopper, you failed your mystery shop (no matter how well the rest of it went) and got a verbal warning for it. If it happened again, it was a formal warning for poor performance. The pressure was shocking and I saw many people end up in tears over it.

Luckily I found something else and left last year!

Savers and Superdrug are owned by the same company.
At Christmas, I bought Jimmy choo perfume I planned to buy it in the Superdrug. Same perfume in savers was £15 cheaper. The assistant told me they are both owned by the same company.

The worse was Debenhams with their storecard. Always annoying, sometimes they were quite aggressive. An assistant asked me three times about opening a storecard. I said I had told her no 3 times now, please don't ask again. I said this politely, when I walked away she muttered old bag. I didn't report her, should have done. It happened to me again with another assistant, the protracted hard sell in the same branch, without the insult. I complained on Twitter about their policy, they asked me which branch, and said they would be in touch with the manager as it wasn't their policy. I went back a month or so later, it happened again. The assistant was lovely but persistent. I said I hate it when you do this, it makes me want to never shop here again. She leant over the counter and whispered, they make us do it, I couldn't agree with you more, if I were a customer I would hate it too, and handed me a discount voucher for their shite cafe which I never used. Not her fault, we parted on friendly terms, but I stopped shopping there. Along with millions of others it would seem. How not to run a business. RIP Debenhams.

Superdrug is now my bete noire, so bad for it. I have often been tempted to leave the queue because it is moving so slowly because of the protracted conversations at the tills. But I know it isn't the till operators fault, the complaints need to go to their HQ.

WHSmiths too. I was once asked if I wanted to buy lightbulbs at the tills. Random. I felt like Del Boy was around the back with his suitcase full of hookie gear.

Lockdown has some positives. I no longer want to shop in these shite chains. I am shopping online from now on, and will only go in smaller chains or independents from now on. Or if I absolutely can't avoid it, self service tills.

infuriates me so much!! I've actually stopped going there

This is one of the reasons I left retail banking. I absolutely hated having to encourage customers to take out a loan/credit card. Even worse was having to stay back after closing one evening a week to call the "leads" generated.

Many of our customers were people who had come in to the branch to take out their last £3.50 as they couldn't get it out of the ATM, the last thing they needed was more debt.

A local Eurospar used to do this but on reading this thread I now realise that they have stopped. Wonder did they get a load of complaints. I get the same in our local Superdrug but tbf once you say no that you don't want to purchase anything more they don't push it. I know how they feel as I used to work in financial services and we had to try and sell another type of account or maybe a loan to customers who were maybe just in to pay a bill. We were a small branch and knew most of our customers pretty well and some would have been in and out regularly and didn't appreciate being interrogated about their finances each time they stepped over the door.

I remember having to flog the Next directories back as a teenager. As the youngest and one of the few part timers it was always handed to me to do. I had one guy, clearly having a bad day, who threatened to "knock my lights out". They let me skip it for a few weeks after that...

@Blackcountrychik

I work in Argos and we have mystery shoppers who test you to make sure you’re offering the Argos care and Argos cards right , due to selling laws. We get filmed if we serve the mystery person and get called into the office if we haven’t done our job right . We all HATE it , every month we get tested to make sure we know what we are saying and how and it’s the hardest part of the job to the point no one likes being on the till anymore !! So , sales staff hate asking as much as customers hate us asking them !!! Especially when we get shouted at for just doing our jobs :( we could get the sack if we don’t ask !

Having just dealt with a very rude Argos Manager when discussing a return their mystery shoppers might want to focus on the lack of customer service training. As I will never shop in Argos again after that experience if I can avoid it.

It seems that good customer service is a dying art and focussing on annoying the customer as much as possible by upwelling is the way forward. No wonder the high street is dying.

I once got written up for not asking a customer if she qualified for a trademens discount card. She must have been at least 80 and was buying bedding plants with her young grandchildren. Bedding plants don't even get a trade discount.

While you would hope that common sense would prevail, we are usually working for morons and you just can't argue with dickheads.

I order everything online/in the supermarket now so I don’t get any of this.

The high street is just not a convenient way for me to shop anymore.

My sister used to work at Superdrug, back when the upsell was stamps and phone credit! Although those things at that time were actually useful and lots of people had forgotten they needed them. She said old ladies were often delighted at having been reminded they needed stamps! But now, no one gets to the till having forgotten to pick up the perfume they went in for. How much of the stuff can they actually flog at the till?! It's really annoying and makes the queue so much longer than it needs to be.

I'm still cross about a Holland and Barrett experience a few months ago. I probably won't articulate this well, but honestly it was horrible.

I wanted apple slices for a recipe that my husband was cooking. Till guy asks what I'm there for on arrival. I tell him. He doesn't know where they are - which is fine - and then sort of looks with me. He goes to serve someone else and I find the apple slices, go to the till to pay.

He then apologises profusely for not helping me and making me wait- no need at all.

He then tries to upset me coconut oil. I say no thankyou. He says it's good for cooking. I say no thankyou, the recipe is being cooked by my husband and it's not needed. He then says it's good for hair. I said no thankyou; I really just want the apple slices. He then says another reason for this product (skin maybe?) and I quote "I'm trying to change your mind on this".

I really wanted to say - no means no. I've said it three times now and this experience is really uncomfortable.

Of course I just scuttled out of the shop, bitched about it to my husband and ate the apple cookies whilst thinking about writing a strongly worded letter to their HQ.

I get that they don't want to do it, but it is annoying.

Yet another reason to shop online.

Yeah, the wheels definitely fall of that thing the moment you even enter Superdrug. It's like space aging. You go in for the tena ladies and leave years older.

But now, no one gets to the till having forgotten to pick up the perfume they went in for.

And this, absolutely. "Can I interest you in a bottle of FreeBritney to take home with your tena ladies and toenail clippers?"

I'm coming up on 50, I wear a waterproof caked in paw prints and mud. I've got cat whiskers growing out of my chin. You think they'd at least entice me with their Veet sample swatch.

It seems that good customer service is a dying art and focussing on annoying the customer as much as possible by upwelling is the way forward. No wonder the high street is dying

Yes definitely. I know some websites try to do it too but it's less intrusive than at the till. Some shops hassle you all the time (Lush, Benefit) and with others when you try to look for someone to help you can't find anyone. It's not altogether surprising that many people don't shop in shops anymore, online is hassle-free.

I think Martin Lewis helped with regard to how awful store cards are as a product.