Customers expect us to know if other shops in the area sell certain items

[Auburngal]

When at work, when a customer asks where is x or do we sell x. If we know that we don’t sell x either from experience or looking at the shelves where you expect to find the product.

If we don’t sell the item in question, customer asks “do you know if (name of shop in the area) sells it?” When we say we don’t know, a few customers have flipped. We don’t know the inventory of each shop. Unless we buy the product or seen it in that shop, we haven’t got a clue.

So why do customers presume that we know what other shops in the area sell?

The one I had yesterday was something pet related. I don’t have pets so I don’t go down the pet aisle of section

@EilonwyWithRedGoldHair i hate it when we get the area boss or above visit. They should turn up unannounced and can see how we are struggling.

I previously worked in a well known health shop. Someone came in looking for a pestle and mortar which we didn't sell and they got quite angry when I didn't have any ideas as to where to get one. I was 20 years old and not a big cook.

I understand the OP in that you are often expected to know about items you have never bought. 20 years later I still have no idea where you would buy a pestle and mortar offline as I have still never bought one!

The other thing I've remembered is being on the end of a angry customer who has been directed to my shop by an assistant in a different shop. When I have told them we don't sell the item I get 'Boots told me you sold them' and it is very hard to persuade them we don't sell that item as they are insistent that a sales assistant in another store knows the stock better.

This means being helpful and suggesting another store could actually end up with another store assistant getting moaned/shouted at. I was always careful to say it was just a suggestion and not a guarantee that another shop had an item.

Regional Manager visits weren't so bad - I mean we'd polish the stands and that was about it. The Chief Exec visit was so weird - we were actively discouraging customers, and I have no idea why we needed to look as if we never had any. And being told to try not to sell certain items. Seems quite surreal looking back.

When I say to customers “you could try (shop) to see if they might sell (product) but I’m not fully aware of their range”.

As all retailers discontinue lines, add new lines or in the case of my work - get things delivered by error. Which are non ranged. If they fresh or produce, we have to create space near similar items. Ambient, could sell it or get it transferred to a larger store.

I’m very surprised that no customer as has asked about these error deliveries weeks later.

Ties in with my experience as a temp at John Lewis in the 90s. Absolutely regimental, like being at The Ministry of Magic during the Dolores Umbridge era.

I feel your pain. I suppose all you can do is try your best. If you genuinely know another shop stocks something, or the directions to another shop, opening hours etc. there is no reason not to help. If you can access google in your role you could do that for them.

But yes, I remember as a 16 year old doing my first job on a checkout, someone bought lychees. I'd never even heard of them, let alone seen one, and struggled to put it through the till. The customer was horrible to me over it. Lets belittle a working class girl trying to do A levels and earn minimum wage over lychees.

When I was a supervisor, a young woman who worked on the tills had a customer ask a question about homogenised milk before going on a rant about how thick people were at Tesco and no one would even know what homogenisation is let alone answer his question. I took incredible joy in pointing out that the woman who had held her tongue to you is actually in a summer break from her Chemistry degree at Oxford (one of the biggies, it was 25 years ago) so probably knows more about homogonisation than you and the rest of the staff put together, and that perhaps he should consider paying her and the rest of our staff a little more respect, and we will be happy to help find you the answers you want.

Another time I used the store's outdoor cashpoint on Easter Sunday at 11am-ish. There was a queue of people waiting to get in despite the store being closed. I decided to be nice and told them that I worked there and that the shop was closed until tomorrow which would be BH hours. Cue a flood of questions and comments. "My sister said it was open" Well sorry your sister thought that, but I promise we're closed. "Are you calling my sister a liar?" No, just misinformed. "I only need bread and milk" Try the express 5 minutes up the road "I shouldn't have to". Sorry, I can't open a Tesco extra on my own when I just came to get cash out. Another man joins the conversation "But I need to return this toaster!" You'll be able to do it tomorrow, but we're closed today. "I am not taking this all the way home again". At that point I'd had enough. People were literally following me to the car, and I quite firmly but calmly said "Look, I'm not working, the shop is closed. I just wanted £50 for my day out and didn't want you all waiting out here for nothing. I'm going now" Toaster man and bread and milk lady shouted that I was rude!

The point is, you can try your best for people, and its great when people have a bit of wider knowledge of products and other stockists etc. but you can't expect it all of the time. And what ever you do or say, some people will just be unreasonable arses.

@Everanewbie When I was with my ex, I lived in a city about 100 miles from where I now live. He works (probably still does) at a different supermarket chain to me when I was in call centre work.

On Christmas Day, we walked past his work to go to his mum's. There were always at a few saddos standing by the entrance RIGHT by the MASSIVE poster with the opening hours over the following week and a bit.

A couple of them recognise him and asked him when they are going to open as they have been waiting two hours. My ex laughed and said Merry Christmas and we continued on our way.

Anyone who has nothing better to do than to stand outside a supermarket or shop on a day its not going open needs to get a life.

On the subject of Easter Sunday, I have seen people driving into the empty car park to Aldi. The empty car park gives a big clue that they are shut. My work's car park is on the roof so there's a shutter on the entrance. There's a couple of colleagues working on ES as changing the promo signs etc for 2 hours. My colleagues hear knocks on the window by people "when are you opening?" My colleagues shout they are closed and say a few shops which are.

I wouldn’t flip out. But quite often shop assistants do go onto say - we don’t have it but have you tried so and so a place? I was looking for curtains recently and somewhere didn’t have the size I wanted so they sent me to a shop I hadn’t thought of round the corner. B and M - who knew?

So perhaps because it’s so ‘normal’ it’s expected by some?

Yes I agree. I don't think a customer asking the question is BU at all. Its the reaction to not getting the ideal response to the question that is unreasonable to the staff.

@Everanewbie I agree the expectation and the rudeness is totally unacceptable. They’re people not google!

I know. About 95% of our customers have grasped that it's a more efficient use of both our time and theirs'. There's still 5% who don't seem to understand that an actual human needs to go and physically fetch the items. I've witnessed several members of staff try to politely explain to the same customer how the process works. Likewise people who place an order on the one day a week we are closed, then complain that they haven't received it the next day. We don't even offer a next day delivery which is clearly stated alongside our opening hours on the homepage!

And whats the problem there?

I work in a very well known ( for the area ) restaurant in a store, before that I worked in another very well respected restaurant/bar and Im recognised everywhere. My only problem with that is putting people to where I know them from and trying to remember names/ conversations

But then Im not rude to customers so being greeted by someone who recognises me from my role as server isnt a big deal and is actually quite nice - I made a good impression on their time out

@suki1964 the problem is if someone recognises you from b&m while you're on your day off in Aldi why on earth would you know where the cheese strings are?

I find the opposite. If I ask for something that's not stocked in a shop the sales assistant will often suggest where else to try instead. Excellent customer service.

Still cant it is as a "problem", happens to me all the time, its not a "problem" I just say "perhaps if I worked here Id know but I dont ", unless of course as a regular customer to the shop I did know so Id tell them

A friend works for Sainsburys with Argos next to the main entrance and she and her colleagues get no end of customers where they can pick up their Argos order.

The thing is they have to walk past Argos to go to the CSD of Sainsburys!

Surely the Sainsbury’s staff know where they can pick up their Argos order?

Seeing as Sainsburys now owns Argos, its not really beyond reality to think a customer would ask where to go?

I know myself, we used to have Argos next door to Sainsbury , I didnt know they had physically merged, so I was rather taken back to find Argos was no longer there and I had to go into Sainsburys, and tbh its not immediately clear where Argos is, the Cigarette counter and newspapers are in front of it as well as Customer services. Its not till you look past the Habitat shelving , which you wouldnt unless you were looking for sheets or saucepans, would you see the Argos counter

Of course they do!

Its just that customers walk past the Argos at my friend’s work and ask at the Sainsburys staff where do they collect their Argos order from.

Most Argos’ are tucked at the back of Sainsburys.

This store has Argos at the front as Argos and Sainsburys are units next to each other. Sainsburys just blocked off the outside entrance, knocked down the wall between the two units making that the new entrance.