A "Slow" Day

It's been a busy week both on the work and home fronts, thus the lack of updates. The most notable weekend event:

It was a somewhat slow day (for a weekend, anyway) and plenty of associates were working. My cashier rather curiously paged me to the back of the store. Huh? Where? Why? Assuming she was mistaken or I misheard, I headed to the front to see what she needed. Partway there she saw me and somewhat desperately shouted out, "The back of the store! Don't ask questions! Just go! Hurry!"

Ok......do I want to know what I'm going to find when I arrive at the back of the store?!

The back door was propped open, not unusual since the smokers take advantage of the rare weekend moments slow enough to get off the sales floor. Outside, one of my most trusted employees was being interrogated by a police officer. A police helicopter circled the building. Another policeman/car surveyed the front of the store.

Apparently our alarm system malfunctioned and sent a message that we were being burglarized. Now usually our alarm company will call us first before calling the police. But either they couldn't get through on our always-busy phone lines or they assumed that since it was regular business hours that we must be in trouble, thus the call to the police.

My trusted employee told me later that just as he was exiting the building the police officer was rounding the corner. The officer radioed the dispatcher with my employee's description as he kept his gun-hand ready for action. The employee offered to go and get me, the manager on duty, but the policeman quickly refused as his hand moved a little closer to his gun and he insisted that the employee step away from the building/door. The officer radioed the dispatcher again for them to call our store and send the manager to the back.....thus the cashier's mysterious page.

We quickly sorted it out. Apparently the policeman thought the employee might have been involved in a robbery or taking merchandise out the back door or who knows what. No, no illegal action here.

The policeman went back to his car and drove around to the side of the building, where he met up with the other officer to chat for at least a half hour.......must have been a slow day for them, too.

Creatures of Habit

Why do companies have to change the packaging their items are in?!

I know they probably think it keeps the items modern-looking and fresh and NEW! and IMPROVED!

But.....

It confuses customers (and occasionally the salespeople, too).

Several of our big vendors recently redesigned their ENTIRE LINE OF PRODUCTS. Within the last week I can't even begin to count how many confused people I assisted.

One lady tried to narrow the search for her favorite product, "It was purple." Key word being WAS......it may very well be a new color now. Do you know the NAME of the product? One brand has 30 different but similar items. "It was purple" is not a big help. There are two purple ones, one purple patterned, one maroon, and one dark pink that some people consider purple. After I showed her all of those choices, to hear her respond, "No, that's not it," to EACH ONE, suddenly she remembered that the product she was looking for was actually GREEN, her husband's favorite was purple. Then we started all over with the 5~10 shades of green products.....that all have names......that have not changed. Only she didn't remember the name.

Another woman wanted to know the difference between two products. I flipped them over, saw that the item numbers were identical, and told her they were the same items in different packaging. "They don't look the same," she insisted as she demanded to know the difference between them and which one was better. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, only different packaging. REALLY! I PROMISE!

Yet another woman (are men not as picky about getting the same item each time?) was looking for some {soap}. What kind of soap? Liquid? Bar? Hand? Antibacterial? With lotion? Can we be more specific?? When we finally narrowed it down to the lavender body wash with massaging beads, there was still the choice of dry or oily skin. In the past they only made one formula for all skin types. She acted like it was my fault that they changed the products. "I want what I always buy!" Well, they don't make that product anymore. This is what they make now. Still angry, she wanted to know the difference in ingredients between the old product and the two new ones. Well, since we don't have any of the old product left, we can't compare them now, can we?

WWW Safety

I came across one of my employee's m123y123s123p123a123c123e page. It had his FULL NAME, a partial picture, interests, his workplace, his school name, his grade. Then he linked to another of my employees and a former employee. All are teenagers. The current employee had a very safe page…..a picture, but only her first name and no detailed information. The former employee (under 18) had a picture up in her UNDERWEAR. Does her parental figure know about this???

You don't carry it?!

A man asked me for "this product" (while holding up a 50 ounce bottle) in a 10 ounce bottle. There was no space on the shelf for it so I was 99% sure that we no longer carried it. I checked with another employee and found that we had NEVER carried that item in that size. When I told the man this he was indignant.

"Don't tell me that!! I buy it here every month!" To his wife..."Can you believe this? I buy it here all the time but she's telling me that they've NEVER carried it!"

I showed him the industrial-strength carpet cleaner in the 50 and 100 ounce sizes, to hear him complain that he would never use that much of it. I explained that most people who need a carpet cleaner that strong need a large quantity of it, as well, the reason we carried the sizes that we do.

"I don't need a strong cleaner. This is just for my home. Why would I want a strong cleaner?!"

Then it dawned on me.....he wanted the home-strength carpet cleaner, which DOES come in a 10-ounce size. At that point I was needed to perform a management function so I asked another employee to show him to the correct product. That employee later told me that the man asked him if I was new since I didn't know anything about the products that we carry. ??? The man apparently never understood that he had been asking for the wrong product.

{We also may or may not carry carpet cleaner. OK, we don't. This product substitution doesn't make quite as much sense as Monday's.}

Super Sharp Pencils

A woman came in and asked where the Super Sharp Pencils were. Trying to clarify what she wanted, I asked, "Is that a type of pencil or the name brand?"

"That's the name of it! Super Sharp Pencil!"

We've never sold a product called Super Sharp Pencil. We sell some pretty sharp pencils, but none with that brand name.

"I buy it here all the time! SUPER SHARP PENCIL.....it's in a red package with blue writing. Does someone else know more about the products?"

How do you respond to that? She was asking for a name brand product that I knew we did not carry. She assumed I was the stupid retail employee who knew nothing.

"Is it possibly Major Brand Name Pencil? In a red package with blue writing?"

Sure enough, when we got to the pencil aisle we found the Major Brand Name Pencil with the advertising phrase "Super Sharp" on it. It was NOT the name of the product. It was an advertising phrase. An advertising phrase shared by a dozen different pencil companies.

We had one package left and I could tell from the shelf label that we wouldn't be carrying the item anymore. I thought I'd be helpful and let the woman know so she could start thinking about what product to get in the future.

I shouldn't have been helpful.

"Why aren't you going to carry it anymore?! That's the only pencil I've ever used! Can't you order it for me?"

"No, I'm sorry. Either our company or Major Brand Name company made the decision to stop carrying/making the product. I am unable to order any of them."

The unhappy customer used the common threat, "Well I guess I'm going to have to find a new place to shop."

Do you really think your threat is going to change the reality of me not being able to order the product?!

Even more senseless, she didn't even buy the one we had left. Maybe it was a punishment for us not going to carry it anymore, or perhaps it was because she had such a hard time finding what she wanted or maybe it was because she had such an unknowledgeable sales associate. What has customer service come to....no one knows how to provide excellent service anymore. Poor customers.

{We may or may not sell pencils. It's just an example of a real situation I recently encountered.}