Another retail rant!!!!!!

Noters Beware!! This is a “mean-note” free diary.

I have a question to ask…actually several…but before I ask it, let me tell you what happened at work today.

We have a “baker’s rack” style rack near the registers at the front of the store that we sometimes use to put clearance items on. On the top shelf of that right now, we have one of our shopping handbaskets filled with clearance jewelry and decorative scarves. Attached to the basket is a large green sign. On the sign is a white circle about the size of a small dinner plate. In the circle, the writing reads, “50% OFF!” and just under the circle it says “hair and jewelry items”.

So…this customer, a middle-age black lady, finds a Febreze oil air freshener refill in the basket. The refill is on clearance, but not for 50% off. We have another clearance area kind of close to that rack (not close enough where it would have been easy for things to get mixed up however) and that is where that refill should have been found. Now, I am 100% certain that it was a customer who threw the refill in that basket…probably not that lady, although I wasn’t watching and do have my doubts, and by the end of my story, you might, too. I watched the store manager fill that basket with our clearance jewelry and scarves and that was ALL she put in the basket. It was several days ago, so there has been time for other things to find their way into the basket.

So the next thing this customer does, is ask the cashier if the refill is 50% off. The refill has a red reduced sticker with a clearly marked price on it. But just to be sure, the cashier calls me up to the front of the store. I tell her that no, the refill is not 50% off. The basket is for scarves and jewelry only and that is all that is 50% off.

She then proceeds to tell me that I HAVE to give it to her at that price because she found it in the basket and I HAVE to honor the sign.

I proceed to tell her that, no, I don’t HAVE to give it to her half off because I cannot control what items customers throw in there and the sign clearly says “hair and jewelry items.” She then says that when she found in there, the sign was partially covered up by all the scarves so all she could read was the “50% OFF” part. I tell her that I still can’t give her the refill half off. I told her that someone could put a brand-new comforter set on top of that basket right now, but that doesn’t mean it’s on clearance just because someone set it there.

So then immediately she wants the 800 number for the corp. office. Which I don’t have. My manager has all the numbers. I don’t keep them on me. So then this lady starts looking all around the register area for an 800 number to call. She reads the return policy sign. Then her eyes find an 800 number on our debit card machine. So she whips out her cell phone and starts dialing away. I try telling her that that number is for the company which manufactures the debit machine and not for our company, to which she responds, “I don’t care. SOMEONE is going to hear about this!” Fine, lady, tell the debit machine company about your shitty experience at our store. What do I care, really?

Before the lady leaves, she demands one of those cards you fill out to rate your experience. She gets one, and leaves.

There is more to this story, but I want to get to my questions.

How far should an employee have to go for “good customer service”? And should there be limits? Have we gone way too far in coddling the customer nowadays all for the sake of the almighty dollar?

I mean, I understand wanting the customer to leave happy so they return to spend more money in the future. But I think that corporations do precious little to stand up for their employees. For the employee, it can be like being in between a rock and a hard place. Because if you override your register too often then you will wind up being scrutinized by corporate big-wigs because they think you are giving discounts for friends, which is, of course, a form of theft. But if you say no to the customer, then the customer calls in a complaint and gets a coupon to hush them up. Which is the lesser of two evils?

And in this day and age when the economy is bad, there are bound to be more and more people wanting something for nothing. This lady wanted a refill that was originally priced around $5 for $1.40. It was already reduced to $2.80 and that wasn’t good enough.

I was so upset with this whole thing today. It just got under my skin. Mainly because I know that the corp. office will give this lady some kind of coupon or something to hush her up. And she will go and tell ALL her friends about it. Next thing you know, we’ll have 200 people in there “miraculously finding” things in clearance areas and demanding to get them at ridiculous prices. So why even bother pricing anything. Let the customers decide what they want to pay. Hell, let’s give it all away. I don’t need a paycheck anyway. God knows, I love picking up after slobs all day and getting yelled at. And I should love to do it for free.

It’s not that we, the employees don’t make mistakes. We do. We are human. But I am good about honoring the prices on our mistakes. Just today I had a customer come to the register with a hair product that had a sale sign in front of it. It was supposed to have been taken down at the end of July. We missed that sign. But I let her have it for the price stated on the sign. We have hundreds of signs for all kinds of things, all over the store. That one just happened to blend in with all the rest of them, and it go overlooked. It doesn’t help that the sale signs are the same color each month. Or that in our Health and Beauty area there are about a bazillion signs advertising our coupon book that the customer can pick up at the front of the store. Point is, that customer got her stuff for a lower price because the mistake was ours. No question.

Here’s the rest of the story about the lady with the Febreze refill…

The shift of one of my cashiers ended at 6:30 and she had laundry to do after work at the local laundrymat across the street. Well, lo and behold, who should show up at the laundrymat but the Febreze lady…who picks the super-dooper-giant machine that costs a small fortune. And naturally, the machine “supposedly” eats her money and doesn’t run. So the lady goes up to the attendant and rips her a new one. The attendant tells the lady that she has to call her manager before she can issue any refunds. But “FebrezeLady” is having none of it. She throws a royal fit. (Sound familiar???) The attendant finally tells the lady that it doesn’t matter if she is the president of the United States, there is a procedure to follow and if she (the attendant) doesn’t follow it her job is on the line.

Now, I can’t remember the last time I have had two bad experiences in public in the same week, much less two in the same afternoon. So, to me, this lady is sending up flags that scream “Chronic offender!!!”

And do the employees hav

e any recourse for such a person?? We should. But in corporate’s eyes, we don’t. As long as they have 2 shiny dimes to rub together, corporate big-wigs are hypnotized. They want those dimes. When are we going to learn that doing the right thing is worth way more than all the money in the world. You can’t take money with you when you die. It goes away. But if you attach good things to your name, they last. God, this is such a hard lesson for humans to learn.