h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

People always want to pay less than they did before, and they'd really like to pay none at all... until that is, there's not enough money to provide the services they want.

It's the same with prices. Everyone wants goods in shops to be as cheap as possible... until that is, things are so cheap that there isn't enough money to pay enough staff to provide the kind of customer service they expect. Then they get all shirty because things aren't the way they ought to be.

People!

...And then they take it out on the help because they can't do the job they should/want/used to do, instead of taking their gripes to the management that makes the policies of scheduling, hiring and firing.

I place the blame one step further even than the management - the fault lies with the customer themselves. They won't pay enough money to provide what they want - good customer service and a well-run store.

Then, you can take it back to the management, because the customers expectations are driven by what they've become used to. The management of various companies have been falling over themselves to provide ever more elaborate and lavish customer service, to the extent that when many people go into a shop, they expect to be treated the way that aristocracy used to be - the customer is king!

I was thinking primarily of my own personal experience working in *the* high priced store in the area where we used to live. This was an old line store, and they were always very big on customer service - the customer was always right, no matter how wrong they were, and for minimum wage (which I think was a whopping $1.75/hour at the time), I was expected to immediately greet and help any customer who came into my department. Only thing is, more often than not, I was the only help scheduled at any given time for that department. The store was approximately 5,000 sq. ft., and this "accessories" department covered nearly 1/3 of the store, with such a varied range of merchandise that there were often dozens of customers looking at items in different parts of the department all at the same time. Oh, and I was supposed to be watching for shoplifters too.

In other words, my job was impossible.

The merchandise was top quality though, and with price tags to go with it.

Quite so... except in that case the prices weren't rock bottom.

When I began my employment at the store where I've been for the past three years, there were 12 employees plus the owner. Today there are six *including* the owner.

We can no longer spend 10 minutes with a customer helping them to find which cd a particular song is on. If someone calls to find if we have something in stock it means that we're going to have to stop helping someone else in order to go out on the floor and look for it. If four people walk through the door in the space of five minutes with cds to sell (happens disturbingly often), the last person is probably going to have to wait around half an hour because there's often only one buyer available.

Our prime directive is supposed to be excellent customer service. We can no longer provide that because there aren't enough staff to give good customer service whilst getting all the organisational tasks done - filing the cds we bought, checking in new orders, even sweeping the damn store!

For a store that was supposed to be top of the line, the one I worked at was amazingly chintzy with the help. Never enough help, tremendous responsibilities - they were so concerned about excellent customer service that they used to hire "shoppers" - people who were paid to pretend to be shopping and report back to the management on just how well we were doing our jobs. (Amazingly enough, I actually "passed" one of those things. Must have been a fluke.)

I recall that one of my duties was to regularly inventory the understock of nylons - I was usually crawling around on my hands and knees behind the stocking counter for an hour or more at a time doing that, during which time, I'd have no idea if there were customers needing help in jewelry, handbags, gloves or other areas of the department, and shoplifters could have easily taken off with half the stuff there. But when it *had* to be done, and there was no one else in the department, it *had* to be done.

But never mind, they were *saving* money by only having one person working in the department.

It's not just retail ... try here F95897?thread=249694

A very interesting point and very well put Dr T. I may get involved in that one... after breakfast

Grits?

Lady Scott, I bet you were an excellent worker
in that store. There are a number of
store chains that I can think of (one, which I won't
mention, rhymes with "Spears") are often so thinly
staffed that it's hard to find a store employee
when you need one. The most notorious store in this
regard has a name that rhymes with "Gourd and Sailor."



This is why the Vingean theories about computers taking
over the planet within the decade seem so absurd to me.
As long as computers depend on humans to keep them serviced
and running, they won't get the upper hand over us.
I'd like to see a computer get down on its hands and
knees to inventory the nylons.

Not grits Dr T - pancakes. British style, not American, with lemon and suger. I'm not too keen on grits unless they're part of a bbreakfast, as in 'Eggs, sausage, bacon, grits, mushrooms, tomatoes and a fried slice' A bowl of grits and nowt else is a non-starter AFAIC.

Oh, you can bet that eventually they'll find a way for a computer to do that Paul, but as for unblocking a plughole...

Now that everything has UPC codes on it that are read by the scanners at the registers, a lot of inventory work can be avoided. Of course you still have to take into account the amount of stuff that is shoplifted and the effect that has on the accuracy of the inventory.

<Tries to imagine robots using scanners in the warehouse to
scan the barcodes of the merchandize.

Not *everything* has UPC codes Lady Scott - that's one of the things which has stopped us from having a computerised inventory. We buy a lot of cds which have no barcode because they're either promos from the record company, or the band put out the album themselves and we have it on consignment (sale or return). We also buy a few cds which have artwork missing. And the barcode is on... the artwork

Not only that, but we sell copies of cds which are clean and copies which are scratched (the scratched ones are also at different prices depending on how damaged they are), and the factory printed barcode can't distinguish which is which - to the computer it's just another copy of Black Sabbath Play Beethoven's Greatest Hits. We need an inventory system which can make our own barcodes for every single used cd and a few new ones

Which, to get back on topic, is another problem of money v. customer service. We buy as many as 800 cds in a day - I'd say the average is somewhere between 600 and 700. Almost every single one of those would need a barcode made for it. We'd need to take on probably two extra staff just to do that all day long - one on the day shift, on one the evening, because the cds we buy today have to be in tomorrow's recent arrival section.

That's adding 30% to our payroll, not to mention the expense of buying and running the system. To do that we'd have to put up our prices, which people won't pay, but they expect us to have a computerised inventory.

I thought your store had the word "Cheapo"
in its name. Most off-price or discount
stores cut corners on amenities. Surely
your customers are familiar with warehouse stores
where the merchandise is still in the boxes that
it was shipped in. Maybe their expectations are not
as high as you think, on average?

Yes, yes, and apparently not.

Yes, we're called Cheapo, yes we're a pile-it-high-sell-it-cheap operation, but apparently many customers have lost all sense of reason and expect Harrods-style customer service from any store.

I'll admit I was a tad disappointed in Cheapo's ... I was expecting Capt. Peacock to ask if I was being served ...

Oh