To customers everywhere: Rules for the supermarket

randylonghorn

dabbler2004 wrote:

Stop asking 'Where are the eggs?', you're a regular customer and the eggs have been in the same section for the last 3 years.

In fairness, that's true of very few supermarkets these days. Every couple of weeks, something or other gets changed around / moved. I understand that this is a management decision, and that staff are probably just as peeved with it as customers are ... but sometimes customers will just have to ask.

Bettyboo2u

I have been on both sides of the counter so to speak. For 5 years I worked in a supermarket that had a high profile MD. The wages were **** and most of the time I was treated like ****. To this day I am still amazed with what I had to put up with. It is fifteen years since I last worked there but the memory is still fresh.

Management treated staff very badly; they were only short of asking you to lick the customer’s shoes as they entered the store. The customers were aware of the company policy and boy did a lot of them take advantage of it. To me these people thought they should be treated like customers of a five star hotel and their every whim should be taken care of. Working there i only learned one good lesson, always be polite and courteous to any person who’s job it may be to serve. To this day I always say please and thank you when I’m being served.

As a shopper now I am disappointed with the level of service I receive in supermarkets. It is nigh on impossible to get a staff member to stop when you try to catch them to ask a question. At the checkout more often than not the till operator will not look up and greet me this despite me saying hi. At the end of the transaction I say thank you but again very rarely will I receive a thank you from the till operator.
Charged too much, again this happens a lot. Whether it is the ticket price was incorrect or the operator scanned more items than I purchased. When I bring it to the attention of the operator I am told to go to the Customer Service Desk for a refund. Now forgive me but why the hell should I have to waste my time queing again and having to explain myself again when I am the injured party!

As for the operator talking to the operator beside them whilst holding my increasingly limp lettuce:mad:

beanyb

Bettyboo2u wrote:

I have been on both sides of the counter so to speak. For 5 years I worked in a supermarket that had a high profile MD. The wages were **** and most of the time I was treated like ****. To this day I am still amazed with what I had to put up with. It is fifteen years since I last worked there but the memory is still fresh.

Management treated staff very badly; they were only short of asking you to lick the customer’s shoes as they entered the store. The customers were aware of the company policy and boy did a lot of them take advantage of it. To me these people thought they should be treated like customers of a five star hotel and their every whim should be taken care of. Working there i only learned one good lesson, always be polite and courteous to any person who’s job it may be to serve. To this day I always say please and thank you when I’m being served.

I think I may have worked in the same chain as you. Except since that 'high-profile MD' has left the staff constantly have to put up with 'oh this place isnt the same as it used to be.' Believe me, we know. It's gotten even worse for the staff.

I've only been out of there just under a year after being there part-time for 4 years on and off, and I have to say the wounds are still so fresh that I absolutely LOVE this thread.

Where I worked the mystery shopper expects the staff on the tills to call the customer by their name if they use a clubcard. It's the weirdest thing in the whole world and I always refused to do it. I'd hate if a random shop assistant called me by my name and who is to say that the person using the card is even the person named! My mum always used my card since I got staff points, but she has a different surname to me. I got in trouble from a manager the one time I served a mystery shopper because I didnt do it. She completely ignored the fact that I'd been given full marks for being friendly and greeting the customer and all the things that customers actually care about!

Someone earlier in the thread said that loyalty cards are of more benefit to customers and that's totally untrue. The card allows the company to keep track of what each particular customer regularly buys. It's used by marketing companies to direct their advertising at you. Believe me the shop are not doing it for your benefit. It's 100% their own.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

Another two points to fuel the debate

1) If women are narkiest customers, has anyone noticed how the East Europeans seem to be the politest check-out staff, or is that just me being lucky?

2) What's wrong with the automatic checkouts?

randylonghorn

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

1) If women are narkiest customers, has anyone noticed how the East Europeans seem to be the politest check-out staff, or is that just me being lucky?

No, I think that's fairly much the case.

Youngsters (i.e. 16 / 17) can often be quite friendly / helpful too (with the odd one being very much the opposite).

Also, older staff who are returning to work full-time or part-time are often very good, in my experience.

walrusgumble

bigkev49 wrote:

Bet they would be disappointed if they saw this post.

C+. Must try harder.

cheeky.lol. ah not bothered, be making more money than some of them within 5 years now, so ha ha ha i have the last laugh

Blush_01

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

has anyone noticed how the East Europeans seem to be the politest check-out staff, or is that just me being lucky?

While that's sometimes the case, I think you're just lucky. I can reel off the lists of shops where staff hate customers and people who do my job and have no problem letting you know. A certain chain supermarket in an affluent part of Dublin has to have the most narky and irritable foreign checkout staff (although the ones on the floor will go out of their way to help you and can't be beaten on courtesy) while the complete reverse applies to the natives.

Sad Professor

beanyb wrote:

Except since that 'high-profile MD' has left the staff constantly have to put up with 'oh this place isnt the same as it used to be.' Believe me, we know. It's gotten even worse for the staff.

The funny thing is the changes started long before he actually sold out. The new owners were a breath of fresh air at first but the honeymoon period is most certainly over now. The staff really don't give a sh*t anymore. How the staff treat the customer is usually a reflection of how management treat the staff. So it's only going to get worse.

Where I worked the mystery shopper expects the staff on the tills to call the customer by their name if they use a clubcard. It's the weirdest thing in the whole world and I always refused to do it.

Agreed. I only know of one person who actually did this and they usually got alot of very weird looks from the customers.

Also the amount of questions staff are expected to ask customers is totally ridiculous. As it stands I only ask the essentials and can still feel a customer's irritation at what practically amounts to a quiz while they're trying to pay for their shopping.

randylonghorn wrote:

Youngsters (i.e. 16 / 17) can often be quite friendly / helpful too (with the odd one being very much the opposite).

Also, older staff who are returning to work full-time or part-time are often very good, in my experience.

I should also point out that older staff are usually treated much better by management than the younger people, who in my experience are frequently referred to as "hey you" and spoken to like they're dirt.

ChRoMe

Sad Professor wrote:

. How the staff treat the customer is usually a reflection of how management treat the staff. So it's only going to get worse.

Firstly I thank my lucky stars I have never worked in retail. I have however worked technical support which would make some of the "abuse" being mentioned on this thread seem insignificant.

Imagine how a customer reacts when a service doesnt work and they are paying 100,000 euro's or more a year.

But your management treating you badly is no excuse to be rude to customers thats a cop out.

Nala

Bettyboo2u wrote:

Charged too much, again this happens a lot. Whether it is the ticket price was incorrect or the operator scanned more items than I purchased. When I bring it to the attention of the operator I am told to go to the Customer Service Desk for a refund. Now forgive me but why the hell should I have to waste my time queing again and having to explain myself again when I am the injured party!

That's because there are far more customers than there are supervisors. If the supervisor went to the customer instead of the other way around nothing would ever get done.

RoundyMooney

This and the Maccy D's thread have opened my eyes a bit I have to say.

And we all thought it was just, "clubcard?, *beep*, *beep*, *beep*, cashback?, *muttered goodbye*".

Like a lot of jobs, if it wasn't for the public it wouldn't be a half bad living.

randylonghorn

Bettyboo2u wrote:

why the hell should I have to waste my time queing again and having to explain myself again when I am the injured party!

Nala wrote:

That's because there are far more customers than there are supervisors. If the supervisor went to the customer instead of the other way around nothing would ever get done.

Fair enough ... but why shouldn't the operator be in a position to fix the problem on the spot?

It's natural that mistakes will happen from time to time, but why should the customer be made to pay for the mistake with 10 minutes queueing and explaining at customer services?

It never fails to amaze me how often operators have to go search for supervisors for keys for one thing or another ... even sometimes if an item has been marked down. Surely it must waste a lot of staff time, apart from anything else.

If operators are trusted enough to operate tills, surely they should have enough control of the system to solve these small problems without having to hunt down keys / supervisors?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at the staff, it's the system I'm questioning.

RoundyMooney wrote:

Like a lot of jobs, if it wasn't for the public it wouldn't be a half bad living.

Personally, I think public and staff often end up bumping heads because of bad systems / management.

ChRoMe

randylonghorn wrote:

If operators are trusted enough to operate tills, surely they should have enough control of the system to solve these small problems without having to hunt down keys / supervisors?

Put it into perspective they are trusted to operate the tills which are under CCTV, have supervisors walking around and the operator doesnt have the ability the modify the record of the transactions done. So really if you look at it they arnt trusted at all.

RoundyMooney

randylonghorn wrote:

Personally, I think public and staff often end up bumping heads because of bad systems / management.

Definitely.

The irony being, it's a lot easier to red card a minimum wage employee, than it is to take on a failing system, or a well ensconsed manager.

I've seen supervisory ineptitude on a grand scale in the company where I work, where service seems to have been forgotten in the pursuit of managers feathering their own nests, avoiding decision making and actually facing a problem head on. Unfortunately, one bad manager can, (and is) blackening the name of a company over a large chunk of the country, despite the hard work of both their colleagues, and the employees beneath them.

I'm in the process of changing departments within my company at the minute (after twelve years more or less continuous service in the one business unit) , precisely because changing/attempting to improve the system from within doesn't work on a large scale...

I used to get annoyed by it all, but gave up

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

RoundyMooney wrote:

Like a lot of jobs, if it wasn't for the public it wouldn't be a half bad living.

No, if it wasn't for the management it wouldn;t be a half bad living.

ChRoMe

randylonghorn wrote:

Personally, I think public and staff often end up bumping heads because of bad systems / management.

I'll ask the question again how is management responsible for a check out worker being rude to a member of the public?

Sad Professor

Where I work management doesn't trust us to do anything. We need a supervisor's key for practically everything. And they assume it's because we've made a mistake, when in fact operator error is probably only the cause 10% of the time. The rest of the time it's because:

the customer decides they don't want something so we void it off - we need a key
price controllers aren't doing their job so we have to input the price manually - we need a key
customer doesn't know their pin, we bypass - we need a key
chip reader stops working, we put in cc number manually - we need a key
etc etc

Hell, they don't even trust us to buy our lunch without stealing so we have to get our receipts signed by a manager.

Sad Professor

ChRoMe wrote:

I'll ask the question again how is management responsible for a check out worker being rude to a member of the public?

They're not, people are responsible for their own actions. However you'll usually find that polite helpful staff go hand in hand with polite helpful management. If however management like to piss on their staff then it's hardly a surprise that the staff don't give a sh*t about making the customer happy.

randylonghorn

ChRoMe wrote:

I'll ask the question again how is management responsible for a check out worker being rude to a member of the public?

ChRoMe, I didn't say that check-out staff should be rude to customers, or that the blame should be put on someone else if they are, I simply pointed out that at least some of the issues / problems pointed up on this thread by both sides of the debate could be solved / alleviated by better systems of work, thus making for (a) happier customers (b) happier workers (c) less reason for rudeness on either side, and (d) maybe even a stronger possibility that the customer will return to that particular store.

I gave one example which I as a customer have noticed in my earlier post. This particular one frustrates me, and I'm in the store, what, three times a week for 20 minutes? ... at most. How much more frustrating must it be for staff?

JoseJones

Sleepy wrote:

No business can take money out of your paypacket for monies you've lost their business whilst carrying out your duties. Any that do so are acting illegally.

Is that really true? Do you have a link where I could verify that? Where I work(Petrol Station), If there's a driveoff it comes out of our wages...I'd love to be able to prove the manager wrong on this...

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

JoseJones wrote:

Is that really true? Do you have a link where I could verify that? Where I work(Petrol Station), If there's a driveoff it comes out of our wages...I'd love to be able to prove the manager wrong on this...

How do they justify this? Are you responsible for it?

randylonghorn

JoseJones wrote:

Is that really true? Do you have a link where I could verify that? Where I work (Petrol Station), If there's a driveoff it comes out of our wages...I'd love to be able to prove the manager wrong on this...

That seems especially unfair. What are you supposed to do? Jump into a phone box, don your blue tights and fly after the car?

I suppose, whatever the legal situation, that I can kind of understand an employee being docked if they have been negligent / haven't taken reasonable care, but this seems just crazy!

Red Hand

randylonghorn wrote:

That seems especially unfair. What are you supposed to do? Jump into a phone box, don your blue tights and fly after the car?

I suppose, whatever the legal situation, that I can kind of understand an employee being docked if they have been negligent / haven't taken reasonable care, but this seems just crazy!

Agreed. It seems totally unfair. If the boss is so anally reetentiive when it comes to drive-offs, then he should put in place CCTV/pre-pay systems/attendants.

Black Swan

SMILE! You're on candid camera

Pherekydes

Wertz wrote:

Rebuke to that list.

Dear supermarket staff:

1: Some people do in fact use hand baskets since we don't do enough shopping to warrant a trolley....kindly replace baskets at the entrance instead of having us have to walk the lenght of the checkouts to find one.

2: Those are my f*cking groceries you're firing at me....some of them are soft and breakable....I've only got two hands with which to fill my reusable plastic bag. Kindly slow it down just a little since you can't start serving the next customer until I've cleared the till anyway.

3. Smiling wouldn't hurt. Please and thank you, likewise, wouldn't cost you that much effort. I don't want your phone number or your hand in marriage....just a little courtesy like I've shown.

4. No I do NOT have a bloody loyalty card...if I had I'd have given it to you already...

5. Please remember we are the paying customer...most of us don't even want to be here but it's the closest to where we live, the parking is usually good and we just can't afford to fly our food in from Harrods so we're stuck with this kip....try and make it as pleasant as possible for us....we'll be gone in 20 minutes...

Rebuke to your rebuke:

If you don't like shopping here where it's cheap, dirty, understaffed and rude go and shop in Superquinn.

Wishbone Ash

JoseJones wrote:

Is that really true? Do you have a link where I could verify that? Where I work(Petrol Station), If there's a driveoff it comes out of our wages...I'd love to be able to prove the manager wrong on this...

Payment of Wages Act 1991 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA25Y1991.html See Section 5 Regulations of Deductions made (it's too long to copy to post).

Pherekydes

1. When you are moving up and down the aisles, keep your trolley moving in a straight line. Don't let it swing sideways into the legs of that nice gent passing by.

2. When reaching for something on a shelf, first of all park your trolley, preferably into the side of the aisle, and let go of the handle. That way, when you reach you won't swing your trolley sideways into that nice gent's legs.

3. Don't just swing your trolley around in as wide a u-turn as possible without checking behind first. Yes, that's right, there's a nice gent just about to overtake you, and he still has functioning legs and knees.

4. When it's very busy and there's a lot more people shopping than usual and that nice gent just in front comes to a complete stop, it's probably for a reason. Don't just ram your trolley into his achilles' heels.

5. If you see something on the floor, don't just slip/trip on it and then sue the supermarket; pick it up, move it to the side or call a staff member's attention to it.

6. If you're putting something back, put it back from whence it came. Don't put that smoked cod on a shelf with chocolates, or that fresh mince on a shelf with detergents.

7. Remember, Ladies (and it is ladies, isn't it?), you are not the only person who is shopping. That nice gent with the black and blue legs is also shopping for his family.

pbsuxok1znja4r

My no.1 tip to the customers coming into the shop where I work?

Wash your visibly filthy stinkin' hands before you hand me any money. Especially if you've just spent the last 30 seconds coughing/spluttering/sneezing into them.

Also, if I greet you; should I say 'hello', 'hi', whatever, then greet me back. Don't just by way of response blurt out at me the name of the product you want from behind the counter.

oblivious

dSTAR wrote:

I can't understand this. What the bloody hell can you buy with a 1 cent coin anyway? Oooh maybe if I save them up for a few months I can take them to the bank like a 5 year old and have exchanged for a crisp note or gold coin and go and buy myself some lollies!

Do retailers seriously think that shoppers are still stupid enough to believe that something sounds much cheaper because its priced at 99 cents and not a dollar! Like daiixi says if something is priced at 99 cents you hand your dollar over BUT simply don't get any change back.

But before you fall off your trolley off claiming all those 1 cent coins added up over the course of a year amounts to thousands...it actually benefits the customer. If something is 93 cents it is rounded down to 90 cents. Likewise if it is 94 cents it is rounded up to 95 cents.

If you remove the one cent, inflation will rise by 1%, its all ready rising to fast in this country!

TerrorFirmer

I love telling customers that the bank declined their credit card. Well, not the average, generally friendly friendly customer. But the rude customers, especially when they start ranting.
'What do you mean its declined, whats wrong with your machine?'
'The bank themselves declined the card, not the machine..'
'Well, this is a disgrace, it wouldn't happen in another shop!' etc, etc.

Anyway yeah, good thread actually. In fairness though 99% of customers are great. Never really met any truly horrific ones. Although, one time years ago when I worked in Supermacs, this guy bought a meal for himself and his wife, totally normal guy, mannerly, no problems there.

He comes back up two seconds later, quite literally seething with rage, 'one of my chips is barely ****ing cooked, where the **** is the manager'.

He proceeded to demand a refund for the entire meal, giving offensive verbal abuse, raising his voice, slamming his palm down on the counter, and he even flung some food on the floor while his wife sat there in embarressment, her head in her hands. It was a really bizarre situation....

Apart from the odd 'rude' person, thats the only true asshole I've come across in my experiences.

Collie D

I can't get over the guy whose wages are docked any time there's a drive-off. You should report this scumbag employer. Hope you're never held up at gunpoint, God knows how long it would take to pay that back.

JoseJones

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Payment of Wages Act 1991 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA25Y1991.html See Section 5 Regulations of Deductions made (it's too long to copy to post).

Thanks for that, you're a legend.....Luckilly, I've never been docked for a drive-off, but other staff have. I don't think it'll happen any more, after I tell everyone it's illegal....

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

JoseJones wrote:

Thanks for that, you're a legend.....Luckilly, I've never been docked for a drive-off, but other staff have. I don't think it'll happen any more, after I tell everyone it's illegal....

I think alarm bells should have been going off some time ago on this one. I seriously suggest naming and shaming the place.

Nightwish

Since chip and pin came in theres a whole new breed of idiots. "Why cant you bypass my pin?" - well that would be because there is no way to physically bypass the pin on our tills. I had one woman scream the shop down because she entered the wrong pin 3 times, therefore locking her card. She left our shop and tried to use it in another shop, and it didnt work, and she came back shouting that we had blocked her card, and we were to unblock it this instant.

JoseJones

Ikky Poo2 wrote:

I think alarm bells should have been going off some time ago on this one. I seriously suggest naming and shaming the place.

I'd rather not name the place tbh...

ChRoMe

JoseJones wrote:

I'd rather not name the place tbh...

Oh come on your no fun

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

I think he's probably more worried about us going a pump-and-run or whatever it's called (no jokes, please)

Terry

don't name the place. this site is already being sued for crap like that. see the sticky at the top for information.

Getting back to crazy people.
I went to the off lisense a few weeks ago and it had just closed. There was a woman outside and she started screaming at the guy inside the place. 'this is bull****'and other such phrases. quite funny from my side. I just went to the pub across the way and got my beer.

Ste.phen

randylonghorn wrote:

No, I think that's fairly much the case.

Youngsters (i.e. 16 / 17) can often be quite friendly / helpful too (with the odd one being very much the opposite).

Also, older staff who are returning to work full-time or part-time are often very good, in my experience.

I've found myself getting a lot of praise recently from customers for various things (being 'very nice', very fast, etc etc), which to me seem silly, cos I'm not doing anything special.

One customer mentioned their theory that the fewer hours a week someone is working, the more likely they are to be nice when they're there. It's cynical, i guess, but seems to be true.

Thinking about the people in there who are nicest to customers / make the most effort, most would be students there part time, or older women (40s-50s) who only started working again recently after being housewives, etc.

Mind you, as you said yourself, by far the worst, rudest, least helpful staff will also fall into the 'young / student / part time' category too.

Part time retail jobs for students must attract equal measures of enthusiastic friendly people and rude arrogant psychos...

Ste.phen

Wishbone Ash wrote:

Payment of Wages Act 1991 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/ZZA25Y1991.html See Section 5 Regulations of Deductions made (it's too long to copy to post).

Another good summary of this:
http://www.citizensinformation.ie/categories/employment/employment-rights-and-conditions/pay-and-employment/pay_slip/?searchterm=wage%20deductions

(they should have kept the 'oasis.gov.ie' address, it was a little shorter )

Brian Capture

Nala wrote:

If you hand us a credit card that has no PIN number

What do you think the N stands for?

Brian Capture

People who can't put their baskets on the ground properly are idiots.

The baskets are designed so that they can be stacked, one into the other.

All it takes is one person to get it wrong and then chaos.