October 18, 2009

• Customer Satisfaction? How About Employee Satisfaction!

   

      Well, if you read my post from a few days ago, you heard that I am about to be the Store Manager of my very own store in Bryan, Texas/College Station (home of Texas A&M University).  Anyways, I'm sure that you would assume that this means that I have garnered a lot of experience when it comes to treating customers.  This is very true.  However, I wouldn't be me if I didn't reveal to you some inside tips on my special method of dealing with customers that I call "Getting them the hell out of my store so that I can work in peace".  You see, in the retail environment, there is a very delicate balance between customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction.  If this sounds cruel, you must bear in mind that customers are in the store for 30 minutes (if I'm even close to lucky) and they demand to be treated like royalty, whereas I am in the store for upwards of 12 hours and every last one of them give me a royal headache.  In a way, I suppose it makes me do better at my job seeing as how I will do almost anything to get them to shut the fuck up and leave me alone.  But in order to do this while retaining most of my dignity and pride (emphasis on "most"), I have to use a few tricks I have developed for making these people happy.

   

      Eadie's guide on what the employees are REALLY doing.
  

      Greeting the Customer:

      A good employee is supposed to greet every customer that walks into the door.  This seems like an obvious statement, but I want you to really soak that in.  EVERY.  SINGLE.  CUSTOMER.  If we plan on retaining any degree of sanity, we have to figure out a way to virtually transform our human bodies into a computer.  In other words, we say the exact same shit to everybody that walks into the door.  All at once, in a dramatic twist of irony, the company's goal of making the customers feel like their visit is special gets degraded into obnoxious repetition.  So to the customer:  when I say, "Hi, how are you, welcome to Shoe Room", understand that I really, really, really, don't want to know how you are.  Not only that, but I don't want to know how your kids are, how your husband is, or even why the fuck you need shoes.  The simple fact that you are walking into a shoe store with soul-less loafers on your feet speaks volumes about why you need shoes.  But don't get me wrong, don't ignore us either.  Nothing says "hey shoe monkey, you're wasting your breath" more than not even acknowledging my attempt at making you feel at home.

      Shoe Measuring Evasive Procedures:
  
      Everybody who has ever worked at a shoe store knows that the last thing you want to do is measure somebody's barking dogs.  When we see the lady with the five kids come in through the front door who was in here 2 months ago start walking straight toward us without turning to go down the children's isle, we know what is up.  Within seconds we are digging through our bag of tricks to come up with anything that would relieve us from having to deal with five pairs of clammy feet.
  
          Customer:  Hi, can you measure my foot?
          Employee:  Dammit!

          Customer:  Hi, we were in here yesterday and we bought the wrong size...
          Employee:  Well, you just need the next larger size then?
          Customer:  Actually, could you just measure Timmy's fungus-prone foot?
          Employee:  Dammit!

          Customer:  Can you feel his toes in this, does it fit him?
          Employee:  Yeah, this feels a little loose, maybe you should go down half a size...
          Customer:  Can you just measure his foot to be sure.
          Employee:  Dammit!

          Customer:  Do you guys have one of those things to measure feet with?
          Employee:  This is a shoe store ma'am, of course not.
          *hands customer foot measuring device*
          Customer:  Actually, could you do it, I don't want to get the wrong size...
          Employee:  I'm still working on my degree for shoe-sizing so your credentials are currently equal to mine.
          Customer:  Yes, but the yeast infection spawning out of my right ankle is sensitive and if I adjust my foot wrong it has a tendency to rupture and then I need to get paper towels to clean up the mess.
          Employee:  What?
          Customer:  Just measure my damn foot!
          Employee:  Dammit!

       Self Service vs. Full Service

       Shoe Room is a self service shoe store.  We are able to provide shoes at lower prices because (in theory) we remove the cost of labor by placing all of our product on the shelves where it can be seen and accessed by our customers.  This reduces the interaction time between the customer and the employee so that the entire shopping processed can be streamlined at the customer's convenience.   (Prepare for an intentionally run-on sentence for the sake of capturing the mood generated by the customer's incompetence)  This means that when you walk in and ask me where the Clark's are and I point you directly toward the bin where we have them and then you ask me where the Clark's Blackberry's are and I show you how they can be located directly under the display and then when you ask me if we carry them in black and I show you that they are also on display right next to the brown ones and then you ask me where you can find them in either a 7, 7.5, or 8 and I show you where they are in the run and then you ask me to pull them out for you and then you ask me for those sizes in the black too THAT IT MAKES ME WANT TO RIP YOUR THROAT OUT BECAUSE WE WOULDN'T CARRY THEM RIGHT WHERE YOU CAN GET YOUR GRUBBY HANDS ON THEM IF THE COMPANY INTENDED TO PAY US TO DO THIS FOR YOU.    Anyways, this goes to you as well short Mexican lady who doesn't speak any English and comes up to me with an armful of display shoes and assumes that I know Spanish and asks me to bring her each of them in 6 and 6.5s to whom I kindly make believe that I can't speak her primitive language.  If I'm a dick for doing that, what is she for assuming that me, a caucasian just trying to scratch a penny in my own damn country that we brutally snatched from her government's hands during the Mexican/American war, would be able to speak Spanish?

      Lack of Public Restroom

      This is one of the worst parts of my job.  Apparently, these bleeding heart parents with all their kids think that I am some kind of sick fuck that gets a real kick out of telling these people that we don't have a public restroom.  Why do you even ask if we have a restroom if you are going to get all huffed up when I tell you we don't.  You might as well just come at me already pissed off and save us both some time.  Good, now that we are passed that, what makes you think that since I told you "no" that my answer is going to change once you reveal to me that it is for your 3 year old son?  Do you think that if you say the words "but if he can't go, he is going to have an accident" suddenly some magical door will just open up somewhere and reveal a golden pisser?  It's not like it's my fault that our floor plan has an employee-only bathroom located so deep into our stock room that Cortez would get lost trying to find it, posing a HUGE loss prevention hazard.  It gets fun however when after I tell them for the 2nd or 3rd time we don't have one they decide to ask to speak to a manager.  I then get to practice my move I like to call "the 360 degree whadya need?"  I basically spin in a little circle and tell them the answer again.  Then the customer will pull out what all customers must think is the most powerful weapon in their arsenal:  the words "I'm never shopping here again".

      "I'm never shopping here again!"

      Good.  Really.  Seriously.  Good.  I didn't ask you to come in in the first place, and I don't get paid commission, so I'm certainly not twisting your arm to buy a pair of shoes.  Now get out of the store before I start throwing things.

      Paying with a Card

      So, we have a conveniently located sign placed on our antiquated card readers that informs customers that "It is slow!!!!"  The original intent of this sign was so that customers would not get alarmed when the "verify in progress" screen is being displayed for so long that the shoes they are trying to buy start to go out of style (which doesn't take very long if they are shopping from us).  However, the sad fact is that somehow, somewhere along the way, people started to decide that this comment was funny.  Not just funny, but an absolute knee-slapper.  Yes, I know I have a sign on my card reader that says "it's slow" there is really no need to indicate that to me.  No, it isn't funny, especially not when EVERY SINGLE CUSTOMER that pays with a card (and even some that don't) have to make an audible comment about how gosh darn funny it is.  Also, I'm pretty sure that your friends and family have eyes and can read, so there is no reason to point at it and read it out loud so that they too may bask in its cornucopia of humor.

      The Shoe Store is the Battlefield!

      That's right, going to work everyday is going into a warzone.  The customers are the enemy invading our country.  Our job is to repel the invasion using our weapons of shoes. 

   

      That basically sums it up.  The name of the store I work it is not called Shoe Room by the way, I ended up deciding half way through this post to censor the name of my company on the (not so)off chance that some pencil-pusher with too much time on their hands has nothing better to do then sit down and google my company's name, read any blog they see about it, and then determine if that person should still work for the company.

      Until next time, good luck with life.

   

   

   

  • 12:06 am
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