Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Moments

[Paxil]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

The biggest problem here are the people working in a paid customer service position that don't seem to want to work or do any "customer service" to earn their paycheck. Oh my god, they want to carry on a brief conversation with you, horrors!

 

[Capn Flukie]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Here's a questions I get asked constantly, and I've never understood it.

"Do you work here?"

I worked at a toy store once, and one time I had to clean some stuff from under a bottom shelf and was half-way under it pulling junk out and someone asked me that.

 

[Holdfast]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Here's a questions I get asked constantly, and I've never understood it.

"Do you work here?"

I worked at a toy store once, and one time I had to clean some stuff from under a bottom shelf and was half-way under it pulling junk out and someone asked me that.

It was store security asking, right?

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

The biggest problem here are the people working in a paid customer service position that don't seem to want to work or do any "customer service" to earn their paycheck. Oh my god, they want to carry on a brief conversation with you, horrors!

Quite a difference between holding a conversation and a Q&A session to figure out what it is they are looking for like you're pulling teeth. There's a difference between wanting to hold a conversation and asking for help when you've no idea what you're looking for.

 

[Timby]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Which IS the problem.

If she leaves out what item she needed how can we help her find it?

Countless people come up to me and just say, "I want a roast."
Ok do you want a pork roast, beef roast, lamb roast?
Beef roast.
Ok. Do you want a chuck roast, arm roast, sirloin roast, top round roast, eye of round roast, bottom round roast, rib roast...?
I don't know.


Happens a LOT.

Well, you know, I don't know a whole lot about cooking roasts, much less selecting them. If, then, I were to drive over to Hy-Vee right now and walk up to the butcher counter and ask for a beef roast, I would rely on the presumably qualified butcher to help me select a proper cut of meat.

It sounds more like that you have a misanthropic view of customers, and you suck at providing the "service" part of "customer service."

The title of the thread is "this customer needs a brain," not "God, why do these people keep talking to me?!"

 

[Captain Ice]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

What is funny is that when I shop in other stores while wearing my uniform shirt, I have never once been asked if I work there. People have simply launched into their question about something and I've had to stop them and tell them that I don't work there.

I get this all the time.

What's really funny is when this happens in a Circuit City or Best Buy where their people wear different colored polos. Then I usually stand up and say something like "See the guy in the red polo? He actually works here. Ask him."

It would be a LOT less frustrating if these people would actually ask if you worked for this store first, before launching into their question and then getting angry because you didn't drop what you were doing and turn around and help them.

 

[Paxil]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

I think Trekker is my deli guy.

 

[Tiberius Jim]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

What is funny is that when I shop in other stores while wearing my uniform shirt, I have never once been asked if I work there. People have simply launched into their question about something and I've had to stop them and tell them that I don't work there.

I get this all the time.

What's really funny is when this happens in a Circuit City or Best Buy where their people wear different colored polos. Then I usually stand up and say something like "See the guy in the red polo? He actually works here. Ask him."

It would be a LOT less frustrating if these people would actually ask if you worked for this store first, before launching into their question and then getting angry because you didn't drop what you were doing and turn around and help them.

Exactly. Its odd that people *do* ask if I work there when I am actually at work yet *don't* ask me when I'm somewhere else just shopping. If people would take the half a second to look at the logo on my shirt in both scenarios there'd be a lot less confusion and frustration. The logo is there for a reason.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Well, you know, I don't know a whole lot about cooking roasts, much less selecting them. If, then, I were to drive over to Hy-Vee right now and walk up to the butcher counter and ask for a beef roast, I would rely on the presumably qualified butcher to help me select a proper cut of meat.

It sounds more like that you have a misanthropic view of customers, and you suck at providing the "service" part of "customer service."

The title of the thread is "this customer needs a brain," not "God, why do these people keep talking to me?!"

Then try this, "I've never cooked a roast before, what is the best kind of roast?" That will start an easy, pleasant, conversation on helping you.

Rather than just saying, "I need a roast."

And, again, taking us through the painful, long, Q&A process to figure out what you want or need. If you want to have a conversation about what you want or need then try being conversational instead of giving half answers.

You can't tell me in your time as a bartender you never got frustrarted when people kept saying, "I need a drink."

And, for the record, I've gotten numerous customer praise and comment-cards on my customer service and only one, maybe two, complaints from customers even the managers agreed were out of line.

So, take that for what it is worth, I guess.

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

I think Trekker is my deli guy.

Considering I don't work in a deli....

 

[Timby]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

You can't tell me in your time as a bartender you never got frustrarted when people kept saying, "I need a drink."

In nearly six years ... that's never happened. Closest corollary I've ever experienced is someone approaching the bar and saying, "I need a Lite," which I've learned (at least from working in Wisconsin and Iowa) is simply a regional thing, as 99 percent of the time, it's shorthand for Miller Lite.

 

[Plecostomus]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

I've been on both sides of the counter, as a wage-drone/stock-monkey and as a customer. Let me tell you, being on the other side has profoundly altered the way I deal with store employees.

Jenifer (my girlfriend) works at a call-center for tech-support for a "well known tax program" and comes home with horror stories like "ok please take the CD out of the box THEN insert it into the tray" and so on. Ergo, thanks to her I try to get as much information together about whatever I'm calling about before I do. Sometimes it's hard to think of the voice on the other end as a person but... they are.

Working in factories, you come to realize that you have customers as well. I had a chance to sit in on a Sales Meeting for a potential customer because of my experience with a particular manufacturing method called injection-molding. At the time that company valued my input as a sort of "resin expert" because of my degree. Sadly they went under but that's another story.

Customers come in, lay out the blueprint and our engineer starts taking notes and making notations on the print. I ask "what sort of resin are you considering" because each of the 45,000 different types of plastic have unique properties and manufacturing requirements.

They said "Orange plastic."

Engineer tells them what I mentioned above about the different types and properties and I join in on some of the specific types and properties and asked them questions about the end-use of the product hoping to get a clue as to what sorts of resin to suggest.

After a half hour we were able to determine the most important property of this product was that IT HAD TO BE ORANGE. And inexpensive. Now at this point we have no clue what it actually does because no one asked. So the engineer and I decide that ORANGE POLYSTYRENE would be the best choice.

Mold gets built... 5,000 of them get made, then a month later we get a call that the item is failing in service. Turns out this was supposed to be a clip-on thingy for solvent tanks that are used to wash engine components.

Folks, Polystyrene has many useful properties... it dyes nicely, and molded properly can be quite strong. However it dissolves when exposed to most petrochemical solvents.

Now who got blamed for this? The customer? Who didn't tell us that the part was going to be exposed to solvents? OF COURSE NOT that's our fault for not reading their minds.


No field is safe from idiot customers. None.

 

[Holdfast]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Now at this point we have no clue what it actually does because no one asked. So the engineer and I decide that ORANGE POLYSTYRENE would be the best choice....

Now who got blamed for this? The customer? Who didn't tell us that the part was going to be exposed to solvents? OF COURSE NOT that's our fault for not reading their minds.

With respect, you were right to be blamed, at least partially (from an ethical perspective).

The customer did not know that certain plastics interact with solvents, so didn't mention that aspect of its use. You guys, as the contracted party, are the experts on plastics and the whole POINT of your meeting with them sounds like it was to determine what was needed to meet their needs. You should have asked what the items would be used for.

Of course the exact wording of the contract between the two parties would determine whether the failure was legally yours or not. It may well not be, legally speaking, if all you were contracted to do was make a specific product, rather than meet a brief presented by the clients.

But ethically I would say that at least part of the blame is yours because the entire AIM of the meeting you held was to draw those kinds of issues out so you could advise the client. Instead, according to what you posted "no-one asked" what it was for, and you & the engineer just made a decision by yourselves.

It sounds like you got understandably exasperated at your clients' lack of knowledge, but how could you possibly leave that meeting and agree to sign a manufacturing contract without asking what it would be used for, if that's what the meeting was there for?

If I've got the wrong end of the stick, I apologise, but the whole situation sounds illogical. Yes you had ill-informed, difficult customers, I agree, but I can't fairly blame them alone based on your account.

 

[Plecostomus]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Fully understand what you are saying Holdfast, and biggest change that came about because of this is DO NOT PROCEED BEYOND THE PRELIM MEETINGS WITHOUT KNOWING THE END USE OF THE PRODUCT.

To be fair we did pump the customer for information they were rather tight-lipped about it other than they needed it to be lightweight, inexpensive and bright orange. Normally in these situations the customer is very forthcoming about what the product is and does... once in awhile you get one who is concerned about security, hell we had one customer at the sheetmetal plant I worked at over the winter who refused to tell us the end use of the product because he was afraid we might steal his design. I mean come on now... We've got your print right here, we can figure out from the symbols that this is some kind of guide for a roller assembly, why not just tell us it's for a custom-designed printing press up front! We have an expert who has 25 years building parts for printing presses if he had been involved from the beginning we could have shaved six weeks off the design process.

 

[KiraDax]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

The biggest problem here are the people working in a paid customer service position that don't seem to want to work or do any "customer service" to earn their paycheck. Oh my god, they want to carry on a brief conversation with you, horrors!

I don't think you quite see the bigger picture here (but no hard feelings, customers generally don't).

It isn't a matter of a paid employee being expected to share a few minutes of convo with one customer, or two, or three, or heck, a dozen.

Most people in retail and service see hundreds of people per day. I can tell you, its pretty damned hard to find the energy or inclination to even smile, much less speak, after the first couple of dozen. Its nothing personal, its exhaustion. Most of us don't get paid just to stand around recharging our 'smile!' battery.

 

[Aragorn]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

We're talking apples and oranges here. This thread is about stupid customers who may actually be too stupid to be shopping at said store in the first place.

Self-centered, me-first, "life, liberty and the entitlement to happiness" employees who think they're above their job (and therefore don't give a damn about putting any effort into it) and think they deserve to be handed a six-figure career right out of high school with their 2.2 GPAs and zero skills is a different subject all together.

 

[PsychoPere]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

The biggest problem here are the people working in a paid customer service position that don't seem to want to work or do any "customer service" to earn their paycheck. Oh my god, they want to carry on a brief conversation with you, horrors!

I have eight hundred prescriptions to fill. No, I don't know nor care if the front of the store has elastic shoe strings. If you have a question about the location of a cold medication, a vitamin, namely anything related to health care, I'd be glad to help you. My responsibilities and necessary knowledge in the pharmacy exceed the requirements of anyone on the floor whose name tag doesn't say "manager," so I am not going to bother knowing where esoteric items are located.

Yeah, I'm still a little annoyed that I overheard the person who asked me that tell someone on the other end of her phone connection that I told her we don't have elastic shoe strings. I said that I did not know if we had elastic ones specifically, but did direct her to the correct aisle to determine for herself and offered to page management to assist her.

I'd also really like it if random customers wouldn't interrupt me to ask where stupid little items are while I'm already conversing with a patient about their insurance.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

As a customer weighing in on the whole 'sugar free' debate here, IMO it really is on me to describe the broad details of the thing that I want.

I can't just say sugar free, I need to say sugar free gum, juice, ice cream or ice pops.

I can't just say Roast, I need to say Pork, Lamb, or Beef Roast.

And I can't just say Suit, I need to say Black or Grey, Work or Dress.

Anything more specific than that, its on the store employee to help me out with.

What is funny is that when I shop in other stores while wearing my uniform shirt, I have never once been asked if I work there. People have simply launched into their question about something and I've had to stop them and tell them that I don't work there.

Reminds me of when I was out shopping this one time and taking advantage of the massive sale my favourite clothing store was having. Grabbing about half the stock off the shelves, I stood in line for the counter, striking up a conversation with the guy behind me. I got around to telling him about going to Uni a few cities over soon, and he asked me if I would be starting at the store down there when I went. Took me a few moments to realise that he actually thought I was an employee! Maybe it was just how many clothes I was carrying, like I might be about to put them up on the shelves and railings, but considering I'd been talking to him for the past 10 minutes standing in that queue, and wasn't in uniform, I wondered exactly how good an employee did he think I was!

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Here's a questions I get asked constantly, and I've never understood it.

"Do you work here?"

I worked at a toy store once, and one time I had to clean some stuff from under a bottom shelf and was half-way under it pulling junk out and someone asked me that.

I get that all the time too.

I have a cap, name tag, and work shirt that all have our store's name on them. I'm wearing them in the store. I'm doing store-related things. What part of this progression escapes these people?

 

[Trekker4747]

Re: Your "I Won't Say Anything, but this Customer Needs a Brain" Momen

Kind of realted to the whole "do you work here" riff, (though I'm not sure I'd put it in the "this customer needs a brain" catagory) I love when I'm carrying an obviously heavy object through the store and people decide to stop me to ask me to help them find something, along the same line I like it when I'm walking through the store from the checkout or kitchen area to the break room, drink in one hand, food in the other, paper under the arm and people stop me to ask me questions.

I mean, yeah I'm on the floor, I'm in uniform, I should be there to help. But, come on! There's a time and place people! There's people all over the palce you can stop and pester!