Jun 26, 2009
Is Retail Management Really That Bad?
I read this excerpt from the article Why Retail Management Sucks the other day and my eyes were opened:
At 8:20 you finally get back to receiving. Luckily it is the Pepsi Vendor who you are good friends with. You are thinking you finally have a minute to relax and shoot the shit with a friend when you hear, “return at register 1.” You make your way to register one and the customer explains to you that the .25 coupon was not rung up correctly. Unfortunately, your corporation has made it impossible to do a refund without canceling out the entire transaction. You explain this to the customer and she asks “isn’t there an easier way?” Yes, there is; take the quarter and stick it up your ass! Instead, you ring up all 22 items she bought again and make sure to ring up the .25 coupon at the end. It takes ten minutes for her to save .25, but I am sure it was worth it.
For much more, make sure to read the entire article at Subprime Blogger. The question I am posing today is “is retail management really this bad or is this embellished? Any of you who have worked in retail in any capacity are encourged to comment. I would like to hear from those of you who have to deal with the public every single day.
typical retail manager pricks. instead of blaming the .25 cent coupon headache on their employer’s shenanegins, they blame it on the customer for “not getting in line.”
I am guessing you have never worked in retail Tony
Tony, not all customers are a pain in the ass, just the ones like you.
THIS STUFF HAPPENS EVERYOTHER DAY ,IRRITABLE CUSTOMERS COME IN GET UPSET AND PART OF YOUR JOB IS TO BE UNDERSTANDABLE AND HAPPILY HELP THE CUSTOMER HAVE A WONDERFUL TIME IN YOU STORE. BUT INSTEAD HAVING 100% CUSTOMER SERVICE THIS MAN OR WOMAN WAS 100 % LAZY. TWO THUMBS DOWN
From personal experience, being grinding on by each and every customer, year after year, it is impossible to continue to give good customer service. The only people that can do it are the ones who are puppets for their respective corporations.
Been there, done that. It’s the toughest business I’ve ever been in. You catch it from employees, corporate and customers, the hours suck and to make a decent paycheck you have to work 60 hours per week.
Other than that, it’s great……
Working at store level in retail can pretty tough. Major retailers claim to be focused on their customer-facing employees and the customer experience, but all too often it seems they see store level payroll as an expense to be minimized rather than one of the keys to driving revenues.
RETAIL SUCKS!! It is very hard because of the hours, lack of communication between the ranks, customers and co-workers. When you get promoted you expect to gain some sort of respect, but that doesn’t happen. In turn you get stuck with alot of the slack that managers leave you with and co-workers. You are pretty much on call and ….well you get the point….. a revolving door of misery.