By Karen Aho
(http://finance.sympatico....d=10224139)

By failing to pay customers common courtesy, indifferent clerks chase away business. Most of the blame lies with management, but shoppers can also be better customers.

Retail stores are often huge and complex operations, but the battle for customers is won or lost at the cash register.

Lost, mostly.

"It's about respect, whether it's the cheapest place in town or the most expensive," says Lou Carbone, the founder and CEO of Experience Engineering, a customer-service consultancy. "These companies lose customers, and they're not even sure why."

But the customers know why. Their pet peeves:

* Not making eye contact. This is the "grab and scan," as it's called by Karen Chalmers, a mother of three who recently boycotted her area big-box store after a different small act of rudeness. "They just ignore me. It makes me feel like I'm not even a person."

* Answering the phone. "We're ALREADY in the store!" blogger "Phil801" writes. "You've won our business already! Take care of us!" His tongue-in-cheek solution? While standing in line, program the store's number into a cell phone and call the misdirected clerk.

* Chatting to other clerks. "It's unbelievable. You can be looking right at people who are busy talking to an associate, and they ignore you," Carbone says. "It makes you feel unimportant, insignificant. It causes you to feel insufficient. It makes you feel very small."

* Not counting change back. When did it become the customer's responsibility to fumble through a wad -- coins balanced precariously on paper -- to ensure accuracy? "It's just another example of a disrespectful service act," says Leonard L. Berry, a distinguished professor of marketing at Texas A&M University's Mays Business School. "And then, once you get the change, not even thanking you for the purchase. That hurts more for many people."

* Walking past shoppers who need help. Workers today are often disengaged from their jobs, "physically there but psychologically absent," says John Todor, the author of "Addicted Customers" and a psychologist and managing partner at The Whetstone Edge, a customer-centric consultancy in California. "That's what's at the root of some of these things. . . . What it says to the customer is 'I don't matter.'"

Customers who feel bad don't come back, even if the price is right.

"We always have these antennae out there," Todor says. "If the clerk is acting like a drone, doing their job technically, then you feel like you can be rude back."

I think, as a clerk at a music store, I was guilty of the first 4. The fifth item I was actually trained on though. Trained to greet and inquire.

These 3 can irritate me a bit until I remind myself it's just a reflection on them and I move on ...

* Not making eye contact. This is the "grab and scan," as it's called by Karen Chalmers, a mother of three who recently boycotted her area big-box store after a different small act of rudeness. "They just ignore me. It makes me feel like I'm not even a person."

* Answering the phone. "We're ALREADY in the store!" blogger "Phil801" writes. "You've won our business already! Take care of us!" His tongue-in-cheek solution? While standing in line, program the store's number into a cell phone and call the misdirected clerk.

* Chatting to other clerks. "It's unbelievable. You can be looking right at people who are busy talking to an associate, and they ignore you," Carbone says. "It makes you feel unimportant, insignificant. It causes you to feel insufficient. It makes you feel very small."

i don't care about the eye contact issue - i'm not there to make friends, i just wanna buy my crap and get out of there. if my cashier turns out to be a kindred soul, then great. we can consult our schedules and go skip through the heather some other day. otherwise, just ring me up and let me be on my way.

and i don't really care about the counting back change issue either. i always count it when i get it, and the way cashiers are supposed to count it back confuses me anyway. what am i saying - i pay with debit card 80% of the time anyway!

it's the chatting with other clerks and answering the phones that gripes my ass. FOCUS, PLEASE. all i care about is getting my stuff paid for and getting out of the store as quickly as possible. if you can do that, then i call that sterling customer service.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, you know what REALLY gripes me? going to best buy and having a cashier ask me if i want a damn sports illustrated subscription? look at me. i'm buying a damn sylvester box set and a serial mom DVD. DO I LOOK LIKE SOMEONE WHO WANTS A SPORTS ILLUSTRATED SUBSCRIPTION??? even if i did, is this really the best time for me to make that kind of a decision? "oh gee, well i was just going to buy batteries, but now let me think about getting magazines in the mail. what a delightful turn of events!" leave me the hell alone and ring up my shit, dammit.

and don't even get me started on store clerks who ignore me when i'm looking for help and won't leave me alone when i know exactly what i'm looking for and how to find it. WTF is up with that, anyway? i think after you work in one of those stores long enough, you start to learn how to read customers' faces. managers want you to mingle with the customers and act useful, so the clerks look for customers who appear to know what they're doing, so the clerk won't actually have to do any work. meanwhile, the clerks know to steer clear of people with "deer in headlights" expressions, because those people are obviously going to require some effort. it's a goldbricking scam, i tell you!

true story... shopping in la senza for panties i had to endure hearing one young clerk discuss her yeast infection with the other young clerk. needless to say i did not by any panties and got the heck out of the store before i threw up.

save personal stuff for the break room!!

Anxiety said:

I feel the same way which is maybe why I didn't always play this up more. Seems phony anyway. "Hey stranger! Well, I see you've chosen this lovely new musical recording by Beyonce! " (it was summer 2003)

Anxiety said:

It confuses me to count it back to people and to have it counted to me, just the way in that the balance goes backward out to the original amount. Maybe I learned subtraction differently but anyway I never gave someone the wrong change.

Anxiety said:

Now see, I found THIS interesting. When I was at HMV, I was wishing I could ignore the phone too, but I was expected to answer it even if I had a customer (because we all had customers!). SOMEONE has to answer it. I wish I could have just focused on my lineup of people.

Anxiety said:

Anxiety said:

I actually did help people because I was bored out of my mind otherwise. You know the customers who don't need your help only after offering and they give you that look like "You serious mothafucka? I can handle minez!" I think I was actually BEST at my store for helping people.

emm said:

EWW

Jesus people

Mach said:

Never mind it was in a store where you buy underwear. That's like discussing your personal food poisoning incident at the Wendy's counter.

Cinnie said:

i know, right!!
like i was going to buy anything after that!

As little as most of the cashiers make, they don't give a rats ass what a customer thinks. N Rightly so.

lazycrockett said:

Generally I have to say that management who treat their employees with very little regard will end up having that feeling passed on to their clientele

"It makes you feel unimportant, insignificant. It causes you to feel insufficient. It makes you feel very small"

Disrespect just gets passed on.

I'm a little guilty of number three.. heck most of my store is, lol. But we try to include the customers in the jokes, as long as it doesn't affect productivity, and we're not ignoring the customers

CoolTarik1 said:

I think inter-clerk chatting boosts worker morale.

I thought this said "Five ways nude cashiers rile shoppers" ...

Customer service is dead.

Genesia said:

corporate management forcing staff to bombard customers with add-ons and suggestive sells is what killed customer service if you ask me, which is ironic, considering that is considered by those types to be the very lifeblood of the "customer service concept"

give the workers a stake in all the promotional crap they're forced to shill on the public and see what the returns will be. otherwise, leave those poor underpaid people alone and let them deal with the indignity of an irritating public in peace, without having the added insult of having to push sports illustrated subscriptions on the general populace.

Randal: "This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers."

Anxiety said:

Oh, I don't care about that stuff. I can say "no thanks, I'm not interested" with the best of them.

It's just amazing to me that people can't even manage a smile and a, "May I help you?" Or say, "thank you" when someone makes a purchase. Or, "Thanks for stopping in" if they don't.

I mean...you're paid to be there. The least you can do is perform your basic function. It ain't like retail is rocket science.

Cinnie said:

I'd venture to say that 4 out of 5 of these "experts" have never been a cashier in the last 40 years.

It easy to be all holier than thou sitting on your elite ass, telling underlings how to improve owners profits?!

lazycrockett said:

Totally.

lazycrockett said:

And I would be willing to bet that a lot of them have actually worked in retail themselves - and were good at it - which makes them even more pissed off about the crappy service they, themselves, receive.

I know it's that way for me. I work for a multi-billion dollar company that provides legendary customer service - service that I rendered for five years, myself. Nothing pisses me off more than somebody doing a simple job to the worst of his or her ability - especially if I'm on the receiving end of it.

Cinnie said:

Word

I'm HUGE on customer service. Now, I don't mean kiss my ass but ask me if I need any help. And please don't act like you absolutely hate your job, 'cause if you do, QUIT!

Don't even get me started on this.....

Little of this bothers me, like anxiety I want to be rung up and leave I am not there to make friends.

They can answer the phone and chat with friends if they can also ring me thru, I don't care.

I have been a cashier before, and about 80% of customers treat cashiers like shit. Managment also treats cashiers crappy, they will explain that the cashier is the last chance to make a good impression, but they make it clear the cashier is the least important emplyee in the store

lazycrockett said:

Well I have been a cashier in the last forty years and I didn't do any of this rude bullshit. I treated my customers as I want to be treated. I made 3.35 an hour and you would have never known it.

Stymie said:

I knew I loved you for a reason. That is my philosophy exactly.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

Exactly! I have walked away from purchasing big box items because customer service reps/cashiers acted like they couldn't be bothered. I do most of my shopping now online.

On the flipside, I also let people know when they are doing a great job. I was in the drive thru of a restaurant and the cashier was the sweetest, nicest cashier I ever had. I thanked her for being so nice and called up and told her boss how great I thought she was. I had gotten so used to be treated like crap, her being kind was a total breath of fresh air.

MIGUELGOMEZ said:

I love you cuz you got a wonderful ass.

Stymie said:

You're too kind. Sometimes I have to look back to see who's following me.....it's just my ass.

Stymie said: