I visited a newsagency yesterday to purchase a stationery item and when I approached the counter with the item I wanted, around two minutes after I entered the shop, the person sitting on a stool at the counter was startled.
I didn’t see you come in they said. That’s because you were too busy on your phone you lazy sod is what I should have said instead of just smiling. I paid, they gave me change and that was it. I turned back to check as I exited and they were on their phone again. The whole time they did not leave the stool.
The person who served me be would be in their early twenties and earning over $21 an hour to work. In the US this person would be lucky to be on $8 an hour and for this they would most certainly provide a much better experience.
This newsagency is in a busy high-street situation. Shops all around are open. The cafe next door was full. Trade could be good in the newsagency if they engaged with the opportunity on the street.
I don’t know the owner of this business but I’ll make contact to let them know my experience. If only this employee would do what they are paid to do … to work the shop floor, make the shopping experience more enjoyable and tidy the front of the shop so it connects with people on the street.
The employee I encountered is around the age of most people I noticed on the street. They could be more help to the business than sitting on the stool taking money and putting it in a drawer.
A business is a product of its leadership.
I am certain anyone could visit one of my shops at any time and have an experience that’s not as good as I would want. the challenge for us as retailers and leaders is to be clear in what we expect. We also need to hire for success and have a process for addressing shortcomings we hear about.
Today we are having off we are having a family get together day . So we have a staff member doing the shop opening to close . I know the shop will be all sorted ,shelving redone magazines faced etc i also know when a customer walks in she will be all over them to welcome them into the store . I also know she will be on face book , sending a txt or 2 or will probably have a friend or 2 pass through for a chat . I allow all of this to go on because I know she has the common sence to behave properly when a customer is in the shop .
Ditch the stool!
I see staff in shops like that from time to time and I always want to say to them ‘I would never want you to work for me!’ but I don’t.
I even wonder if their boss cares as surely they must have some idea or are they just content with having someone shop sit.
As an ex newsagent I will always have a soft spot for newsagencies and know full well the competitive pressures and difficulty in getting good staff.
I now work for a multi-national who buy all of their stationery from Staples. However recently I needed some insert binders and decided I would use the purchasing card at our local news agency.
I was a bit shocked however to find that all the insert binders were $6.95, regardless of size, making my intended purchase $104.25 for the 15 I needed.
I decided to check on the Staples website before inviting a “please explain” on reconciling the credit card.
Staples had the insert binders from $2 to $3 for the ones I required.
I would have purchased them at the newsagency if the difference had not been as great as this.
Also, whilst I was getting the staff member to scan the binders to make sure they were all $6.95 (thought may have been an incorrectly placed shelf label), she was having an ongoing discussion with an elderly gentleman over a pen refill.
The new refill was packaged in a blister pack and he was comparing it to the old refill which was slightly different.
I would have gently removed the refill and checked to see if it fit, but the girl was adamant this would make it unsaleable.
In the end the customer stormed out, saying he would get it elsewhere.
Simple moments like this when you way up a slightly damaged package against a very unhappy customer are very important.
I would always take the path of keeping the customer happy, but I guess that’s just me 🙂
We removed the stool but still find one young Sat. junior disappears out of sit onto the floor occassionly. We need to make sure they know what jobs are to be done and they do not hold conversations with one another or other customers while serving. . I don’t allow phones in the work place. They are to be left in the office and non of mine had better be caught using my computers to go on Facebook. One Newsagent used the saying ” When customers are lean its time to clean” I use it too.
A stool at the counter!?!? That’s just encouraging laziness.
Our team aren’t allowed phones while they’re on the counter or the floor. We don’t mind too much if they have it on them while they’re doing office work (which essentially limits it to admin and managers).
Unless one is very computer savvy they can’t access the internet on our POS.
Poor employee performance is often (but certainly not always) a product of poor training and procedures.
If there are few customers in the store, its the owner/managers responsibility to ensure that systems are in place that give team members something to do whilst also ensuring that system makes individual people accountable.
Sometimes you see a business being run so poorly the urge to simply step behind the counter and start fixing things is almost overwhelming.
I was noticing FB was the first dropdown
every time I left the shop for any reason so I decided to let the staff know that seeing as they could do FB then they could set up, and update every shift, my
FB page.
If they go to their own page so be it but I know that my FB page is well updated every couple of days and I thought it was
worth it.
Phones are a no no while on their shift.
They ring constantly in the back room filing cabinet (where they are locked away)
but the staff know my rules.
If there is a family problem like sickness or
something similar I allow them to have their phone at the front counter but only for that reason.
We employ, train, motivate and, if necessary, fire. We are in control as much as we want.
I have a policy of no phones for staff at the counter. It took letting one repeat offender go before the others took it seriously enough. It’s not so much whilst I am there that is the problem but more when I am not there that the phones used to come out. We did have a stool but I took it home. I do have customers tell me that the staff used to plug their iphones into the store music system and were playing really obscure stuff for their own listening pleasure and certainly not suitable for my main customer demographic. This has been fixed in no uncertain terms and the place sounds a lot better for it.
If the shop phone rings whilst I’m serving and I or my staff are the only one on then the phone can ring out. We won’t serve customers on the phone so it has to go both ways.
In this market and industry there is no place for complacency or bad retail habits.
Having said all the above I’m sure we could all do with more awareness from the customer’s perspective.
Okay so I have 2 stools, one at the counter and one where we sort mail for the LPO side. But in my defence I only have them as one of the staff had major surgery a few months back and is not supposed to stand for extended periods at present.