For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for June 02, 2019

I hope that wasn’t a personal telephone call, Ms. cashier.

Those fashions are “duds,” all right!

Sorry Ma’am, but you had your chance and wasted it jabbering on the phone.

Having worked in retail I can tell you that any salesperson would rather be providing service to a real-life, in-store customer than to someone on the phone; but because of monitored recordings the customer on the other end of the phone takes precedence over the person in the store. Corporate has no way of knowing the actual buyer in the store exists; but they do know about the person on the phone and how they are treated. It’s also frustrating when the in-person customer can’t get her head around the fact that you’re talking to another customer and not willfully ignoring her.

You “MAY” have indeed. Too late now.

I had that happen to me in an Argos store once. I never went back there.

“Not any more, cupcake! Enjoy thinking about what you would have done with the commission you as of now now are not going to get!"

That’s what happens when impulse buying. Lose the impulse lode the sale.

Salespeople definitely need training. We’ve been looking recently to buy a new car. Entered this one dealership…no, wait…only approached the entry door where we were JUMPED upon by an eager-beaver salesperson. Told him which car we wanted to see. It’s a huuuuuge dealership and it’s Florida and 95 degrees and it’s noon. He makes us walk to the far end of the dealership and points out the car. And……stands there. And….? And? “Aren’t you going to OPEN it?” I asked. “Oh, you want to see INSIDE?….I don’t have the keys”. Grrrrr. What an idiot!

“Apparently not” is the right answer. I was in a Verizon store discussing something with a sales person when the phone rang. The salesman answered the phone and started to deal with the caller’s problem. After waiting for several minutes I walked out. Whatever happened to “I’m with a customer, someone will be with you shortly.”?

Over three decades on, still relevant

Lynn’s Comments:

This scenario was real, and once again, I heard from women and men who told me they’d walked out of a store because they’d been ignored. When I think of all the money I would have spent if the sales staff had been attentive, I shudder. Disinterested sales people have saved me a lot of money! Which brings me to ask: Why is it that when a restaurant is crazy busy, the staff gives you great service…but when it isn’t busy, you can be completely ignored? Strange.

Source: fborfw.com/strip_fix/

Hope you don’t work on commision, deary.

I don’t generally just walk away and say nothing when I’m treated like this in a place I’m spending money. Some people just need some coaching!!

Not any more. I hope you work on commission.

My husband and I ran a small shop in England for years. The first lesson learned was that customers were our bread and butter and we abandoned whatever we were doing to serve them. We swiftly grew to love cold tea and coffee and half-eaten sandwiches. Customers took priority over everything!

I have walked out of stores, car dealerships, restaurants and more due to poor (or lack of) service. These people are in the service business, and if they can’t treat the folks that keep them in business decently then they don’t deserve to have my custom. There are plenty of others around.

I went to a local bridal salon to find a Mother of the Groom dress and stood patiently in front of the desk at the door to be directed to that area. I could tell the person at the desk was on a private call but after almost 5 minutes, I walked out the door. With no other sales person in sight, I felt I was more important than any caller or situation. When I described the person to my DIL, she said that sounded like the owner and she was in the midst of a divorce. I still think I should have been helped. David’s Bridal did just that.

These people and their stupid phones! Now it’s worse with the addition of the screen so they can spend all day staring at it, and walk in front of cars, fall down stairs, etc.

The downfall of our society is now beginning, as more become dependent on these silly gadgets.

The cell phone has, of course, replaced the landline, but the ignorant store employee remains the same.

With the advent of the cell phone, however, came the revenge of the customer, using the cell phone camera to capture the bad behavior of the store employees, and ( with appropriate commentary ) post the pictures on the store’s website or “Like” page on Facebook.

Lynn’s Comments for her strip today which first appeared on 6-9-90 (https://fborfw.com/strip_fix/ ):

This scenario was real, and once again, I heard from women and men who told me they’d walked out of a store because they’d been ignored. When I think of all the money I would have spent if the sales staff had been attentive, I shudder. Disinterested sales people have saved me a lot of money! Which brings me to ask: Why is it that when a restaurant is crazy busy, the staff gives you great service…but when it isn’t busy, you can be completely ignored? Strange.

I’ve had a clerk spend 20 minutes on the phone explaining a 25 cent item (really!) while I was trying to check out a $200 order.

Of course it was…it’s almost impossible to get anyone to help you in a store anymore.

Once a week, each of us (government employees) is required to work at the front counter to both answer phones and respond to walk in customers. Although we are not a ‘call center’, our instructions are that when there are walk in customers, we need to take a caller’s phone number and tell them we will return the call after ‘researching’ their question. The problem is that this never satisfies a caller, who either has numerous questions (and threatens to ‘report you to your supervisor’ if you don’t answer), or who is angry about something and wants someone to listen, even if that someone has no power to fix whatever the caller says is wrong…

I’ve been known to stand there, tapping on the counter, tapping my foot and sighing loudly. Then I go looking for the manager.

I’m also not above marking the person’s name and making a complaint to their headquarters.

I think that this is one on the main reasons that Sears died! It became impossible to get any help in a Sears store.

Lost sale.

One day in a dollar store, I was standing in a long line at the counter of an employee who was yakking away on an obviously personal call on her cell phone, while half-heartedly scanning items and bagging them so that it appeared she was really “working.” I had a question to ask her about something I couldn’t find in the store. As the line got longer, and I got closer, people pleasantly started chatting, and a man behind me asked “How are you today?” I replied, “Doing well, but I’d do better if this young lady would stop talking on her cell phone so I could ask her a question.” If looks could have killed, she’d have murdered me! “WHAT do you need to KNOW?” she shouted, then waved me in a general direction without explaining anything. Meanwhile, a very polite and helpful employee had arrived from the back of the store to see what the commotion was, and she helped me find my item. I resolved then and there not to shop if that person was in that store again. (I had been going there for years.) Happy to say that I never saw her again. Unfortunately, there are plenty just like her, thinking that they are just robots who don’t have to talk or answer questions.

This strip might be true sometimes, but I’ve never had that problem. I guess I must go shopping at the right times…Even when the phones had to be answered by the cashiers, after the cut of the office and the switch board, the cashier picks up the phone and asks the caller to wait while she finishes with the line-up. This happens at the neighborhood dep’t store, not a large chain.

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I don’t like to shop at these mega-large chain stores since they got so large, over the years, that it takes forever to find something

I encountered a situation I’ve never come across before just a couple of days ago. For better than 50 years, I’ve been impressed with the local library, where the employees, whether in person or on the phone, are unfailingly polite and helpful. When I called this time, a librarian answered after several rings, apologized for taking so long, and then said she was doing their “cleaning duties.” She hadn’t heard the phone at first because she was vacuuming! Then she started sneezing, because she had been dusting as well. She apologized profusely, but I reassured her that I was not unhappy or blaming her. She then transferred me to a different department, where the man did not answer. He was perhaps waxing the floor or something! I certainly have no objection to a little light cleaning around one’s work station (I used to do that since it made the housekeepers nervous to clean around computers), but It’s ridiculous to “save money” or whatever goal the library is trying to accomplish by having people do their own heavy cleaning, and I will be writing and letting the library management know my opinion.

I’ve had the beginning of that happen to me innumerable times. However, my mom was good at this – I call it Polite Persistence, and I add Audacity – YOU are the one paying their salary, but never, ever show anger – it just digs in their heels .

If no one is around, go searching – aisles, customer desk, whatever – the manager’s name is usually posted somewhere, or the store number. On the phone, they get three strikes and I ask for their supervisor, if there “isn’t one”, I go end-around and be sure to get their name, then search for the corporate offices’ phone (repeat as necessary). Bad service – same trick.

This does have a flip side, though. When you do get good service, it is IMPERATIVE to recognize it and get it communicated. I’ve “had” to do this twice in the last month, and I’ve been thanked profusely for it – it really does feel god for me, too. 8^)

Too bad Elly – that dress would have looked nice on you. On the otherhand, I too have walked out on sales people who could care less, like the one portrayed in today’s comic.

This happened to me at the Target store in Muskegon. She took a personal call AND filed her nails before she would wait on me. I didn’t go back to Target for years!

This reminds me of an incident at a Montgomery Ward store (back when those still existed). I was in the electronics department and I was standing near the counter where three sales ladies were standing and chatting, none of them paying attention. One of them turned and looked right at me, then went back to the conversation. Wonderful service.

Oh man! Even without the current cell phones, the salesperson is the SAME!!! How funny is it that 20 some years later, the same issues arise?

She planned to buy the dress without trying it on?

Goes to show that trying to censor, silence, or discourage people from freedom of expression is fruitless. You can’t keep a good man down.

Been there; done that!