I started as a cashier about 4 months ago at a major retail chain. I'm part-time and a part-time student. I like the organization. I like my coworkers. I like my bosses. I like some customers. BUT...at least half of the customers just make life so difficult. I appreciate all customers of course. Without them, the business has nothing. But, to put it lightly, this experience has made me lose a lot of faith in the general public. I check myself whenever I'm a customer now because I know how hard it is to deal with them. Here are a few things that would maybe help keep me and the customer happy if they knew them:
1) I never leave the front of the store except to go to the restroom. I'm not allowed to. So, I don't know where ANYTHING is. No cashiers do except for the ones who have been there for years. All we know is how to work the register. That is it. We are good for nothing else. Heck, half the time when customers ask me where something is I don't even know WHAT it is they are talking about. Even if I took it upon myself to learn where all the million items are in the store that information would only be good for a night or so. Pretty much everything changes locations weekly. The merchandise team comes in and moves everything around like they are supposed to. We have employees who aren't cashiers walking around in their designated departments for the sole purpose of helping customers. I probably have to say "I don't know" about 50 times in an 8 hour shift. It gets depressing because after a while I start believing I really don't know anything haha.
2) Because we are not allowed to leave the register, we cannot come help you in the aisle from which you are beckoning us over. No, we can't even walk 15 feet right over to you. There are department employees for that. Cashiers run the registers. Odds are I couldn't even help even if I were able to come over to you. Why? Because I'm not trained in that department. I'm not an expert on that inventory. I'm an expert at running the register.
3) We have NO way to communicate with corporate. NONE. NADA. ZILCH. We are at the bottom rung. We cannot let corporate know that you are unhappy with something. You can by calling them. We don't have a way to communicate with them. We can communicate with our store managers, but even they have very little way to get in touch with corporate. There is a survey on the bottom of your receipt. Fill it out. I can't pick up the phone and call the CEO like you just asked me to believe it or not.
4) We have NO control over other departments. People come to me at the register when they are checking out and just tell me everything that was wrong with their experience. Do I care? Yeah most of the time. I don't like it when customers have a bad experience. But we cashiers have NO control over how the electronics guy talked to you. Odds are he is my boss. We have NO control over why it was so hard to find something. We have NO control over how clean an aisle is. We have NO control over whether or not an item you previously purchased is working. We can work the registers. That's it. That's what we are there for. If you would like to complain to somebody who can do something about it, ask for a manager. I will happily get one for you. I get that you are upset. But I'm just asking you to do me a favor and not complain to me about it because I can't do anything about it and it makes me feel like I have failed you in some way. I don't like that feeling because I want to make you happy. I really do.
5) When we are brought items that don't have a barcode and have to look them up in the cashier item directory on the computer, the price means nothing. I can't just type in prices. I have to actually enter the correct item for inventory accuracy purposes. It's not the mid-1900s anymore when you could just type in a price. I have to find the exact item in the directory. Thanks for your patience.
Thanks for listening everyone. I know a lot of you are retail customers for whom all this is not a problem. I know a lot do have a problem with these things. I'm sure I have done a lot of this in the past myself. I'm not directing this out of anger. Just hoping to help everyone understand. I'm trying to make the customer happy. I really am. But sometimes I just can't.
Just have to vent a little
شارك عبر الماسنجر
