Re: Today's Priceless Supermarket Moment

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This is why they work so hard to keep your business even if you buy
only a couple items at that time. They want your business all of the
time, not just for the small orders, but the larger orders too.

Obviously any store that keeps their customers unneccessarily waiting in
line has no respect for their customers. When I see customers at one end
of the store in lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and no cashiers at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and
11, how does it make me feel? It makes me feel that they don't give a damn
about my business enough to open those lines. Nothing could be simpler.
Any fancy jawing about customer service is BS. Give me a break!

It's similar to a restaurant that has two rooms full of empty seats and they
keep people waiting in line and hearding them all together while a limited
number of overworked waitpersons joggle their workload. Why would anyone
wait for a seat in this kind of business? But they sure give it their all,
feigning how they are really working to get you a seat and served! If you
care about my business, just open the space and hire some more people --
same solution as the previous paragraph.
Dee Dee

Dee Randall said:

Obviously any store that keeps their customers unneccessarily waiting in
line has no respect for their customers. When I see customers at one end
of the store in lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and no cashiers at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and
11, how does it make me feel? It makes me feel that they don't give a damn
about my business enough to open those lines. Nothing could be simpler.
Any fancy jawing about customer service is BS. Give me a break!

I have to wonder about the money wasted on checkouts in grocery stores. I have
shopped in lots of large grocery stores with lots of checkouts and I have never
seen more than half of them open at any time. I have to wonder why they
bothered to install them in the first place. If you only plan to have a maximum
of 6 cashiers, there is no need to have more than 6 checkouts. If you have 12
but only use 6 it looks like you don't care. If you use them all customers may
be more impressed. Granted, there are no guarantees on that because you can't
please everyone.

That being said, I am really impressed with the improvement over the years. I
used to figure at least 15 minutes to check out a grocery store. Even at peak
periods it rarely takes me more than 5 minutes now.

Dee Randall said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

This is why they work so hard to keep your business even if you buy
only a couple items at that time. They want your business all of the
time, not just for the small orders, but the larger orders too.

Obviously any store that keeps their customers unneccessarily waiting in
line has no respect for their customers. When I see customers at one end
of the store in lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and no cashiers at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and
11, how does it make me feel? It makes me feel that they don't give a damn
about my business enough to open those lines. Nothing could be simpler.
Any fancy jawing about customer service is BS. Give me a break!

I know it is frustrating, but grocery store business is up and down in
a flash. We can be dead for hours and then have an hour that is really
busy and then back to dead again.

They cannot schedule a checker for 1 or two hours. The union requires a
minimum 4 hour shift. And once somebody checks, they have to be paid
checker wages. They don't want all the stockers at checker wages. So,
very rarely, will there actually be enough checkers in the store to run
all the checkstands. They simply don't have that many people qualified
to do the job available.

I know that doesn't sounds great, but the alternative is to schedule
more checkers, and that means raising the prices to cover them. Grocery
stores are competing with walmart, Winco, Costco, and other similar
stores. They've already reduced our Sunday pay, reduced our health
benefits, put a freeze on raises, and raised the weekly payroll
deuduction toward our health benefits. The only way to increase the
number of checkers is to raise the prices to pay for them. And they
know they will lose more business if they do that.

As it is, we do call for as much help as we can. And the lines are
rarely really long for more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. Steady
yes, but not backed up.

I'm sure that varies from store to store, especially since each chain
has its own set of store policies. If your local store is really bad,
complain. Send in customer comment cards. Be specific about the times
and what happened.

We do mystery shop reports, and we can get everything right with
departments and our service attributes and still get a bad shop score
based on how many customers were in line. And they keep a record of how
many checkers were available as well as how many checkstands were open
when the mystery shopper went through. If the checkers weren't
checking, all managers on duty get written up. And if the scores are
too low, the store manager gets into trouble with the district manager.
And then we all hear about it. It's no fun at all. I have to go to a
meeting at 9am on Saturday simply because I didn't offer a sample when
the mystery shopper asked a question. I'm very ticked about it because
I know I missed because I was angry at the office lady for pulling our
til over an hour early. she pulled it at 6:20 and the mystery shopper
came at 6:45. The office lady got 100% on her shop, and i missed one
detail. I did manage to greet with a friendly smile, anticipate a need,
handle a special request with courtesy, be knowldgeable, take to the
item, and give a parting comment.

So, I have to work til 10:30pm friday night, go to a stupid meeting at
9am Saturday, and then go back to work at 3pm on Saturday until
10:30pm. No sleep for me. And I'll get dinged again in August when I
get my evaluation.

So, yes, I do care about customer service and not making people wait in
line. I was actually upset about the poor customer service offered by
the office lady by pulling our til early (so that she could get done
early), and I was keeping track of how many people were turned away
from our register. I also reported it to my deli manager, and she was
ticked enough to go complain to the store manager. So, it should be
fixed now.

I know it is frustrating, but don't assume that people are standing
around doing nothing, just because you see empty checkstands. There may
not be anybody left to call. And that is determined by somebody who
doesn't work at the store level. Our hours are scheduled in the store,
but the actual number and timeframes are determined by a computer
program that compares last year and last week and estimates our sales
for the upcoming week. And that is something designed and run in a
different state. If we go over those hours and don't have exceptional
sales to support it, we get in trouble.

<[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dee Randall wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Obviously any store that keeps their customers unneccessarily waiting in
line has no respect for their customers. When I see customers at one
end
of the store in lines 1, 2, 3, 4 and no cashiers at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,
and
11, how does it make me feel? It makes me feel that they don't give a
damn
about my business enough to open those lines. Nothing could be simpler.
Any fancy jawing about customer service is BS. Give me a break!

I know it is frustrating, but grocery store business is up and down in
a flash. We can be dead for hours and then have an hour that is really
busy and then back to dead again.

This is the way with all businesses, ebb and flow -- most businesses do
their best business at Christmas time and they put extra people on to help.
Obviously in a grocery store, you can't pull checkers out of a hat and put
them back in every 15 minutes, and obviously the store doesn't WANT to pay
for more checkers, and that's the reason. And you say, oh, oh, then they'll
have to charge you more -- well, do it!!! But they never will, they'll keep
cutting corners for their own profit!

You replies about remedies and how much the groceries care about business
may apply to some of the low-grossing chains, but where I shop, there are
plenty of customers everytime I'm there (never the middle of the night,
though) and I hardly ever see a short-line. They may not be making ENOUGH
money in their way of thinking and may always be under pressure to make more
by doing this and that, but the stores that I shop have the products to
bring me in, but they don't give a damn about putting enough people to check
me out. Ridiculous!

The way you are talking about the team work of the grocery store you are
working at sounds like a nightmare. Good rhetoric, but walk-in-step! Got
all the rules for making it work like an oiled wheel. Sounds like any other
corporate nightmare to me. Get a grip!

Dee Dee

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dave Smith said:

I have to wonder about the money wasted on checkouts in grocery stores. I
have
shopped in lots of large grocery stores with lots of checkouts and I have
never
seen more than half of them open at any time. I have to wonder why they
bothered to install them in the first place. If you only plan to have a
maximum
of 6 cashiers, there is no need to have more than 6 checkouts. If you have
12
but only use 6 it looks like you don't care. If you use them all customers
may
be more impressed. Granted, there are no guarantees on that because you
can't
please everyone.

They build for maximum use, not average. My local store usually has
half the registers closed, sometimes more. Still, some days they are
all in use. It isn't often, and I try to avoid shopping then, but it
happens.

--
Dan Abel
[email hidden]
Petaluma, California, USA

"Dan Abel" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dave Smith said:

I have to wonder about the money wasted on checkouts in grocery stores. I
have
shopped in lots of large grocery stores with lots of checkouts and I have
never
seen more than half of them open at any time. I have to wonder why they
bothered to install them in the first place. If you only plan to have a
maximum
of 6 cashiers, there is no need to have more than 6 checkouts. If you
have
12
but only use 6 it looks like you don't care. If you use them all
customers
may
be more impressed. Granted, there are no guarantees on that because you
can't
please everyone.

They build for maximum use, not average. My local store usually has
half the registers closed, sometimes more. Still, some days they are
all in use. It isn't often, and I try to avoid shopping then, but it
happens.

On insane days (before holidays), I've been Wegman's stores and seen the
store manager at a register if things were getting too nutty. Apparently,
they think that when it comes to serving the customer, anything goes, and
rank is right out the window.

Dan Abel said:

Quoted message said:

of 6 cashiers, there is no need to have more than 6 checkouts. If you have
12
but only use 6 it looks like you don't care. If you use them all customers
may
be more impressed. Granted, there are no guarantees on that because you
can't
please everyone.

They build for maximum use, not average. My local store usually has
half the registers closed, sometimes more. Still, some days they are
all in use. It isn't often, and I try to avoid shopping then, but it
happens.

I have never seen them all open, not even at the busiest times of the busiest
days of the week in the busiest season of the year.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Dave Smith said:

Dan Abel wrote:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

They build for maximum use, not average. My local store usually has
half the registers closed, sometimes more. Still, some days they are
all in use. It isn't often, and I try to avoid shopping then, but it
happens.

I have never seen them all open, not even at the busiest times of the busiest
days of the week in the busiest season of the year.

I have, many times (over 30 years, though). The day before Thanksgiving
and the day before Christmas, they have them all open and the lines are
still really horrible.

--
Dan Abel
[email hidden]
Petaluma, California, USA

Dave Smith said:

Dee Randall wrote:

Quoted message said:

I have to wonder about the money wasted on checkouts in grocery stores. I have
shopped in lots of large grocery stores with lots of checkouts and I have never
seen more than half of them open at any time. I have to wonder why they
bothered to install them in the first place. If you only plan to have a maximum
of 6 cashiers, there is no need to have more than 6 checkouts. If you have 12
but only use 6 it looks like you don't care. If you use them all customers may
be more impressed. Granted, there are no guarantees on that because you can't
please everyone.

There's a couple reasons. During the holidays, the checkstands do all
get used. There are some times when it really does get that busy.

But the main use for those extra checkstands is the ability to move
checkers and change out tils when needed.

For example, every night, we doing a rolling close. This means that for
about 1 minute, the checkers stop checking, and the computer runs
reports for the day. The checkers close off their checkstands and
divert the customers to the unused checkstands which have new tills in
them, ready for the next official day. After the report is done, teh
checkers start up on those new tills, and the office lady comes out and
collects the old tils and starts counting them. This is how a store
stays up 24 hours but has daily sales reports. They can switch it over
in only a minute because they can prepare the new tills and just move
the checkers. They just wait for a lull in the lines and then run the
reports.

Doug Kanter said:

On insane days (before holidays), I've been Wegman's stores and seen the
store manager at a register if things were getting too nutty. Apparently,
they think that when it comes to serving the customer, anything goes, and
rank is right out the window.

Our manager checks every day. Anytime it gets busy, the checkers call
the managers, including the top one. It's the only way to have spare
checkers.

Also, during visits from the disctrict manager, I have seen him bagging
groceries and even mopping up a spill.

Quoted post said:

Quoted message said:

I have to wonder about the money wasted on checkouts in grocery stores. I have
shopped in lots of large grocery stores with lots of checkouts and I have never
seen more than half of them open at any time. I have to wonder why they
bothered to install them in the first place. If you only plan to have a maximum
of 6 cashiers, there is no need to have more than 6 checkouts. If you have 12
but only use 6 it looks like you don't care. If you use them all customers may
be more impressed. Granted, there are no guarantees on that because you can't
please everyone.

There's a couple reasons. During the holidays, the checkstands do all
get used. There are some times when it really does get that busy.

But the main use for those extra checkstands is the ability to move
checkers and change out tils when needed.

For example, every night, we doing a rolling close. This means that for
about 1 minute, the checkers stop checking, and the computer runs
reports for the day. The checkers close off their checkstands and
divert the customers to the unused checkstands which have new tills in
them, ready for the next official day.

You are talking the modern cash registers.This has been going on around here since
the days when cashiers had to enter everything digitally, which used to mean with
your fingers.

I always thought that it was just for diplay, that they stuck in a bunch of extra
registers so that people would think that the store was able to handle crowds, but
they had no intention of using them.