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Rant: Answering the Phone in Front of Un-Helped Customers

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  • 35Remington

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    So this drives me crazy, and it happens especially at auto-parts stores.

    I get in my car and drive to your store to buy something from you or ask you a question, but once I get there you answer telephone calls while me and everyone else waits in line at the counter.

    I wish there was a preference for the in-person customer.
     

    scap99

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    So this drives me crazy, and it happens especially at auto-parts stores.

    I get in my car and drive to your store to buy something from you or ask you a question, but once I get there you answer telephone calls while me and everyone else waits in line at the counter.

    I wish there was a preference for the in-person customer.

    I worked at an A/C Supply house that had the same theory...not me, and I got my ass ate out by management, all the time.
    They figure, you're already in the store, so you're going to spend some money. The guy on the phone hasn't decided whose counter he's going to wait at, so that's why they wanted us to answer the calls immediately so he could come and wait, too!
     

    SR9TEX

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    I absolutely hate it aswell. Odds are the retards on the phone are to lazy to drive to the store or don't know what in the world the parts called but they need a new one.
    You think a business would take care of the business at hand that's already there willing to spend there money.
    I was in a Autozone for 30 mins just a few months ago to pickup a part I had pre ordered and was sitting there waiting for me to pay.:thumbdown:
     

    TundraWookiee

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    Whats the solution though? I've also tried calling around to places to check whether they have what I need and absolutely hate it when the phone rings and rings or when somebody answers and puts me on hold for 20 minutes.

    I'm outside sales and not in our retail front that much but the walk-in customers usually drag stuff out. They want to chat about the weather, tell you a story about what they are working on, change their mind a dozen times on what they need or want...The person on the pbone is usually pretty brief and if its more than 2-3 minutes you can take down their contact info.

    Its not ideal but what is the solution? Let the phone ring and ignore calls?

    Sent from Kate Beckinsale's closet.
     

    shooterfpga

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    The solution is to use computers to do the work for you. Ive actually seen this done btw in ammo stores, fast food restaurants and hardware stores.

    You do not directly talk to anyone at either of these places.

    Ammo store, you walk up to a computer, much like the desktop at your house. Place the orders youd like and they pull it will call. Everything is paid for online over that computer and once it comes through you get it.

    Restaurant, it was a fancied up version of one of their push button registers. You had an encased touch screen computer almost like those redbox stands. You press the screen images of different types of foods and drinks and pay via machine as well.
     

    scap99

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    Whats the solution though? I've also tried calling around to places to check whether they have what I need and absolutely hate it when the phone rings and rings or when somebody answers and puts me on hold for 20 minutes.

    I'm outside sales and not in our retail front that much but the walk-in customers usually drag stuff out. They want to chat about the weather, tell you a story about what they are working on, change their mind a dozen times on what they need or want...The person on the pbone is usually pretty brief and if its more than 2-3 minutes you can take down their contact info.

    Its not ideal but what is the solution? Let the phone ring and ignore calls?

    Sent from Kate Beckinsale's closet.

    Your business is much like the a/c supply house scenario I'm familiar with.
    I think a solution is to have a couple guys answer phone calls and a couple guys to manage the counter.
    Overflow, can be managed by either group, if one of them gets backed up.

    Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk
     

    35Remington

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    I think a solution is an answering machine. Shock of all shocks: Hi, thank you for calling AutoZone. We are busy helping in-store customers at the moment. Please leave a message with your name, number, and what you need, and we will call you right back!
     

    shooterfpga

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    I think a solution is an answering machine. Shock of all shocks: Hi, thank you for calling AutoZone. We are busy helping in-store customers at the moment. Please leave a message with your name, number, and what you need, and we will call you right back!

    That pisses me off when a supposedly professional company has no freakin way to leave a message. All you hear is ring ring ring ring. Even a message that the above and hours of operation is a lot better than a dang ringin sound. I dont know whether theyre busy or if its after hours since all it does is ring..
     

    Vaquero

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    Your business is much like the a/c supply house scenario I'm familiar with.
    I think a solution is to have a couple guys answer phone calls and a couple guys to manage the counter.
    Overflow, can be managed by either group, if one of them gets backed up.

    Sent from my SCH-I545 using Tapatalk


    Yep.
    There's always a booger picker off to the side doing nothing anyway.
     

    Southpaw

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    It all comes down to each stores management. And from what I see in retail these days, many managers either don't care to do anything but the minimum or have no idea how to manage others.
     

    Glockster69

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    Yep.
    There's always a booger picker off to the side doing nothing anyway.

    Which is always a matter of persception. You'll say I'm picking and I'll say you're picking when mgmt. asks why X customer was not taken care of, the customer is not concerned with that. Both sides of the "sales counter" should exercise more patience, myself included.
     

    stdreb27

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    I think a solution is an answering machine. Shock of all shocks: Hi, thank you for calling AutoZone. We are busy helping in-store customers at the moment. Please leave a message with your name, number, and what you need, and we will call you right back!

    Lol that's been tested and crashed and burned...

    Pizza Hut does the call center thing. That would help to a point.

    But you're still Dealing with inventory accuracy. And lemme tell you inventory at auto parts stores I worked at was notorious.

    What I did was simple, I had to computers phone on one ear talking to someone on the other and looked up parts for both at once...


    Communicating a sense of urgency for each customer was key. Getting all our customers taken care of as fast as I could while making dang sure it was accurate goes a long way...

    It's when people are slow and dicking around is when people get pissed.
     

    Shotgun Jeremy

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    My carquest guy does this-and that's part of why I prefer dealing with him. He also knows his stuff and saves a lot of time looking things up by just knowing his trade.
     

    shooterfpga

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    My carquest guy does this-and that's part of why I prefer dealing with him. He also knows his stuff and saves a lot of time looking things up by just knowing his trade.

    Dude behind the gun counter at academy was like this. It was packed as shit and in between selling guns, selling ammo, giving advice, and helping people find stuff not even in his area he was doin a damn good job at getting everyone taken care of. Youda thought he was the only employee there, but nope there was about six other retards moving as fast as pond water and blatantly ignoring his requests for help and giving excuses why they couldnt help when everyone standing there knew it was bs.
     

    35Remington

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    I think Discount Tire is the best example I have ever seen of taking care of in-store customers and telephone customers at the same time. As soon as you walk in, you are greeted, even if they can't help you right away. Every time an employee walks inside from the bay, he looks at the line of customers, makes eye contact, and says, "We'll be right with you."

    This model has been wildly successful for DT. Other stores would be smart to emulate it.
     

    benenglish

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    I've debated just calling the store while at the counter when Im stuck waiting...

    Genius. Going to do that the next time...

    Do it. It gets results. The one time I did it, the clerk answered the phone and I simply said "Would you please get off the phone and wait on the customers who are standing right in front of you?" He looked back down the line of people waiting and I showed him my cell and hung up.

    Lordy, he was pissed. He did, however, scream at the top of his lungs to get some guy out of the back to answer the phones while he actually took care of the people in front of him.

    The solution is to use computers to do the work for you. Ive actually seen this ... in ... hardware stores.

    You do not directly talk to anyone at either of these places.

    The only reason I go to my local hole-in-the-wall hardware, passing large chain stores on the way, is to talk to the guy who owns it. He's amazing. "I'm looking for that doohickie that goes in the back of the whatsis between the box and the wall" gets you a blank stare from the sales drones at big stores. This guy, however, will say "Yeah, you need a Type 47 gimcrack. Lemme show you." and then head off at a fast walk to the exact spot in the store where he can point at exactly what you need to solve your problem. He's teaching his two sons the business and they're not as good as their old man but they're getting there.

    Like the OP, I hate going into a store where I'm supposed to get personal service and they fail to provide personal service. If I want to buy something at a kiosk, I'll generally use the internet from home.

    Sometimes kiosks can be great, though.

    Short story: Back in the 90s, I was leaving Las Vegas the day after CES. That's one of the worst air travel days out of Las Vegas you can imagine what with well over 100K people all trying to fly out the same morning. I don't remember the exact year but it was the first year that kiosks were installed by some of the airlines in their check-in area. Nowadays, we're accustomed to using them; in fact, they're pretty much required. Back in those days, though, they were new, unfamiliar gadgets and everyone stood in line.

    I entered the terminal and did a quick estimate, counting the number of people in line on the side of the queue facing me and multiplying by the number of times the line was folded back on itself. I estimated that there were between 2000 and 3000 people ahead of me in line. And off to the side, there was that check-in kiosk. I walked past everybody, touched a few buttons, handed my bag to the lady who appeared with the bag tag, and headed to my gate. It took me all of about 3 minutes to get through check-in.

    A few hundred people were watching. The ones at the front of the line were obviously (and some were quite vocally) pissed when I first walked past them. I can understand; they had been in line for hours. When I finished and walked off, though, I heard behind me an odd mixture of gasps, irritated cursing, and the sounds of people hot-footing it over to the kiosk. By the next year, everybody went to the kiosk, first. ;)

    I think a solution is an answering machine. ...we will call you right back!

    Too many businesses that use an answering machine check their messages at the end of the day and then either call you back long after you've found another place to get what you want...or they decide that their shift is up and just delete the messages. For whatever reason, the percentages of callbacks I get from retail places with an answering machine is depressingly low.

    Both sides of the "sales counter" should exercise more patience, myself included.

    True. And both sides need to try harder.

    I used to eat lunch at a deli with a sign at the front register that said "If you're on your cell phone, you're NOT in line." Anytime a person got to the front of the line while talking on their cell phone, the guy who ran it would motion for the person behind them to step up and would wait on that person. When the person on the phone quickly hangs up and starts to complain, he would point to the sign and then tell that person to return to the end of the line.

    Prior to that policy, the line at the deli crawled painfully slow. It was constantly bogged down by people standing at the register, talking on their phones, reading the overhead menu to their people back at the office trying to get orders. After he implemented that "Use a phone at the front of the line, go to the back of the line" policy, the line began to fly. People actually stood back, talked on their phones, and got their orders straight BEFORE they got in line.

    Loved that guy.

    Dude behind the gun counter at academy was like this. ... Youda thought he was the only employee there, ...

    Good employees are worth their weight in gold. There was a girl at the counter of my local pizza joint who could take two phone orders and one counter order at the same time and make every customer feel like they were the only customer in the world. In between calls, she was a whirlwind of hard-working activity, prepping pizza boxes, cleaning up, stocking shelves. I actually told her manager one time that I almost wish I had a retail establishment of my own, just so I could poach that girl to work for me.
     
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