REWE

A couple of days,okay,a week or so back. I went to the mall here in the city to get some Christmas Chocolate Calender for my nieces and nephew back in Singapore. So I went down to the ground floor of the mall where there is a supermarket called REWE to get it.

As I was browsing around and found what I was looking for,decided to purchase and head to the cashier. I was in the line and an old lady was in front of me paying for her groceries. So I waited,the line started to get long due to the fact that ONE-UNO-SATU-EIN-UN(I could go on with international word for ONE) cashier counter is available. What would a cashier that has basic customer service skills do with this situation?. First, she must call in the other cashier to open the other counter or worst case,if there is no other cashier available,she must clear the line as quickly as possible. What did she do?. Talked to her follow colleagues who were heading out for their breaks or where ever it was they were going but from the look of it(carrying their wallets and cellphone)they were out for their breaks. 

It was a good 5-6 minutes that she was talking to them and what was the reaction of the rest of the people in the line?. We were mad. What did we do?. Nothing. Why?. It’s just the way it is here. There is YOUR answer dear government of Germany. Are you going to do anything about it?. No. Plain and simple. The typical mindset of,I would say,75% or more Germans here. It could be that the temperature in winter drops to minus 10 or something and I reckon it froze the brain that they have there in their heads. It hurts to read what I have to say but look around and see how well you’re being treated to by the Sales Personnel here. I am not saying that I do not see good customer service here in Germany but Germans can do much better at it. I believe they can. What say you?.

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – Con´t.

In my previous blog entry, I have given you a front seat to my line of work and the different types of customers I have accounted. Here are more categories I have come up with. 

 

• The Using Your Feet Instead of Your Hands Syndrome. 

This is the other bad habit of a human being with a brain/mind. This only works with buying shoes. I do not understand and still don´t,why customers use their feet to lift the shoes from the display shelve,put in on the floor(still using their feet), try it on and then – throw it back onto the shelve!. Doing all that single handed(no pun intended).

I do not notice the customers here in Germany doing so but mostly in Singapore. Mainly women. Is it a difficult task, to use your hands to take the shoes from the shelves, place them on the floor nicely, try it on and place it back to the shelves?. I do not reckon they would do the same if the shoes are from a high end label like Gucci that costs S$1500 or more. 

• What´s My Size?

Actually, there is no harm in this question at all. It takes a skilled experience Sales Personnel to mentally estimate and let the customer know what his or her exact size of pants, T Shirt and so on. But if you are asked, point blank-”What´s my size?”. The customer already know her size but in self denial. And choose not to listen to the Sales Personnel. 

For example, a while back, I was serving a lady trying to purchase a bikini. She was rather big to squeezed into a US size 8 and in truth she is a size US 12. I did mention to the lady that perhaps she should try the size US 12 instead. Putting it nicely that, the cutting of the bikini is smaller which is not, of course. How else do you reckon I should tell her?. After a couple of minutes, she decided to get a US 10 instead. It was close to the truth though. I know, sometimes you just have to wonder. Then again – “Customer are always right!”.

• Spread The Clothes On The Floor. 

This caters to those who have not noticed there is a simple fixture inside the fitting room to hang the clothes you want to try on and not dump in on the floor. Remember, all the clothes you throw on the floor will be purchased by another customer if you decided not to purchase it yourselves. Be considerate. I do not see why, I have to blog about something of a no brain er like this, to inform people. If there are stains on the items, other customers will not be able to purchased it, the item will go under the “damage items”, send back to the warehouse, Supervisors/Managers will have to answer to each item under the “damage items”, all those items which are approved as being damage, will then be send back to the main warehouse of that brand which costs heaps.

There is a lot of movement and operation details in the Retail Industry. To avoid this at all cost, customers do your part. Be considerate. 

The Good, The Bad And The Ugly – The Beginning.

It has been a while since I had this idea to have illustrations,which I will try to have to done soon,on different types of customers which you can see where you fall into. And if you are honest with yourself – you put yourself in the right category. Here are some of the categories I have. 

• The Overly Nice Customer. 

The Japanese fall under this category. Not that I am complaining. I really like serving the Japanese customers with my basic Japanese language and well equipped with a calculator. The typical Japanese really love to know how much it cost in Yen thus you see them typing furiously on their “Hello Kitty” calculators and after seeing how inexpensive the item at hand is, you will constantly hear them say, “Yasui!!” also not forgetting the repeated nodding of their heads in pure excitement. When they find the item really nice, they´ll go,”Kawaii!!”. Over and over again. It does gives you a headache after 5 minutes of hearing it.

I have a lot of memorable moments with Japanese customers while working at Quiksilver in the most “ghost town” area of Singapore – Millenia Walk. The store was located not far from the Duty Free shop and the tour bus which carries mostly Japanese and Korean tourists will make their stop there first. Often we get Japanese surfer hunks walking into the store and of course,us feasting our eyes on them! Okay, let´s not digress. 

To sum it all, the Japanese are the most polite, courteous, well mannered, wealthy(they don´t ask for discounts nor they care if the item has been tried on so many times and if it is the only piece left in the throughout the rest of the Quiksliver stores in Singapore) and they always smile! This is what I call a two way great shopping experience.

• The Arrogant Customer. 

This customer has the mindset that he knows everything, down to how to change the printer paper of the cash register, when it´s out of paper. I can sense an arrogant customer within a 5 meter radius. It is truly a skill you develop after a couple of years in retail. 

The arrogant customer will waltz into the store, looked around at the clothes, then calls for assistance using the index finger – mind you!. Then asked heaps of questions, followed by, telling you that the material is really actually not cotton even though it does says on the material label inside the T Shirt but then again the mindset of the customer is “Customers are always right”, then comes the sales-person-do-not-know-their-product-knowledge expression. It is not true because, the Sales Personnel is NOT agreeing on their matter-of-fact tone of voice. You feel somewhat in a debate contest with this sort of customer all the time. So to make life simple for the Sales Personnel, you just have to suck it in and say,”Yes, I agree with you that it is not made out of 100% cotton”. Like by saying this, it will change the price of pork(courtesy of my elder brother). Do you fall under this category?.

• The Pointing With Your Feet Syndrome. 

Now, this is one of the best customer that portraits the lowest level of a human being with a brain. Why I say this, is because, there is a profound meaning why humans are and still the most intelligent mammal on this face of this earth but using their feet to point to the Sales Personnel to which item he wants depicts the purpose of having a brain. For example, I worked with BÄR shoe manufaktur in a departmental store(not very glamorous) the shoes are displayed on shelves that is when “The Pointing With Your Feet Syndrome” comes out to play. 

Customer looks at a pair of shoes he is interested in which is on the last shelve below and then calls for me,the Sales Personnel, for help. I say,”Hi, can I help you?”. He says,”Yes, what size do you have in that shoe there?”. Lifts his right feet and points to the direction of the shoe he wants with the tip of his shoes. With that done, I took a deep breath and point with my thumb(the polite way of pointing)”Do you mean this sir?”. So, if the item of interest is on the top level, you lift your feet all the way up to point at it too?.  

 

Using the thumb to point.

As shown in the picture above. There was a mother and daughter incident where, the daughter was sitting with her mother,looking at some shoes. She saw a nice pair to be purchase for her dad I reckon. Then points to the shoes with her feet for the mother to see which she is referring to. Doing that to your own mother? That is plain out disgusting manners to me. Do you fall under this category? I really hope not. The lesser of you in this category,the better the world to live in without these sort of bad habits existing. 

These are some of the category I have come up with. In my next blog, I will feature even more. If you have seen absurd manners being projected at Sales Personnel, do email me. I really would like to hear someone else experience. 

 

Dignity.

From what I have noticed and experience myself after a failed attempted to resolve a problem or a request by a customer,is that customers would usually not want to understand our side(the company´s policy). Customers need to accept and bear in mind that once they step into any store, they are in “our territory”.

A customer must not have the mindset that they know every single operational system in the store they go into. In another word, “have it your way” attitude. I have come up with a couple of category to cater to different types of customer which I will go into that in my next blog entry.

The best time to witness the worst attitude of customers is the Christmas period. I bet when you read this, inside of you know you´re one of them. But I do understand nobody likes to shop in the most busiest time of the year. The lines at the cashier is extremely long, hick ups with the cash register, the line at the fitting room is long too and so on. The atmosphere is no longer “Tis the season to be jolly”.

Everything plays a huge part in the destruction of communication between customers and Sales personnel. Now, I give a real true example of phycological effect but on both sides.

Picture this; a surf shop, one week before Christmas, it was a weekend, we were making five digit total each night and it was super packed. And I mean extremely packed you have to squeeze your way through. the store isn´t that big. The lines for the fitting room was long and customers were already getting irritated at each other and so were we at them.

There was this particular family, they were using one of the fitting room for so long because each customer are allow to bring in three pieces of clothing to try on. But this family were getting clothes in and out of the fitting room and taking so much time. Thus, the rest of the customers whom were waiting in line were getting agitated. And so were the Sales personnels which included my Manager.

He did like what any Manager would do, to tell the customer who was “hogging” the fitting room. Now, what happened was. The father who´s child is “hogging” the fitting room was extremely rude and yelled at my Manager. Is is fair to you? Pain out, no! So, my Manager told him the reason why he has told him to hurry up because simply the line is getting longer and rest of the customers had been waiting. The customer yelled this,”Customers are always right!”. This is,to me, extreme display of stupidity. Look, there is a line between “Customers are always right” and Idiocy. 

If everyone, goes around having this mentality. I figure, no one is going to have a pleasant shopping experience. It is not hard at all to give the Sales Personnel the same pleasant experience you are getting from them?. Unless, your country do not practice standard Customer Service like for example Germany. Sometime back i watched a romantic movie called, “Maid Of Mahattan” and something caught my attention more than the love story that was going on. It was a quote that I will remember always and with that I end it with the quote that I can relate so much “To serve people it takes dignity and intelligences but remember there are only people with money nor though we serve them, we are not their servants”.

New Piece.

This I must say I am as guilty as any customers out there but not too extreme. You go out, get into a store of your liking, try on some clothes, decided on a couple, speak to the nearest sale representative near you and ask the million dollar question: “Um excuse me, do you happened to have a new piece for this?”. 

Now, this is what customers or consumers assumed. A new piece of a top may not be “fresh” as they thought it would be. They do forget that the tops either way have had been use by some other customers. But it is the thought in they’re mind that if anything that has been taken out from the store room is considered “new”. News flash-It is not!

i do get customers asking me if there is any “new piece” and when I informed them that we ran out of it. Here is what you can picture: First, pouting. Followed by the same question but in state of desperation. Then, asking to check in other outlets. But alas, same thing-ran out. Then gets really mad at sales rep-this is what i mean by, it is not in my hands. Lastly, to the brink of insanity- telling the sales rep to go back in the store room to check it out once more. I mentally asked myself this,”Should I start sewing one for the poor desperate customer?”.

Oh please understand that when we have check it out everywhere, down to the warehouse and still there isn´t any- are you,customers,suggesting we start sewing one for you?. Or fly to the main source to deliver it right to your doorstep?.

Ridiculous Questions Asked.

I had many conversation with my fellow colleagues about ridiculous questions asked by customers. Most of it is too extremely funny. Our company will have bi yearly Golf Fair and it always is a hit with golfers, of course. And really busy to the point there was no time to eat. 

One of my colleague is in-charge of the socks section which was going really cheap! On the wagon lies a couple of sample of socks so customers can see those, touch and feel. Along came a customer, looking at the socks sample. Here comes the extremely funny part-he asked her,”What is this?”. LOL! My colleague looked at him with not knowing whether to give a ridiculous answer back or just ignore him! Of course, she told him it is socks. Duh.-okay, she didn´t say that to him.

She told the others what happened and one of them told her she should have said that those were condoms or a hand puppet! LOL! I laughed my behind off hearing about the incident! There is another customer asking a colleague this,”How many shoes can you put in this shoe bag?”. She wanted to say,”You can put at least ten shoes-baby shoes that is!” LOL! Oh man, the ridiculous questions customers can come up with! 

When I was working with the boxing brand which was one of the division of my company. The store was covered with mainly boxing theme, posters of Muhammad Ali, boxing gloves, punching bags were hung at the window display and so on. But each day, we get customers coming in asking,”Do you sell swimming goggles?”, “Excuse me, do you guys sell swimming trunks?”.*smacking my forehead with my palm* LOL!

Note to customers: Do ask questions that actually make sense.

The Credit Card Thrower.

I had experience this twice or more by idiotic customers whom I sometimes wonder if they do the same back where they come from. Is it a way of life there? Throwing their money and credit cards at the cashier counter. Or does it give them so much joy in doing so? Or simply, was not taught any courtesy by their parents when they were young. Oh, I dare say that the youngsters nowdays are following the rude grown up ways.

I have a baseball glove which was given for my birthday by a mate. I should bring it to work next time. Then I can play catch with these bunch of idiots. Can I throw it back at them and see what they feel? Isn´t that a fair thing to do? 

To the point where the card they throw would fall to the floor. Then I have to pick it up. How low can a human being with a mind given by god and not using it at all! It is absolutely rude! Won´t it be nice to have a two way pleasant shopping experience? 

The trouble always occurs by customers. To look for an argument, to ask questions that does not make any sense, to ask for discounts on top of discounts, to transfer an item to their residence and the list goes on. We do most of the time do Goodwill but when it is taken advantage of, I don´t see the point in being nice anymore.

How To Be A Great Customer 101.

The reason why I have decided to write about customers is simply because the way they have been treating retailers or the person who serves them at a local deli, a shoe shop and so on with no respect what so ever. 

A couple of years ago, I had brainstormed an idea of writing a book about bad customers. You get tons of books about giving excellent customer service but here´s the twist. I write about customers. The good, the bad and the disgusting. And to teach them basic courtesy.

In all my eight years in retail, from a mere sale assistance to head supervisor of three boxing stores and supervisor of a popular surf brand here in singapore. I have come to experience the worse kind of customers. Being yelled at something you have no power of has come to be a daily routine.

Here´s an example, a fellow huge shoulder customer walked into the store with a mate of his asking for a tank top to which I showed him the men´s range but he didn´t really liked it. My senses kicked in when I saw him telling off his mate about letting him choose and not to rush him. His mate backed off. The customer then walked to the ladies tank top section. I told him it´s for ladies-no, he wants to try it.(OMG) I couldn´t argue of course-customer-is-always-right motto these customer has been planted in their head. 

He tried the largest size for ladies tank top and came out of the dressing room looking all proud of his very “workout” shoulders plus he just expanded the tank top like crazy. Then, he wanted to tried the same top but different color! This time, I had to say no because by then all my tank tops are gonna be stretched!

Here comes the fun part, he yelled at the top of his lungs telling me off. I tried to calm him down that there is of no need to get mad. Plus, I told him the reason why I can´t let him wear the rest. Protecting my right to decline. My colleague was already afraid that the customer was gonna hit me. Of course, if he did. I can sue him. He wanted to complain to my office, I gave him the name card and he went on yelling standing outside the shop. Now, is this insane or what? The people we have to endure and paste a smile on our faces each day is tiring. They should come up pills for this!

I will post up short videos of basic courtesy here so customers could apply in their daily shopping routine.

Diana F+

 

Presenting my latest craze. Purchased it today at PageOne bookstore. The whole set cost S181.90. Comes with the electronic flash, colored gel flash filters, hardcover Diana F+ photo book, instruction book, lens cap and neckstrap. Does not comes with the film which I have to get separately at a store called “Ruby Photo Shop” down at Peninsula Plaza. 

I got everything I need for my start at Photography and Lomography. Now let the inspiration flow in.