Shop assistant training

ti1980

Working in a small food store, you know what is in stock and what we haven't got any of. In my store anyway. Everybody has their own 'section' and they work through the leftover stock from the day before then that days delivery.

Sometimes we don't get certain products for a couple of days and when a customer asks if we have that product we can confidently say no straight away. If the customer insists that we go and have a look in the stockroom, then all that will happen is the SA will go away and look, taking their time and come back with the same answer so you are wasting your own time doing that really.

If you are rude about it as well which 80% of the customers are, then we will do even less to help you, whereas if you are polite then we will go out of our way, even phoning up head office to ask about the availability of a product and checking that they haven't removed it from our stock and replacing it with something else etc.

Also being polite at the tills helps as the SA will tell you about special offers that are about to happen or BOGOF's that you have missed if you already have one of the product. Being rude you just miss out.

calleyw

As has been said before most big supermarkets work on a just in time system and it would be lucky that they would have stuff for more than day out the back. And that would be on just a few items.

But not on things like bread and milk and chiller stuff.

The reason I know, is I use to stack shelves over night for Asda. And if a delivery was late for what ever reason it meant there was staff twiddling there thumbs unless re-assigned by supervisor or manager until the stock came in. They might have been able to work the comps (3 sided high trolley) which is over stock. And some managers where funny about comps and over stock and would make you ram it up on the shelves any way they could so it did not go back out in to the stock room.

Even had deliveries for Asda on the other side of town (this was in a big city)and stock rotation I decline to say anything about.

And in Asda the little boxes with numbers at the bottom of price labels use to refer to how many wide the product was and how many boxes you could fit on the shelf.


Yours

Calley

elisebutt65

Iwas a bit annoyed in Next the other day as they had a gorgeous tpo in the wondow that I fell in love with straight away. Couldn't find it anywhere so I asked someone - very nicely, if they had any in the stock room at all - turned ou they didn't and in fact the only one they had was the one in the window. They checked on the pc but there were none in the warehouse either!!

Why do they do this??? They hadn't actually had any to sell in the first place apparently but they get someone else in to do their windows., so they are standard across the country ?? Well that's the explanation I had off the manager. I was doubly annoyed cos the one in the window was my size but they refused to sell it to me in case it had a pin in and I sued them - sigh. :rolleyes:

hjb123

I used to work for WHS. I would always be helpful and go to the stockroom however much of the time was able to confidently say whether or not it was in stock if the customer wanted it.

In the run up to Christmas we would get lots of queries whether we had such a product in stock, and when it was advertised in the catalogue or in national newspapers why didnt we have it, we were only a small branch so we wouldnt get everything. The point here is if it is advertised in the christmas catalogue it should be stocked at all branches, even if at the smaller branch there was only one or two.

On several occasions last year I would try and order the required product in from another store, but could only do so if the product was worth more than £50 regardless of whether the store was in the next town or the other end of the country. My manager in the end told me I wasnt allowed to order items from other branches for customers and just to tell the customers we were unable to get from other branches and they were to try online. Another point here is that we had an internal computer system and were able to see which stores had stock, whether the product was in at the warehouse and whether there was any in transit on their way to our store

Shops are there to serve people and to provide good customer service, although some assistants do try a lot just say no it isnt there and no we cant get it, this really bugs me as alot of the time all they have to do is try.

H

bestpud

When I worked for Tesco, they had a c**p way of storing stuff so it was very hard to tell if a product was lurking in the store room or not.

A couple of times I spent ages sifting through cages, while my work piled up, only to find the customer had changed their mind by the time I'd found what they asked for.

I always tried though and was often told how unusual it was to find a helpful shelf stacker, "because most don't bother".

Have to admit though, it was very difficult to find time for the customers who were plain rude.

Helen

netdumdum

I worked for Sainsburys, the training is very customer focused, if a customer is asking about a product thats out of stock we must go in the warehouse and look for it, if its not there we have to offer an alternative product.

Failure to do so can lead to a disciplinary, checkout staff have even been disciplined for not packing the first few items for customers!

Nikki

I work for Sainsburys and their policy is now ' if it's instore it's on the shelf' we have very little warehouse space anymore. Head Office do the ordering, therefore our availability is crap - I shop for the people who order online and am constantly frustrated by our lack of availability. However if i'm asked for a product i will always go and check out back anyway. I was once asked for cilit bang and was told by a manager we had none in store as it was really popular, i found a full case out back!! Netdumdum is right, checkout staff are also marked down during observation for not making eye contact and not making conversation with customers. This is why i no longer work on c/outs, a polite hello and goodbye is a must but you gain a good feeling for customers who like a chat and the ones who don't.

velocity_boy

netdumdum wrote:

I worked for Sainsburys, the training is very customer focused, if a customer is asking about a product thats out of stock we must go in the warehouse and look for it, if its not there we have to offer an alternative product.

Failure to do so can lead to a disciplinary, checkout staff have even been disciplined for not packing the first few items for customers!

thats a bit strict isn't it?
i work in a supermarket and its strict but not quite that bad. :eek:

Poppy9

I find most staff in Tesco's and all staff in Iceland will go and look out back for any given product. Sainsbury's - I can never find anyone to ask. There is one women down the front of store with a head mike on and she will call someone but they take so long to come before they even go off to look. The checkout staff in Sainsburys are more helpful though generally. I think it maybe because it's a quieter store so staff are less stressed.

I was in Homebase recently and they never have the decent special offers on the shelf. You have to go to customer desk and press a bell and someone will come (maybe even that day!). I so feel like ringing that bell constantly. Worse still when someone does appear they don't make eye contact and are abrupt as if you have interrupted them.