Closing Bell: FIPS Goes Undercover

Part of the reason customer service is so bad is that these jobs don't pay well, and everyone's expectations are low. Nobody is stupid here, the employees know they have bottom level, crap jobs paying just over minimum wage, management has no incentive to properly train them beyond the bare minimum, such as how to use the cash register, and customers know all of that, too.

So what do you get? Employees with permanent logs on their shoulders, mad at themselves for being stuck there, mad at management for making them stay there, and mad at customers for having the nerve to want to buy something and make them work.

Management, also poorly trained, btw, and not all that well paid either, is saddled with surly, underpaid, unhappy people that Upper Management is not ging to take the time and money to train correctly, because they know these people will leave within a year, and can easily be replaced by other surly, underpaid, unhappy people. The complaints of customers can be tolerated because they are still going to come and shop in droves, because Target is still the best deal around, no matter what some surly teenager does.

And customers? Well, most just want to get in and out with their purchases, but some are also rude, crude, inconsiderate, condescending pigs weho knock things off of racks and shelves, allow their kids to run wild in the store, open packages, and steal. They can treat employees like dirt, talk to them like they are mentally challenged children, and assume that just because you work in retail, you don't have a brain. (Can you tell I've worked in retail, and have issues, still?)

Frankly, the only way this is ever going to change is for Upper Management to take the time and money to properly train their staff, from hello to goodbye, and make them feel that a career, not just a job, is possible in retail, and that career can be financially and personally rewarding. They need to make it a part of their corporate culture, and they need to incentivise it. Nordstrom used to do that. Target is not going to, because it will cost money, and since they are doing quite well the way it is, why change? Too bad. It used to be that being a salesperson at a store was a decent job, not a job of last resort.

Posted by: Montrose Morris at January 7, 2009 12:12 AM