I'm sorry, I work HERE, not there.

[simplyanother]

Disclaimer: Rambling post ahead. you may waste precious minutes of your life reading it.

Why do customers think that I should know how to get to all of the other locations of my store?

And why would they assume that the other associates would know how to?

I love it when they call, and want something we're out of, or only have a small number of what they wanted...so I offer the numbers to the other locations. "Which is closer to me?" I'm not allowed to say "beats the hell out of me...". Or they'll say "How to I get to the one in location x?". I seriously don't have a freakin clue. Granted, some of my co-workers do, so I'll hand the customers off to them...but come on.

With customers who are actually in the store, I try to get them directions. Is it wrong for me to offer the folks on the telephone the number of the other location?

It's been a common thing with customer calls the last few days I've worked. And it's mostly bothering me because of the rude tone of the folks on the phone.

Some of them expect me to put them on hold and call the other locations for them. Which would tie up two of our lines. I'm sure corporate probably disagrees, but I say the customer was perfectly capable of calling OUR location, I'm sure they can handle calling the other location. Especially for certain things. Because if I needed to relay stuff to the customer, it would just become a silly slap stick comedy routine. Or something.

BTW, I can see why a customer might expect me to know how to get to other locations of my store, but once I've told them I cannot give them that information, they could...be less mean about it. But that's okay. If all else fails, we have the phone numbers to the other locations. It's not hard. Just mildly annoying.

It's the folks who want to know how to get to places that haven't got anything to do with our store who really irritate me.

Customer came up to me..."Someone told me their was a floral shop/Bridal shop/upscale something or another nearby...how do I get there?" "I don't know". So, she repeated herself. And I told her, I didn't know. Because in the two seconds since she first asked the question, I did not suddenly become the freakin atlas for the area. I directed her to customer service "Maybe she could tell you?". She didn't like my suggestion.

Or when I do happen to know where something else is...but the customer doesn't like the location. "Uh, I don't want to drive all the way out there!". So, they ask again. Because the location will obviously change if you ask me a dozen times.

Or when we don't have a product...someone will ask me "Well, who else carries it?". Fuck if I know. "Have you tried walmart?" (Which almost always results in a long tirade against walmart. I personally don't care about their crusade against the evil happy face. It's still not going to change my response.).

Then there is that "Do you think that X will have it?", and they won't take MAYBE for an answer.

Actually, I'm sure that my "maybe" will become "But the people at the craftstore told me you definitely have it!"

See, I told you, long rambling post. I am sorry, there is no way you can get those precious moments of your life back.

But Walmart might have some.

[Raieth]

I always replied with, "I'm sorry I don't know where the other store is. I can give you their phone number as I hope they know where they are."

Because I say "I hope they know" I usually get a chuckle and less yelling. Of course there are people who will yell no matter what. But I found I got pretty good results with that phrase.

[d962831]

that made me chuckle

[poofy_puff]

It doesn't get any better in the Ivy League, but I am not required to stand with people who have their head up their ass, I can just keep walking. Don't you wish you could just push them out the door?

[CaroPhoenix]

Since the store I work at only has one othter store, it's easy to give directions to it.

Also, if someone's looking for a more mainstream board game* (i.e., Trivial Pursuit/Candy Land/Hungry Hippos, etc.), we always direct the customer to Toys R Us, Wal-Mart, Target, etc. People seem surprised that we'd do this, but I know for a fact at least Toys R Us directs some customers to us. I just figure it's a courtesy and if we don't have something, we like to give our customers other options, and then they (maybe) will remember us and say, "oh yeah, that's the store that sent to X to get X, and they were friendly about it, maybe we should go see them about something they just might have." (Which has worked out for us in th past).



*For those who don't know, the gaming store I work at has games that aren't as mainstream as in Apples to Apples, Settlers of Catan (and all the off-shoots of that game), Puerto Rico, Red Dragon Inn, etc.

[simplyanother]

I don't mind that. I mean, there is a specialty craft store near here, that has at least two locations. I can recommend that store, if they need something that we don't carry. But I can't tell them how to get there.

It might also be that I suck at giving directions. But I know this, so I don't even attempt.

[mattm04]

The two stores closest to my store I can give directions to. Other than that, all I can do is get them phone number. If they are nice, they may get a MapQuest printout.

[Listerfiend]

It comes in handy that I didn't grow up in the area in which I work. I can simply say that I'm not familiar with the area since I'm from a town an hour away. I never mention that I've *lived* in the area for four years though and that I'm just bad with directions/never go anywhere to begin with.

[CanadaGirl]

Customers like that make me glad all the other locations of my current employer are located in malls.

[powerboy]

I suck at giving directions.

Back when I worked at Walmart. I once got asked for some womens product. When I told her, that I didn't know; she copped a major attitude about it. Never mind the fact that I had on a orange shirt with the words "Cart Crew".

[Imogene]

"Cart Crew".

I just love it when customers stop me on my way to or from the back room. "Where's this? Where's that?"
RJ: "Um... I can give you a general idea (if I don't know it off the top of my head)... but otherwise, I'm not sure..."
"Well, why not?"
RJ: "Because I am a cashier, and, thus, do not get away from the front end for more than ten, fifteen minutes, at a time, which is hardly long enough to explore the store in minute detail. If it would please you, I can attempt to find a nearby stock worker, who likely knows the store better than I do. It would save both of us time, as I'm trying to go on break/clock out so I'm not running on overtime/about to faint from hunger, and you'll be out of the store faster. K?"

[retailwrkralum]

can you call another store?

For a while, we did not have a store in the downtown area ( I worked at a suburban store), so people were always asking me to call the downtown store. Then they were so disappointed when I told them we didn't have one. Then a few years later, we open a downtown store. Then when customers would ask us to call another store, I would offer to call the downtown store and all i would get would be "I DON'T WANT TO DRIVE ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE!!!"

[Whyme]

Some of our stores are out in BFE and I have no idea how to get there. I'll try to find another worker who knows how to get there but if we don't know, we don't know. Most of us live within a mile or two of our store so we have never even been to any of the other locations. I have just started referring those calls to our manager, since he's the only one who has worked in all the store locations around here.

Yes, we do have phone numbers for all stores and I do give them out freely. Like the OP, I can't call the other store for the customer on the phone. I can't tie up two lines and usually I'm already dealing with customers at customer service or running the entire front end while I'm on the phone.

Another issue is I don't drive. I hate it, refuse to do it unless extreme emergency. I'm talking somebody needs to be having a baby or bleeding before I get behind the wheel. I'm not a good driver either so really, the world doesn't want me driving. I'll take calls that someone is on XYZ Road and want driving directions to get to our store. I tell them I don't drive but I'll find someone who does and maybe they will know. It's not the driving directions to our store that I find is the unreasonable request, it's when the customer gets sucky and doesn't understand why I don't know. I thought I explained I didn't drive? But because I work there, I should apparently know how to drive there from any location in the world. If they would like to know what bus to take to our store, perhaps then I could be more useful to them...

[nekoro]

I work at a call center for the US Postal Service. Basically, I'm a glorified 411 for the Post Office. When I look up post offices by city or zip code, I get a nice little list sorted by distance from zip code or city center.

One day I get a woman in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles, there are over 600 post offices. She asks for a post office near her zip code. I give her one.

SC: "Oh no, that's in a bad part of town. Give me one in a good part of town."

She then failed to understand why this was not possible.