Yo Pal, WTF ?

[SG15Z]

SMP: Hi. My name is SMP. What is your name?

IA: Yes, it is. What is my name.

SMP: I don't know.

IA: He plays third base.

Who's On First

Heehee, now I want to do that!

[MadMike]

I would love to know what those corporate assholes are smoking. I didn't like when I was a retail employee and the customers called me by my name, and I don't like it when the employees do it either.

[CrazedClerkthe2nd]

We can be pretty certain the person (or group of people) that came up with this asinine policy has not worked at store level for a VERY long time.

This is one example of an approach companies use in suggestive selling. Simply put, that means I'm supposed to mention stuff to you with the intent that maybe you will get interested in something I mentioned and purchase it in addition to whatever else you may be buying, therefore creating additional sales for the company.

The going belief is the nicer and friendlier you are, or to put it another way, the more comfortable the customer feels with you, the more likely they are to be responsive to your suggestive selling.

Sadly companies have come up with all sorts of insane policies to try and boost their sell through rate on suggestion sales.

They also want your name, address, phone number and email address so they can sell these to other companies and make even more money off you.

It's getting to the point where the most hassle free way to buy things with ZERO pressure and ZERO add ons whatsoever is purchasing online.

[MadMike]

We can be pretty certain the person (or group of people) that came up with this asinine policy has not worked at store level for a VERY long time.

Or ever.

Some of these corporate types are people who never actually worked in the "trenches", so to speak, but think they know it all because they took some college courses.

Maybe if some of these people actually had to deal with the customers, they wouldn't be coming up with these stupid ideas.

[TWOLF]

I play the deaf card if I don't want to deal with people. I had a guy follow me arround target asking if he could help me and I didn't respond.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

I'll further guess the person who came up with this idea got it from a magazine article about some other company that was doing the same thing, with "great success", however that's measured.

[TWOLF]

One phone company has people to take down names and then call them out for the next customer. Then they intorduce themselves and want to shake hands. Waste of time since I don't like dealing with people who get uppity when you don't shake hands. One guy got offended.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I have to agree on that and I thought only repeating a customer's name at least twice was dumb (I work in a call center).

Oh, dear LORD I hate that! It's so transparent, and you can just see them reading off some stupid form letter that some idiot in managment came up with!

Everytime I get someone on the phone who is being forced to say my name over and over, it just makes me cringe.

The people who come up with this stuff must not have a sense of smell. Because most of the rest of us can actually SMELL bullshit.

[KingOfAllSocks]

First thing I thought of when I read the title..

Or ever.

Some of these corporate types are people who never actually worked in the "trenches", so to speak, but think they know it all because they took some college courses.

Maybe if some of these people actually had to deal with the customers, they wouldn't be coming up with these stupid ideas.

The place I used to work at pulled this twice. They plunged a load of money into a scheme to help us sell more extra items and extended warranties. And then, a couple of years later, they came up with a completely new scheme, to do much the same thing. They were always fussing over the fact that we weren't pushing enough of these products.

Their last initiative laid out a very specific set of questions we were supposed to ask to the customers. Not just 'can I help you' but six or seven questions or so, that we weren't allowed to deviate from. There was absolutely no way anyone who came up with those questions worked at a retail level. They were always complaining about us not selling enough extras, and then they plunge what must have been a millon or two into these daft scemes? Bloody hell.

[DGoddessChardonnay]

I would love to know what those corporate assholes are smoking. I didn't like when I was a retail employee and the customers called me by my name, and I don't like it when the employees do it either.

They're smoking the pipe with the Kitty Corporate folks. Ye Litter Box is now not only wanting us to greet people within a 10 feet of us by saying "Welcome to the Litter Box. How are you today?"

Even worse, according to Cheetah, if we don't know our customers by both first and last name, we're supposed to ask them.

Now that's just too invasive IMO. I know when I'm out shopping (and I'm a customer too at times) that if I had someone I'd never seen before asking my name, I'd probably feel a bit uncomfortable with that and ask for their corporate number to complain about making their employees do this.

I wouldn't fault the employee, as they're simply following corporate "mandates." But I would definitely have more than one earful for the corporate drones. And I don't care to hear about any fancy studies that claim that most customers are into this sort of atmosphere (for lack of a better word at the moment.)

As a customer, I simply want to shop in peace and find what I want, get to the register, pay for it and leave without anyone licking my ass. If I need help, I'll ask. Otherwise just let me be.

And yes, we're also being told this is a good way to deter shoplifters as well. But this type of stuff can have a "rebound" effect and stop some of the decent customers from shopping there.

[Mr.Customer]

It sounds like management is too stupid to understand a very smart thing. Using a customer's name is a good idea, I use my customer's names all the time, but there is a time and place for everything/

You don't ask the customer their name, frankly that's rude. And you aren't getting sucky customers as much as you are getting customers responding to rudeness. The time and place for using a customer's name is when they tell you, you get their name from something like their credit card during the purchase, or if you have a valid reason for asking their name (such as a when you are filling out a form for a warrentee or other such services, or business like hotels, plane tickets and car rentals etc, where it would be required for you to know their name) In some business iot might be customerary to ask the customer their name because you may be dealing with them for an extended time such as car sales people and realters