Luckily a supervisor was available to handle this situation involving a difficult customer of mine. But how would you handle this situation if a supervisor or a manager was not available?
This is what happened last Sunday.
This incident happened while it was busy, and there were several customers waiting in line, at the register I was assigned to, to be checked out.
A mom and her young daughter came to my line. One of the items she purchased was 3 bags of frozen shrimp... 2 jumbo and 1 medium. There was a sale on the shrimp... buy 2 get one free, but you had to buy 3 of the exact same size.
So my customer asked me if she got one of the frozen shrimp for free. When I hit the total button, she did not. There was supervisor in training who was bagging her groceries, and he looked at all 3 bags and noticed that one bag was medium shrimp. So I scanned one of the jumbo bags of shrimp again, hit total, and it came up free. The supervisor told her that she has to get 3 of the same size. So she told me that she was taking her daughter with her to go to the other end of the store, which is huge, to get the correct size. I was almost finished with her order, and there were several customers waiting behind her. So I told her "I am almost done with your order. What you can do is to pay and then go get what you need."
Well, she was not happy with that, and it showed on her face. She said "I want to make sure that there is another jumbo size shrimp back there for me to get." I was already done with her order, and there were still other customers waiting in line.
So I again I told her "what you can do is to pay and then go get what you need."
She repeated what she said with an annoyed look on her face.
She was stubborn.
She wanted to do what she wanted to do even though there were other customers waiting in line. I would not be surprised if she even noticed there were other customers waiting in line.
Supervisor could've gone to get the shrimp, customer could've kept the wrong bag of shrimp for free until it was determined whether there was another jumbo shrimp or not. or the order could've been suspended
I'm not a cashier, but I would have cancelled all her shrimp and have her pay for rest of her order. Then she can go and check if there is more of the right size shrimp, so she can get another one and get one of them for free. Granted, she would have to wait in line again, but it's still better than her holding up the whole line which would happen, no matter who went to get another package of the shrimp, her, or the manager in training.
One possible alternative would have been to suspend the order while she insisted on making the trek back to seafood to get the other bag. You could have then began waiting on the next customer. When she got back, the supervisor in training could have taken her and the suspended order receipt to a vacant register (or the Customer Service desk, if there was an available terminal at the moment), retrieved the order and then void/add the proper items. This way, you continue to wait on the customers in your line and the customer with the frozen shrimp would not have had to wait in line again upon returning.
So if I understand this correctly, the supervisor was pretty much right next to you, bagging groceries? At our store, the supervisor would just suspend the transaction if the customer was so adamant about going to get the shrimp herself without any consideration for the waiting customers.
Now, if there was no supervisor around, then that would be quite a pickle. Since we can't suspend transactions without an override key. If there were open registers with other cashiers, I'd suggest to the waiting customers to go to those lanes.
If that's not possible and you're pretty much the only cashier on the floor with no manager or supervisor in sight at all... then before the lady begins to leave, I would have entered a custom coupon (or combo of price overrides) that equaled the amount of the supposedly free shrimp. If the shrimp in question is over $5, then I would have just voided the third shrimp and told the lady "sorry for the glitch in our computers, but your shrimp is free, you are right."
This is the exact reason I hate all the different promotions we have!
"Make is Right" is something that is used to generally! Which gets people confused and basically becomes a "excuse" for everything.
"Make is Right" should be used to correct an issue that occurs that was no fault of the customer or the store (Most of the time). If we are out of the 3rd item, "Make it Right" would be a solution, but just because the customers picked up the wrong item...isn't a justification (Well in my mind for "Make it Right", because nothing was wrong). It seems we use "Make it Right" every time a customer basically wants something!
"I want to pay less for this item because its quality isn't up to expectations" - There's a reason why there's Value, Normal, Premium levels of products......there are cheaper as the quality decreases.....
Does anyone else hate the new "Rain Checks", so not they don't actually give room for the product description. 2 inches to describe an items isn't enough for must people to write 2 works, or to describe a product in a small amount of detain.
Recently I received a Raincheck for am Item that just had the "Company Name" (Think Crest, Charmin, Heniz), if anyone knows about product assortment, these companies have a lot of differing product types and price points!
I really don't think Corporate Shrink, Corporate Experiences or any other department really works together when coming up with new ideas!
Ideally, void the medium, scan another large, and tender the order without the customer or manager in training figuring it out.
Otherwise, void the medium, scan a large, tender the order, and then somehow swap the medium for a large. The swapping is the hard part. Ideally, the manager in training would do it while you take care of the next order. Otherwise, you need to hijack a courtesy clerk or wait 20 minutes for meat to bring one up.
Suspending the order or waiting for the swap mid-order is suboptimal.
Actually, if your going to "Make it Right" you would price adjust the Medium Shrimp to "0.00" which would keep inventory accurate.
Wouldn't that be like a red flag, if they check the logs and see that you gave something away for free? It's why I hate doing price overrides with differences over $3 or $4. I'm sure that shrimp is over $5. Makes me paranoid that I'll get written up one day.
Actually, if your going to "Make it Right" you would price adjust the Medium Shrimp to "0.00" which would keep inventory accurate.
Wouldn't that be like a red flag, if they check the logs and see that you gave something away for free? It's why I hate doing price overrides with differences over $3 or $4. I'm sure that shrimp is over $5. Makes me paranoid that I'll get written up one day.
Make It Right in my division allows cashiers to take off up to $20.00 an item/order, with supposedly no danger of a write up. According to the store manager at my store, there may be a "coaching opportunity" afterward if someone inadvertently uses Make It Right improperly, but it's supposed to never result in a write up.
Luckily a supervisor was available to handle this situation involving a difficult customer of mine. But how would you handle this situation if a supervisor or a manager was not available?
This is what happened last Sunday.
This incident happened while it was busy, and there were several customers waiting in line, at the register I was assigned to, to be checked out.
A mom and her young daughter came to my line. One of the items she purchased was 3 bags of frozen shrimp... 2 jumbo and 1 medium. There was a sale on the shrimp... buy 2 get one free, but you had to buy 3 of the exact same size.
So my customer asked me if she got one of the frozen shrimp for free. When I hit the total button, she did not. There was supervisor in training who was bagging her groceries, and he looked at all 3 bags and noticed that one bag was medium shrimp. So I scanned one of the jumbo bags of shrimp again, hit total, and it came up free. The supervisor told her that she has to get 3 of the same size. So she told me that she was taking her daughter with her to go to the other end of the store, which is huge, to get the correct size. I was almost finished with her order, and there were several customers waiting behind her. So I told her "I am almost done with your order. What you can do is to pay and then go get what you need."
Well, she was not happy with that, and it showed on her face. She said "I want to make sure that there is another jumbo size shrimp back there for me to get." I was already done with her order, and there were still other customers waiting in line.
So I again I told her "what you can do is to pay and then go get what you need."
She repeated what she said with an annoyed look on her face.
She was stubborn.
She wanted to do what she wanted to do even though there were other customers waiting in line. I would not be surprised if she even noticed there were other customers waiting in line.
You could have called the seafood department and asked them if they had another jumbo shrimp. you could have asked a courtesy clerk to go get it, or really what i would have done, is just let her go and get it. because just like the customers waiting she is a paying customer, and she didn't want to go through the hassle of them not having the size she wanted, and then having to spend extra time getting a refund or finding a manager to ask for a substitute. so really i think you were rude. you told her that one time, and that was fine, but if she still insists on leaving, then fine,let her and wait. its annoying, but what can you do, arguing on something like that causes more problems for yourself.
I'm not a cashier, but I would have cancelled all her shrimp and have her pay for rest of her order. Then she can go and check if there is more of the right size shrimp, so she can get another one and get one of them for free. Granted, she would have to wait in line again, but it's still better than her holding up the whole line which would happen, no matter who went to get another package of the shrimp, her, or the manager in training.
This would make you a terrible cashier, and would frankly be really rude.
Supervisor could've gone to get the shrimp, customer could've kept the wrong bag of shrimp for free until it was determined whether there was another jumbo shrimp or not. or the order could've been suspended
This is on the right track. supervisor gets the shrimp, or supervisor suspends order then checks customer out at empty register when customer is ready and has already checked for a larger bag of shrimp, or just let the lady get the stuff. nothing fancy here, no need to do a make it right.
Luckily a supervisor was available to handle this situation involving a difficult customer of mine. But how would you handle this situation if a supervisor or a manager was not available?
This is what happened last Sunday.
This incident happened while it was busy, and there were several customers waiting in line, at the register I was assigned to, to be checked out.
A mom and her young daughter came to my line. One of the items she purchased was 3 bags of frozen shrimp... 2 jumbo and 1 medium. There was a sale on the shrimp... buy 2 get one free, but you had to buy 3 of the exact same size.
So my customer asked me if she got one of the frozen shrimp for free. When I hit the total button, she did not. There was supervisor in training who was bagging her groceries, and he looked at all 3 bags and noticed that one bag was medium shrimp. So I scanned one of the jumbo bags of shrimp again, hit total, and it came up free. The supervisor told her that she has to get 3 of the same size. So she told me that she was taking her daughter with her to go to the other end of the store, which is huge, to get the correct size. I was almost finished with her order, and there were several customers waiting behind her. So I told her "I am almost done with your order. What you can do is to pay and then go get what you need."
Well, she was not happy with that, and it showed on her face. She said "I want to make sure that there is another jumbo size shrimp back there for me to get." I was already done with her order, and there were still other customers waiting in line.
So I again I told her "what you can do is to pay and then go get what you need."
She repeated what she said with an annoyed look on her face.
She was stubborn.
She wanted to do what she wanted to do even though there were other customers waiting in line. I would not be surprised if she even noticed there were other customers waiting in line.
You could have called the seafood department and asked them if they had another jumbo shrimp. you could have asked a courtesy clerk to go get it, or really what i would have done, is just let her go and get it. because just like the customers waiting she is a paying customer, and she didn't want to go through the hassle of them not having the size she wanted, and then having to spend extra time getting a refund or finding a manager to ask for a substitute. so really i think you were rude. you told her that one time, and that was fine, but if she still insists on leaving, then fine,let her and wait. its annoying, but what can you do, arguing on something like that causes more problems for yourself.
The problem with that is the following...
Several months ago on a Sunday, the location I worked at received several complaints from customers regarding 1) the long wait in line to be checked out, 2) long lines and 3) slow cashiers. So the front-end employees received training, which the Front-end Coordinator, came up with, to be as efficient and productive as possible. Front-end management and Store management does not want any customer to needlessly prevent the customers behind them from checking at as quickly as possible. Basically they do not want any customer to needlessly hold up the line. That directive came from Senior management.