Do any of you Kroger produce dept people ever make hand-written price tags (just as a temporary thing) if a regular sign (I am speaking only about the credit card size 'card-stock' tag) is not immediately available? If so, does your Produce lead or co-manager get upset because it is "against Kroger company standards"?
I feel that if the printed sign has disappeared, or no clerk on duty knows how to make one, a neatly hand-written price tag is perfectly fine for a short-term replacement. I don't give a XXXX about whether it is against official "Best Practices" company policy.
CUSTOMER FIRST is (supposedly) still our policy, and I want customers to know what the price of an item is. They appreciate that. If a customer was ever actually insulted by reading the correct price on a handwritten sign as opposed to a "professional" printed one, then they have some serious problems. (Of course, no one has EVER complained about something like that. They appreciate knowing the price of an item, and hate to keep asking what the price of this or that is.)
Tastefully hand-written signs show a subtle hint of "down home, personalized, old-fashioned service", not a sterile, stodgy and ice-cold corporate culture. And when I am super-busy, I have less customers stopping me to ask about the price of an item if the price tag is there, albeit a hand-written price.
As a cashier I would not honor hand written tags because anyone could of done it. In my mind a customer could of fabricated a price.
WHHATTT???? It is the standard Kroger card stock (with the current actual correct price (which is also in the system) written in indelible marker by the produce employee. This has nothing to do with the cashier making a decision on whether or not the price should be "honored" . As a cashier, you ring up the items when the customer comes through and the computer POS system / cash register will (or should) ring the current price. Typically, the average cashier would never know what the price tag even looks like at the moment, since they are busy at the front end doing their own job. It is not your duty, obligation or business to tell a produce employee that you will not approve them of doing that. Whether a price tag is printed or written is completely irrelevant in this case, since the price will automatically ring up when you key in the PLU number or scan the bar code of the item the customer is buying. I feel you might be sorta misunderstanding or mis-construing my post. The customer isn't taking the price tag up front with their produce. It is right here on the shelf with the produce, informing the customer. There will not be a discrepancy between the handwritten price and the price in the computer system, since I'd check the RF first (so I know what the price is, right now) before hand-writing the price... and it will ring up correctly at the Front end. Hope this helps.
At SCO, hand-writing signs for the machines is considered a cardinal sin. If a machine goes "cash only", we have close it. The machines aren't pushy enough in letting the customers know, we don't have a sign, and aren't allowed to make one. Customers will ditch entire orders or switch machines if they make it that far, will DEMAND to use cash, or will enter cashback anyways. Then, you have extra go-backs, customers switching machines looks like theft and is a real pain, and then the SCO till gets so depleted that you have to close the machine anyways. Management would rather have us close machines and back the lines halfway down the liquor aisle than get us loans or print a sign, so there we go.
At fuel, we have an OCD screwball who will hand-write price tags. Management isn't convinced that the offsite fuel center exists, so it doesn't really matter we do in most ways unless corporate swings by.
At SCO, hand-writing signs for the machines is considered a cardinal sin. If a machine goes "cash only", we have close it. The machines aren't pushy enough in letting the customers know, we don't have a sign, and aren't allowed to make one. Customers will ditch entire orders or switch machines if they make it that far, will DEMAND to use cash, or will enter cashback anyways. Then, you have extra go-backs, customers switching machines looks like theft and is a real pain, and then the SCO till gets so depleted that you have to close the machine anyways. Management would rather have us close machines and back the lines halfway down the liquor aisle than get us loans or print a sign, so there we go.
At fuel, we have an OCD screwball who will hand-write price tags. Management isn't convinced that the offsite fuel center exists, so it doesn't really matter we do in most ways unless corporate swings by.
In other words, if you just used some ordinary "common sense" and made out a sign (temporary, but adequate for the time being) with magic marker, hand-printing the words "CASH ONLY AT THIS TIME" neatly written, that simple action would easily solve most problems with confused customers, and eliminate a lot of needless stress. BUT, since someone in Corporate has decreed the handwritten sign as a "cardinal sin" you have to suffer the consequences of poor decisions by the company.
At Kroger, logic is not a quality that is given due respect.
BTW over the years I have seen handwritten signs such as "CASH ONLY" taped onto U-Scan machines at other stores including Walmart, Meijer and other Kroger stores, so somebody had some sense and did it anyway.
I've done casual experiments. There's been nights where every time a customer did not see the "Cash only" sign, I've added another one. And another one. And another one. And in larger, angrier capital letters each time. Management varies in the level of care and competency, so sometimes we can get away with it as long as we take the signs down before close.
Customers cannot even see the signs until there is at least five. Five. 5. No less than five ****ing signs. And that's if they read English, which is only two thirds of customers in a border state.
