Well, it used to be that the telephone could save you time. Nowadays I can call around looking for a hard-to-find item, and someone will tell me, “Sure, we have those” just to get me off the phone. So I drive 30 minutes to the store, only to be told, “We have never carried those. Don’t know who would have told you we did.” And of course I forgot to get the person’s name, and if I didn’t, they would have given me a bogus name anyway. It’s not always the custys.
The person who said they have them is either in a call centre or HQ, based hundreds of miles away or even in a different country. Or bored or lazy. Or on lunch and told to answer the phone.
Usually an inexperienced new person uses the stock system which says we have one in stock and tells the customer.
A semi-experienced part time worker knows enough about our stock to say that the item in question is a non stock item that we never have in and tells the customer.
Meanwhile the experienced full-time worker familiar with the deepest darkest crannies of the warehouse knows that we have had one sitting around for months, usually either a return from a different store or old stock crammed to the back of the shelf because there’s nowhere else to put it. Luckily people usually asked over the headset whether we had any which meant we got to unload stuff that had been slowly getting beaten into dust in the warehouse for months or occasionally even years.
Transfer from the Yankerville store.
Well, it used to be that the telephone could save you time. Nowadays I can call around looking for a hard-to-find item, and someone will tell me, “Sure, we have those” just to get me off the phone. So I drive 30 minutes to the store, only to be told, “We have never carried those. Don’t know who would have told you we did.” And of course I forgot to get the person’s name, and if I didn’t, they would have given me a bogus name anyway. It’s not always the custys.
The person who said they have them is either in a call centre or HQ, based hundreds of miles away or even in a different country. Or bored or lazy. Or on lunch and told to answer the phone.
This happened quite often when I was at Wickes.
Usually an inexperienced new person uses the stock system which says we have one in stock and tells the customer.
A semi-experienced part time worker knows enough about our stock to say that the item in question is a non stock item that we never have in and tells the customer.
Meanwhile the experienced full-time worker familiar with the deepest darkest crannies of the warehouse knows that we have had one sitting around for months, usually either a return from a different store or old stock crammed to the back of the shelf because there’s nowhere else to put it. Luckily people usually asked over the headset whether we had any which meant we got to unload stuff that had been slowly getting beaten into dust in the warehouse for months or occasionally even years.