Friday, September 12, 2008

Employee Etiquette

I wrote a post a while back about shopping etiquette for shoppers. But you know, after some recent experiences, I feel that information given at employee training at retail stores is not being retained. Store employees should:

1. Never chew gum while working. If you're going to talk to or even just be seen by customers, this does not make the best impression.

2. Never talk about their job in front of or to a customer in a negative way. A grocery store clerk once asked me how I was doing and since it was 6:30pm and I was running to the store after being at work all day, I replied, "ready to go home." Then he told me how much longer and harder he had been working that day. That's professional. And today while at a fabric store, the clerk at the register asked her manager (standing at least 10 feet away) if she could go cut fabric instead of working the register because she was so bored. And believe it or not, she was not a teenager!

3. Never talk to their coworker about personal matters in front of a customer. Several times I have been paying for my things and the person at the register will have a conversation with another employee about their boyfriend or the party they are going to that night or even store gossip. If I'm expected not to be on my phone (which I think is completely reasonable) so as to be present during this transaction, I would expect that the employee would give me the same courtesy and not carry on a conversation as if I'm not even there.

I don't think these things are too much to ask. I would be moritified if I were a manager and any of my employees did these things. And really, they're less about me being dissatisfied as a customer and more about how the company is projecting itself through its employees.

2 comments:

Stephanie said...

I completely agree with all of these! They all drive me nuts!

Heather said...

AMEN!!