Obnoxious customer service "greeters" (selling, free, work)
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Has anyone else been verbally yelled at walking into stores and banks? What's up with these sales people that literally "yell" hello from a long distance away from the door, "Welcome to Kinkos, or Rite Aid or Target or Office Max or Lenscrafters or whatever store" when someone walks in. It's obnoxious. Worse yet are the sales people helping you at the counter, and mid-sentence, they yell "hello" to someone else coming in the door.
I don't even know where this "hello" from across the room is coming from! And the last thing I want to do is say hello to someone I can't see when I virtually just enter the store! The bank is bad too. I'm barely in the door and someone yells "hello, welcome to Chase" from behind the counter with a line of customers in front of me. How dumb is that!
We are told to say these things or else we are reprimanded. It's that simple. We can't do anything about it.
Has anyone else been verbally yelled at walking into stores and banks? What's up with these sales people that literally "yell" hello from a long distance away from the door, "Welcome to Kinkos, or Rite Aid or Target or Office Max or Lenscrafters or whatever store" when someone walks in. It's obnoxious. Worse yet are the sales people helping you at the counter, and mid-sentence, they yell "hello" to someone else coming in the door.
I don't even know where this "hello" from across the room is coming from! And the last thing I want to do is say hello to someone I can't see when I virtually just enter the store! The bank is bad too. I'm barely in the door and someone yells "hello, welcome to Chase" from behind the counter with a line of customers in front of me. How dumb is that!
Because customer service begins at the front door.
Be assured that the greeters are being carefully monitored by their supervisors. That's why they can sometimes be so over the top. They want to be seen as doing everything they can to drum up more sales.
Indeed. Back when I worked retail my supervisor once told me to stop saying, "How ya doin'?" as a greeting. He requested that I be more formal and say something that I can't remember but recall was rather robotic.
Have you ever walked into a Cici's Pizza? It's bizarre when they all shout in unison "HI!! Welcome to CiCi's!!!"
It's not that friendly greetings bother me. Insincerity and condescention bother me. Sometimes I just feel sorry for the person, not annoyed. Like the receptionist who answers the phone in a tone that sounds like she may go blow her brains out, but says "It's a great day at (company name). I'm so glad you called. How may I assist you?"
I'm annoyed by blatantly contrived, artificial, friendly greetings.
I was wondering if someone was going to mention CiCi's. LOL Not only do you get it coming, you get it going as well. We were going out the door and suddenly we hear 2 or 3 of the employees shouting Thank you! Come again! I didn't know if I should stop in the middle of the doorway and shout back You're welcome! We will! or just acknowledge with a wave or a smile at each of them or what!
I don't mind anyone greeting me when I enter a store if it's done in good taste. By that, I mean eye contact, a simple hello or hello, welcome to XXX. But this shouting from across a large expanse and sometimes from multiple people is insane and even worse is the voices coming from behind counters where you can't even see who is shouting at you. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm really at a loss as to what to do. It is embarrassing to me. Do I go looking for the unseen person/persons who just told me hello so I can say hello back to them? I think it's rude on my part to be spoken to and not return the salutation.
I have also been in the middle of a transaction or the middle of a conversation on how a certain product was to be used when someone would enter the store and the employee I'm dealing with just suddenly disregards me and goes straight into the friendly store greeting mode. I find it extremely rude. O'Reilly Auto Parts is one of the worst for doing this.
I've heard how the employees hate doing it (and I can only imagine) but they are required to. Stores even have secret shoppers come in and that is one of the things on their list to check.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for common courtesy and politeness. I'm also a friendly person and have no problem with someone looking me in the eye and saying hello to which I can say hello back to them, but I'm with the OP on this rude shouting at me from across the room and especially when I can't even see them!
I think some people spend way too much time trying to find anything to complain about. Being greeted is really that annoying? It's a good thing some of you don't live in a small town where the shopkeeper greets you by name when you enter and tells you thanks and to have a good day when you leave.
When people do annoying things at banks/stores like shout a greeting at me or pester me every ten feet or try to sell me a credit card or a refi, I assume they are doing it because they are required to do it. They're just doing their jobs. If you don't like it, don't take it out on the front-line workers. Go higher up. The front-liners have no control over anything except their attitude.
I think some people spend way too much time trying to find anything to complain about. Being greeted is really that annoying? It's a good thing some of you don't live in a small town where the shopkeeper greets you by name when you enter and tells you thanks and to have a good day when you leave.
If I wanted to go somewhere where everyone knew my name, I'd go to Cheers.
I don't even know where this "hello" from across the room is coming from! And the last thing I want to do is say hello to someone I can't see when I virtually just enter the store! The bank is bad too. I'm barely in the door and someone yells "hello, welcome to Chase" from behind the counter with a line of customers in front of me. How dumb is that!
Because customer service begins at the front door.
I believe that at BOA it begins at your back door...
Location: Huntersville/Charlotte, NC and Washington, DC
26,700 posts, read 41,710,416 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BigDGeek
When people do annoying things at banks/stores like shout a greeting at me or pester me every ten feet or try to sell me a credit card or a refi, I assume they are doing it because they are required to do it. They're just doing their jobs. If you don't like it, don't take it out on the front-line workers. Go higher up. The front-liners have no control over anything except their attitude.
^This.
I was a worker who was required to do it at multiple jobs and it felt so fake. What the h&#% are the higher-ups thinking when they institute c^#@ like this?
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