Archived how do you deal with other stores in the region telling guests things against best practice?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Joined
Sep 30, 2014
Messages
474
hey don't have your red card? go to any store within 3 days. bring receipts and when you're approved for the red card we'll give you 5% off everything you ever spent in cash.

yes there are ways we can do that. doesn't mean we should. if they're fine with doing it at their store, go for it. don't say other stores will go with whatever you want to do. after repeated issues what i went to was so that store approved it? i'll call there and talk to the tl. this is what your tm allowed and told this guest. hey want to approve them coming to your store for your tm fuckup?
 
The only thing I offer to do for guests is switch their payment over to the REDcard if they forgot to use it, but obviously only if it's the same day/same store. We used to just manually calculate a missed coupon for the 5% but I won't allow that on my watch.
 
I HATE dealing with other stores in the area. I had one that kept prying and trying to act like I was an idiot. A guest wanted a top that was discontinued and after I checked the other stores that were out of a larger size, she proceeds to tell the guest that other stores have it and I can go put it on hold. Ugh.

When it comes to guests and guest service, I'm the worst. I rarely believe them and stick to our policy.
 
If a guest was promised something our store doesn't do, they need to go back to that store. Honestly, I don't always hold up to claims that someone at our store told them they could do something....because I know it isn't necessarily true.

There are times when we've asked stores to do things...we had a guest buy a tree from us. Apparently it was a return, because when they got home, it was an old tree someone had shoved in there. The guest came back and was unhappy and wanted that particular tree. Of course it was gone in the entire area. We finally found one that was similar, but a higher price available at another store. We looked online and found target.com had it for much cheaper...almost the price of the original tree they wanted. So we called and it took a lot of running around to get it put on hold and get guest services to understand that even if the .com changed their price overnight, we really needed this honored and I had already verified on the iPad it was a valid price match. We just wanted to verify it for the guest so they wouldn't have any problems when they got to that store. Unfortunately the LOD I know well there wasn't working that night, or I would have skipped about 15 minutes worth of games with the TMs and just talked to him and explained the situation and he could have trusted me enough to go on our Merry way.
 
I'm sorry, we don't do that here,

It doesn't matter that so and so at the store five miles down the road said you could do xyz at any store.

Each store is largely autonomous, if they wish to bend the rules at their store that's their prerogative, but we make our own decisions like they do, and no one here answers to anyone at that store.


The above speech usually gets the job done in my experience. It's not blatantly rude, but it leaves little room for interpretation and doesn't give them leverage to argue further.

The only recent time I made an exception was because another store called us, spoke to our Operator, and the Operator promised something they shouldn't have. Said operator got coached by the LOD, but I was told to go ahead and do it by the LOD because the Operator'd already said we would and there was a guest on the way.

The specific scenario was a guest ordered something via FF from another store. They got there and the box (but not the item itself) was damaged. They said it was unacceptable. They called our Operator and said they needed us to put the same item on hold for them and to mark it down 20% for the inconvenience.

Of course our box wasn't in pristine condition either, so they demanded I call a third store and tell them to mark it down even further for the "inconvenience". I told them not a chance, told them we only honored the other stores request because someone here made a decision they didn't have the authority to make and had been reprimanded for it, and that people at the third store didn't answer to me or take orders from me and that if they wanted it discounted they could negotiate that themselves.

They got angry, swore at me and left in a huff, but I didn't care, people like them not coming back is a plus.
 
We had a guest last year find an expired sign on something. But she didn't want to buy it then because she had her kid with her. So we put it on hold...for several days to boot. She never did come and pick it up, but had the nerve to call and ask if we could ask another store that was closer to her house honor the price. I told her we had to honor our mistake, but couldn't ask another store to do that.

I've had it before when guests want us to fix double scans or pricing "errors" from other stores. No. They fix their own errors. We don't take a loss on our profits to cover their mistakes. And if you called them and they said we would, well, that isn't our problem, either. You had no problems driving there to give them your money, then you should have no problems driving there to get your money back.

I once had a guest come in asking with their receipt from another store telling us they didn't have the product when they got home. I told the guest no, they needed to go back to the original store. The guest threw a fit. And the LOD sided with the guest. Whatevs. I don't get paid enough to care when it comes to stuff like that.
 
I'll fix a double scan from another store, so long as its reasonable. ie. You claim you left a $50 item? Go back to that store. $5 item? Whatever, not arguing with you over $5.
 
Problem is, another store then gets the sales for two items while only selling one and then your store takes the loss for not selling anything. At least with returns there's a possibility of recouping the money when you resell the item (not all the items we can't resell for various reasons, of course). I did deviate against that policy once when I had a guest who was in a Target the night before halfway across the country and didn't notice it until they left the state that they were double charged. In that case, I figured it wasn't exactly reasonable to expect them to go back to the original store. ;-)
 
If a guest was promised something our store doesn't do, they need to go back to that store. Honestly, I don't always hold up to claims that someone at our store told them they could do something....because I know it isn't necessarily true.

There are times when we've asked stores to do things...we had a guest buy a tree from us. Apparently it was a return, because when they got home, it was an old tree someone had shoved in there. The guest came back and was unhappy and wanted that particular tree. Of course it was gone in the entire area. We finally found one that was similar, but a higher price available at another store. We looked online and found target.com had it for much cheaper...almost the price of the original tree they wanted. So we called and it took a lot of running around to get it put on hold and get guest services to understand that even if the .com changed their price overnight, we really needed this honored and I had already verified on the iPad it was a valid price match. We just wanted to verify it for the guest so they wouldn't have any problems when they got to that store. Unfortunately the LOD I know well there wasn't working that night, or I would have skipped about 15 minutes worth of games with the TMs and just talked to him and explained the situation and he could have trusted me enough to go on our Merry way.
yeah we had special occasions that i accommodate. i literally had someone include me in a corp complaint because of team member conduct in another store. not they said go to wherever, just that team member didn't do everything the guest wanted but was the usual amount of service. erm, i can't discipline that store. go there and talk to them. i can't give you that deal.
 
I'll fix a double scan from another store, so long as its reasonable. ie. You claim you left a $50 item? Go back to that store. $5 item? Whatever, not arguing with you over $5.
i'll fix a double scan, but paid and left, wrong price? a guest price challenge doesn't help us. we have 0 way to identify it
 
I'm sorry, we don't do that here,

It doesn't matter that so and so at the store five miles down the road said you could do xyz at any store.

Each store is largely autonomous, if they wish to bend the rules at their store that's their prerogative, but we make our own decisions like they do, and no one here answers to anyone at that store.


The above speech usually gets the job done in my experience. It's not blatantly rude, but it leaves little room for interpretation and doesn't give them leverage to argue further.

The only recent time I made an exception was because another store called us, spoke to our Operator, and the Operator promised something they shouldn't have. Said operator got coached by the LOD, but I was told to go ahead and do it by the LOD because the Operator'd already said we would and there was a guest on the way.

The specific scenario was a guest ordered something via FF from another store. They got there and the box (but not the item itself) was damaged. They said it was unacceptable. They called our Operator and said they needed us to put the same item on hold for them and to mark it down 20% for the inconvenience.

Of course our box wasn't in pristine condition either, so they demanded I call a third store and tell them to mark it down even further for the "inconvenience". I told them not a chance, told them we only honored the other stores request because someone here made a decision they didn't have the authority to make and had been reprimanded for it, and that people at the third store didn't answer to me or take orders from me and that if they wanted it discounted they could negotiate that themselves.

They got angry, swore at me and left in a huff, but I didn't care, people like them not coming back is a plus.
we don't get people who accept that. its target. you should have a certain policy. i only bought this because of this. the best? target.com had a screw up and they say the store will fix it. umm we have no info on that order. we can slide cards/etc if it doesn't show up it doesn't work.
 
Try to use your best judgment. Who cares what other stores do, just follow the culture of your store. If a guest gets upset, let the LOD deal with it.
Amen to that! I try to ensure I always give accurate information to the guests. I had a VERY irate woman try to use a gift card she got from "Target.com" and because she did not have a smart phone could not use it and just did not want to use it on Target.com. since it was only a $5 dollar gift card and she was buying a lot of stuff anyways I just took 5 bucks off her order. if it was higher value I would have let the GSTL deal with her. Why does Target.com have to make things soooooo much more complicated than it has to be?
 
My rule of thumb is, the TMs at the other stores aren't accountable to the LOD, at this store, I am. If they said something is possible that we don't do, I will tell the guest that that's not our policy due to (Reason). If it's a reasonable exception that I won't catch flak for from the LOD, I make said exception depending on the circumstances, and how much the guest treated me like a human when expressing their discontent with the situation (Tell me "that is not fair, I'm not happy with this" in some form or another, and I'm much more willing to bend the rules for you than if you came up and said "WELL THAT'S BULLSHIT FIX IT NOW") mainly because our vibe scores are in the toilet and I'm not interested in getting yelled at for another store's mistake. If it's something I absolutely know for fact the LOD won't approve, I say "I'm sorry that's the policy"and if they ask for a manager, I call the LOD, but if it's an exception that can be made, but only from an LOD, I tell them that it has to be a manager and offer to call one over for them if they'd like.
 
Most important thing a great GSA of mine taught me was to pick my battles wisely. Don't give your store away, especially due to the perceived word of a team member from a store that you don't even work at. Don't accept fraudulent returns, or shady gift card stuff, or any open media, or air mattresses, even if "they let me do it at the other Target!" Either deny their return, call your GSTL/GSA/LOD for assistance, or (in some cases) override to store credit. But at the same time, if it's something small - like an item that a guest was promised would be a few bucks cheaper at your store or something - and they seem decent enough, Spot can bite the bullet in the name of the vibe. Just do some damage control and things will be cool, but yeah, never ever ever do anything just because a different store (apparently) said it was okay to do so.

And if worst comes to worst, you can always give the other store a call, as some here have said. Their leadership should know that either their team members might be going against policy, or that a lying guest is discrediting them at other locations.
 
Most important thing a great GSA of mine taught me was to pick my battles wisely. Don't give your store away, especially due to the perceived word of a team member from a store that you don't even work at. Don't accept fraudulent returns, or shady gift card stuff, or any open media, or air mattresses, even if "they let me do it at the other Target!" Either deny their return, call your GSTL/GSA/LOD for assistance, or (in some cases) override to store credit. But at the same time, if it's something small - like an item that a guest was promised would be a few bucks cheaper at your store or something - and they seem decent enough, Spot can bite the bullet in the name of the vibe. Just do some damage control and things will be cool, but yeah, never ever ever do anything just because a different store (apparently) said it was okay to do so.

And if worst comes to worst, you can always give the other store a call, as some here have said. Their leadership should know that either their team members might be going against policy, or that a lying guest is discrediting them at other locations.
ive called the store and asked to talk to leadership. they knew best practice. but that store repeatedly gives us guests "who were told by employees" completely wrong info.
 
Target isn't nearly as bad in this regard as Best Buy.

The other day I had two Best Buys go through the EXACT same procedure to price match a contract phone upgrade to Walmart, but then they didn't have the right version of the phone in stock. A third store told me they will not price match phones anymore and they don't care what other stores do. I called a fourth store and got the same answer as the first two, and confirmed they had inventory in stock before driving 45 minutes there.

Upon arrival I was told by first an employee and then a manager that I was misinformed and that it was physically impossible for their registers to do a price match. Took two hours and escalating to a regional manager who happened to be in store to get them to honor what both that store and two others had promised.

Worst retail experience ever, made only slightly better by leaving with an iPhone 6 for $129 and a free $50 Best Buy gift card.

If you can't give a customer what they were promised by another employee or even another store, at very least don't treat them like an annoyance and lie to them saying things aren't possible just because you shouldn't or won't honor it.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top