Archived Frustrated: A guest’s perspective

[Frontlanegirl]

Thanks for all the responses so far! It definitely sounds like the consensus is posting something to social media. Not quite sure I want to go that public with this rant but I’ll keep that in mind. I was thinking of something more along the lines of email (guestrelations@target.com?) but perhaps that would just be a bit of a dead end.

Nail on head.

 

[can't touch this]

Filling out a survey won't do anything. It will just get dropped back down to the store so that "leadership" can yell at TMs for not hustling fast enough. They will make it the store's problem even though it's really the company's problem.

Contacting Brian Cornell won't do anything either. Even in the extremely unlikely event that he personally reads your email with his own eyes, he doesn't care. He's hopped from company to company very frequently and doesn't plan on being with Target in another 3 years. He's already sitting on enough money to last himself 100 lifetimes.

The takeaway is that Target is run by shortsighted morons.

 

[seasonaldude]

Hello All,
First off, I’d like to introduce myself as longtime Target shopper, or perhaps “guest” would be a more appropriate term. Although I do not work for Target, I have frequented this forum over the past few years as a lurker/observer because I find it pretty interesting to read about how things operate behind the scenes. I should also mention that I’m from Target’s home state so I have a bit of a vested interest in their success and have a sense of loyalty to shop there over a place like Walmart. However, I’ve recently been becoming more and more frustrated with the overall guest experience during my trips to the store.

Target used to have an edge over competitors by providing a superior, more inviting environment to shop in. Despite my store recently receiving a top to bottom remodel, I find myself becoming more and more aggravated every time I go. Target has never been stellar with keeping items in stock (especially groceries) but it seems like this has only gotten worse since the remodel. In addition, my store seems to no longer stock the store overnight but instead stocks shelves throughout the day. It is extremely aggravating to attempt to maneuver down the aisles when they are constantly blocked by carts/pallets of product still in boxes. Just earlier today (Sunday...busiest day of the week I believe), it seemed like nearly every other endcap was completely blocked. How does the company expect to sell items when shoppers can’t even access them??? And it’s like this every, single, time lately. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for the team members as well!

At any rate, I just needed to get that off my chest and throw out a couple follow up questions as well:
- Is the transition to no longer stocking overnight permanent or still in a pilot phase?
- Is it even worth venting my frustrations via online surveys from the receipts? I’ve already expressed my frustrations in a couple surveys in the past and the store management has emailed me directly and been very receptive but I also understand that these decisions all stem from the top so I’m guessing this type of feedback rarely makes it all the way to district/corporate leadership.

Thanks in advance for listening to a random guest’s rant. I’ve also attached some photos from today’s #TargetRun.

Oh, hi there friendly guest. Are you finding everything you are looking for? (Sorry, TM humor at my store can't help myself.) It looks like most of your pictures are in toys. That's my section. I apoligize profusely for the mess. I don't want it to be like that. I hate it. I have no choice. I'm not supposed to set up my vehicle on an endcap like that, but on busy shopping days I have no choice. It's either that or block you in the aisles. Yes, Target wants us stocking while you are in the store like that. It's stupid. If you catch me near the vehicle, I'll gladly move it our of your way. Gladly. If I'm not right there, it's because well I'm doing something else. I'm helping another guest somewhere, I'm backing up the cashier lanes, I'm taking something out to a guest's car, I'm unlocking a case in electronics, or any of the many other things that Target thinks I can do while stocking the shelves with freight from the truck.

By all means, complain. You should. Retail shouldn't be run like this. I'd rather spend my days just helping you find what you are looking for. But, I can't. So, actually, please complain all the way to the top. I want to help you find the perfect Christmas gift for whatever kid you are looking for. That's what I was told I would be doing when I signed up for the job. Instead, I'm just in your way with my stupid Uboat. Sorry. Really, sorry. It's out of my control.

 

[YoNanas]

I don't understand the just stock overnight theory. If that would to happen, many shelves would be empty by the end of the day, frustrating guests who shop at night because they can't find anything.

That's why you have closers to RESTOCK the shelves in the evening. And anyhow, it's dead at night. And this is 2018, a month or so away from 2019 and MOST people are placing online orders just in this moment.

 

[SitSpotSit]

Filling out a survey won't do anything. It will just get dropped back down to the store so that "leadership" can yell at TMs for not hustling fast enough. They will make it the store's problem even though it's really the company's problem.

Contacting Brian Cornell won't do anything either. Even in the extremely unlikely event that he personally reads your email with his own eyes, he doesn't care. He's hopped from company to company very frequently and doesn't plan on being with Target in another 3 years. He's already sitting on enough money to last himself 100 lifetimes.

The takeaway is that Target is run by shortsighted morons.

Totally agree, the survey only makes it that store's problem. Which I guess is really all I as a guest cares about. But since most of us go to other Targets to shop making it known higher, I think, is the goal.

The reason I suggest writing Brian C is because whoever reads it will likely shoot it down to a level that is higher than you could go starting at the stl. Cuz honestly, in the scheme of Target, stls are middle management at best. So by starting at the top you may end up being in contact with a svp or rvp. Again, I wouldn't expect any changes but if those at these levels hear from some actual guests that are able to sneak by guest relations there at least people closer to the top that can't say nobody said anything. 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

[YoNanas]

Complain all the way to the fucking top! Take it up to corporate. Walk up to them. Post it on social media. This shit needs to go viral. We're all tired of the way they are running this. Contradicting everything they were preaching before. I used to love working here. Now their way of doing things is just dragging me down. And they are dragging themselves down with this.

 

[BigEyedPhish]

Hello All,
First off, I’d like to introduce myself as longtime Target shopper, or perhaps “guest” would be a more appropriate term. Although I do not work for Target, I have frequented this forum over the past few years as a lurker/observer because I find it pretty interesting to read about how things operate behind the scenes. I should also mention that I’m from Target’s home state so I have a bit of a vested interest in their success and have a sense of loyalty to shop there over a place like Walmart. However, I’ve recently been becoming more and more frustrated with the overall guest experience during my trips to the store.

Target used to have an edge over competitors by providing a superior, more inviting environment to shop in. Despite my store recently receiving a top to bottom remodel, I find myself becoming more and more aggravated every time I go. Target has never been stellar with keeping items in stock (especially groceries) but it seems like this has only gotten worse since the remodel. In addition, my store seems to no longer stock the store overnight but instead stocks shelves throughout the day. It is extremely aggravating to attempt to maneuver down the aisles when they are constantly blocked by carts/pallets of product still in boxes. Just earlier today (Sunday...busiest day of the week I believe), it seemed like nearly every other endcap was completely blocked. How does the company expect to sell items when shoppers can’t even access them??? And it’s like this every, single, time lately. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for the team members as well!

At any rate, I just needed to get that off my chest and throw out a couple follow up questions as well:
- Is the transition to no longer stocking overnight permanent or still in a pilot phase?
- Is it even worth venting my frustrations via online surveys from the receipts? I’ve already expressed my frustrations in a couple surveys in the past and the store management has emailed me directly and been very receptive but I also understand that these decisions all stem from the top so I’m guessing this type of feedback rarely makes it all the way to district/corporate leadership.

Thanks in advance for listening to a random guest’s rant. I’ve also attached some photos from today’s #TargetRun.

Be nice to the TM's every complaint you mentioned, I can guarantee, irks us even, more.

 

[dannyy315]

In addition, my store seems to no longer stock the store overnight but instead stocks shelves throughout the day. It is extremely aggravating to attempt to maneuver down the aisles when they are constantly blocked by carts/pallets of product still in boxes. Just earlier today (Sunday...busiest day of the week I believe), it seemed like nearly every other endcap was completely blocked. How does the company expect to sell items when shoppers can’t even access them???

Hear this corporate? This isn't team members talking. It's your own guests. That's where the money is! Enjoy them while you still have them!

 

[pellinore]

GuestGuy05...I thank you for taking the time, over the year, to keep lurking here and I appreciate that you've decided to bring your "lurking" to the forefront. As you've been here you've been able to see and understand our frustrations with everything that is going on....but there is one thing that you have that Team Members don't....You are a real Target guest and that gives you more credibility and power than any Team Member could ever hope to have.
Regarding surveys...they can and often do have impact on the specific store where you shop. If the Store Team Lead chooses to take the surveys to heart. Every survey that a guest does is sent to the district office and sometimes it has made a difference. My personal opinion on surveys is do them.

I also agree that it is important to get this to the upper level of Target....while social media is comfortable for many, like you, I'm not sure that I'd be comfortable using it to voice my thoughts and concerns. I think that the most important part of this is for you to be willing to move up the ladder and let some corporate individuals know of your experience. I do think that with your earliest comments here when you said that over time things have gone downhill....this is an important thing to mention when you're moving up the Target ladder.

I'm going to give you some numbers and websites to look at to get information for you to move forward and get YOUR message (the guest message). You'll probably need to be patient and assertive in your quest to help Target guests and Team Members to make a difference with Target.

I no longer work at Target so there is nothing that can happen to me for giving you this information....it is all available on-line....so I'm not giving anything out that isn't already out there...I'm just saving you time....

Guest Relations: 800-440-0680.....talk to the individual that answers and then ask to talk to a supervisor...the rep that you'll talk to will want more information....let them know you want to speak with a supervisor. (I've done this before....as long as you're nice they'll be happy to help you.) When you talk to the supervisor they'll get information and then they must submit the comments to another office....and then from there the comments will go farther up the food chain.

corporate.target.com... scroll down to PRESS ROOM. Click on "visit our press room"....you will see a picture and a bit of a scroll down shows a picture and you will see "LEADERSHIP TEAM"...click that and you'll have all the names you want. If you want to email someone the standard email address is: firstname.lastname@target.com
When I looked up "how to send email to target."

Target's mailing address is: 1000 Nicollete Mall, Minneapolis, MN 55403

An interesting website I came across is: hissingkitty.com

So.....here's the information that you might need.....and as I said ALL of this is available on line.

Let us know how things go and what type of progress you make. All of us here will be cheering you on!

 

[hardlinesIA]

Hello guest and fellow Minnesotan. We just completed our remodel at our store. And although we have u-boats, tubs, etc, we've only recently had them rather large due to holiday replenishment. I haven't seen this 'off season'.
We get 'pulls' as they are called, 3x's a day. And it's one to three boat per zone typically. I really enjoy doing pulls. It's my favorite thing to do besides help guests. Our guests are pretty self sufficient so I'd be bored without a pull! But I must say this is a bit of a circus here. Looks like it's holiday and needs a touch of planning improvements.

At our store. Each ETL runs their store differently. Some are 'red' that means a particular store needs immediate improvement. I'm not saying this store is red btw. Just spouting some Target Jargon.

What you as a guest should expect from your store:
Safe accessible shopping. That means no dangerously high stocked boats. No zig-zag parking jobs. All tubs/boats etc must be on one side of the main aisles. Trash must never be on the floor. They either need to provide themselves an extra tub or cart to load cardboard or toss it on a fellow team member's whose is empty as they pass. Get it off the floor. No skids or pallets like I see here with the trees. Our store doesn't do this. They are tripping hazards and annoying.

Backroom load tubs in reasonable chunks to be worked rather than stack them high. Hardlines/softlines don't walk away from your work (At end of shift). Rather put it back on the line before you clock off or ask to stay longer to finish task. Communicate this.

I do take comfort knowing our store is still way better than our local wal-marts. *shudder* And our guests say it ALL the time.

I really appreciate that you want to see improvement for the success of our stores. You want to solve the problem and the uppers need to listen. We're not a warehouse after all! You shouldn't feel like your at one.

Thank you for your loyalty so we can have a job and cool things to buy too

 

[glo]

For my old store cafs were at 11, 1 and 3 weekdays with an extra caf at 5 on weekends.

Before that, they ran hourly 12-5 (iirc). Every fill group too, I think.

 

[Frontlanegirl]

They either need to provide themselves an extra tub or cart to load cardboard or toss it on a fellow team member's whose is empty as they pass. Get it off the floor. Tubs are supposed to be on their way out. Since tubs and carts are not supposed to be used, those pushing will use a cardboard box to put their discarded trash into.

 

[qmosqueen]

Call your local news station start a protest. Get signs and picket for workers to go back to overnights to actually stock shelves.

 

[Go2TL]

Didn't CAFs used to be hourly throughout the day, not just at 6am, 3pm, and sometimes 1pm?

Need to clarify. Autos in the morning are generated from the sales the day before. Depending on sales, your autos can be huge. CAF'S (12pm, 1, 2, 3 and 5pm) are generated for items being sold during the day on items that hit the "trigger" to be pulled because of a critical low on the floor.
I was told CAF's were supposed to go away. Haven't paid attention if this has happened to my store.

 

[Planosss]

Hear this corporate? This isn't team members talking. It's your own guests. That's where the money is! Enjoy them while you still have them!

We dont know for sure if the OP is indeed a guest.

 

[Bosch]

I don't understand the just stock overnight theory. If that would to happen, many shelves would be empty by the end of the day, frustrating guests who shop at night because they can't find anything.

Overnight stock has never been "just overnight stock" there always have been smaller crews who do upkeep during the open hours they are just more subtle about it. Where the overnight teams can just make a mess and hammer it out without worry about offending or worse hurting a customer.. Target has forgotten the customer in all of this in their cost savings by cutting flow teams. Customers fucking hate it, really fucking hate it.

I know I am in a pretty affluent area so I take it with a grain of salt, they bitch constantly that this process sucks but always with the disclaimer that they know it is not our at store levels fault.. I realized the other day, I no longer shop in my own store for the same reasons, can't find anything, always a mess and crowded with people so I can't think straight..

 

[TTGOz]

And it’s like this every, single, time lately. I can only imagine how frustrating this must be for the team members as well!

Extremely frustrating. I work in my store's Dairy and Frozen department and it's awful having to fight for space or having to block people from getting through with carts. All we can do is park our vehicles in the middle of the aisle and do our jobs.

I would much rather push truck to floor over night, keep filling throughout the day with autofills, man cafs, EXF, and POG pulls. Our FDC truck in my store doesn't get my store until 9:30am usually... and being as grossly under-staffed as we have been, we haven't been getting freight done well until 3pm because my entire team starts at 4am and leaves at 12:30am and has to take all of their breaks still. Usually it's just me left with two pallets to continue working on.

To see those vehicles being left unattended is wrong, I would get talked to about that at my store. It's a security issue, a safety issue, and then the issue of a Target TM not being around, etc... not actual OSHA-standard issues but in America it's grounds for anything to happen.

 

[Chaotica]

At my store we are required by our STL to bring the actual U boats into the aisle with us. We are absolutely never allowed to leave boats or flats at the end cap in a main aisle. Many people get yelled at often. Its so frustrating.

Anyone else have the same thing?

 

[OldSchoolVet]

Same here. We've told our ETL that it's in the way of the guests. Doesn't care. It's not efficient to walk back and forth from the endcap. If you want efficient, GO BACK TO OVERNIGHTS!!!

 

[Logo]

Target's purpose was to have more guest facing this is why our process was changed. Our smiling faces are what separate us from Amazon. 🙂

 

[BoxCutter]

If I were you I would write and snail mail a respectful letter to Brian Cornell and cc and mail that letter to every senior vice-president, along with every member of the Board of Directors. Even in this age of emails and social media, a typed letter still carries more weight.

Even if your letter paints a true picture of what a systemic cancer Modernization is in its current form, most of the senior management hierarchy at the company will probably say that your store is an anomaly and the process works great everywhere else.

Please keep us posted if you do pursue this further and let us know if you get any feedback from corporate and how they responded.

99% of the posters on this site care about the job they do and get extremely frustrated when we can't help Guests like yourself.

Good luck for all our sakes!

 

[IWishIKnew]

What time do you usually shop? I don't work days, so I haven't seen what the floor looks like during the day post-E2E, but last year it seems like it was uglier but faster. Pallets would be out along one side of the store and the flow team would blitz through those pallets in an hour or so, then move to another section, etc. until all freight was done. Most of the pallets were off the floor by 10am, and the entire store wasn't hosed for that time, just sections.

We still have 4am flow, and they're now pulling freight off the truck and sending it straight to the floor (vs unload the truck then push). I think we only have flow until 9-10am, but I also know the sales floor folks are expected to do freight, which wasn't the case before E2E (flow hours technically could run until noon, if needed).

We have 4 double trucks this week. I have no idea where we're going to put it all.

 

[Bosch]

What time do you usually shop? I don't work days, so I haven't seen what the floor looks like during the day post-E2E, but last year it seems like it was uglier but faster. Pallets would be out along one side of the store and the flow team would blitz through those pallets in an hour or so, then move to another section, etc. until all freight was done. Most of the pallets were off the floor by 10am, and the entire store wasn't hosed for that time, just sections.

We still have 4am flow, and they're now pulling freight off the truck and sending it straight to the floor (vs unload the truck then push). I think we only have flow until 9-10am, but I also know the sales floor folks are expected to do freight, which wasn't the case before E2E (flow hours technically could run until noon, if needed).

We have 4 double trucks this week. I have no idea where we're going to put it all.

It is sitting in my SFS pack area where I have eight carts picked and waiting to pack but can't get anywhere near my desk to pack.. Those were eight carts we could find to pick into, they are all double batched and over flowing, we are now using shopping carts to pick into since everything else is full of truck push or backstock… This is not going to end well..

 

[15 Sec. Remain]

At my store we are required by our STL to bring the actual U boats into the aisle with us. We are absolutely never allowed to leave boats or flats at the end cap in a main aisle. Many people get yelled at often. Its so frustrating.

Anyone else have the same thing?

Quite Similar. But I've told them that it's in the guests' way too often. Leadership's response -- place your vehicle/U-boat in the back endcaps.

Yeah that's gonna make it a lot better.


And to our fellow OP/guest-- please do keep us informed if you do choose to go higher up in letting them know your experience at spot. Hopefully reality will slap them in their faces, only one can hope..

 

[pellinore]

We dont know for sure if the OP is indeed a guest.

No, we don't know if OP is "real" guest. In my mind, I am willing to believe that OP is a guest. If by some strange reason that OP is not a guest, well, at least whoever is writing will see and know how most of us Team Members (or former TMs) feel about things and how willing we are to help Target out.

By the way, GuestGuy05, OP refers to the person who is the originator of the thread....the original person who posts. Sometimes we forget that Target Talk and American English don't always "jive!"