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Our store is getting the IGS.... Anyone who has one (esp. the front end people) care to share any info about it?
Thanks in Advance!
Thanks in Advance!
Archived IGS
- Thread starter SFTOnThree
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We have it. It's all I've ever known though so can't really highlight the differences, but can answer any questions regarding the way it works at our store.
I started working at my store last April (as in 2013, not 2014), and it was in the middle of remodeling to pfresh at the time, which included adding starbucks where guest service used to be, and becoming an iGS store.
I started working at my store last April (as in 2013, not 2014), and it was in the middle of remodeling to pfresh at the time, which included adding starbucks where guest service used to be, and becoming an iGS store.
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Get used to telling guests where GS is.
redeye58
Hasta Ba Rista, Baby!
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Naaaah, I like it better telling 'em where they can go....
xxTheDudexx
Front of Store Attendant
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I hate it. Good luck. We are in the process of our remodel. We've had IGS for about a month now. I was hoping it would be one of the last things they changed. It's barely manageable at times right now, I don't know how we're going to do it come Christmas time. Yes, get ready to explain to guest after guest where are returns are made even though there is a sign with an arrow pointing to Guest Service, and the signs at the lanes say Returns and Checkout.
Also, be prepared for upset guests looking to make a simple return because they have guests in front of them with fully loaded carts that want to checkout with you and since it doesn't say express, you have to take them.
We also still have photo back where it used to be on the other side of see spot where the old Service Desk used to be, so you'll also have guests looking for picture orders, or that need help at the photo kiosks. So we now have to walk away from Guest Service and over to photo to address those issues which can tie up the Guest Service team member for easily a half hour or more. You can't monitor photo at all when you are constantly stuck at the new IGS so you'll get photo jams, and paper/ribbons that run out and won't know about it too. This pins us GSA's and GSTL's at Guest service or photo constantly because it's constantly backed up.
We also have far less room to store all our salvage, damages, holds, and flex fulfillment orders.
On a weekend, I've been stuck at photo or Guest Service/Photo with a guest and had multiple flashers I couldn't get to because I was tied down. Of course if you try and leave the guests get angry so now I just call an LOD all the time to help because I can't move. Guest Service has looked like a bomb went off over there ever since it started because the Guest Service TM and GSA/GSTL are ringing Guests constantly and unable to get any damages bagged, processed, or boxed up.
Whoever came up with that idea is a complete moron. I'll say it again, good luck. I'm looking for another job because it's just too much B.S. Sorry for the long rant.
Also, be prepared for upset guests looking to make a simple return because they have guests in front of them with fully loaded carts that want to checkout with you and since it doesn't say express, you have to take them.
We also still have photo back where it used to be on the other side of see spot where the old Service Desk used to be, so you'll also have guests looking for picture orders, or that need help at the photo kiosks. So we now have to walk away from Guest Service and over to photo to address those issues which can tie up the Guest Service team member for easily a half hour or more. You can't monitor photo at all when you are constantly stuck at the new IGS so you'll get photo jams, and paper/ribbons that run out and won't know about it too. This pins us GSA's and GSTL's at Guest service or photo constantly because it's constantly backed up.
We also have far less room to store all our salvage, damages, holds, and flex fulfillment orders.
On a weekend, I've been stuck at photo or Guest Service/Photo with a guest and had multiple flashers I couldn't get to because I was tied down. Of course if you try and leave the guests get angry so now I just call an LOD all the time to help because I can't move. Guest Service has looked like a bomb went off over there ever since it started because the Guest Service TM and GSA/GSTL are ringing Guests constantly and unable to get any damages bagged, processed, or boxed up.
Whoever came up with that idea is a complete moron. I'll say it again, good luck. I'm looking for another job because it's just too much B.S. Sorry for the long rant.
B
Barcode
Guest
Yeah not a fan of IGS myself however, if you have a couple people on it, makes those carts of people easier to manage.
Couple people? You mean on like Black Friday, right? Because on a standard day there's no way in hell we have more than one person there
Our store has three of us though that can competently multi-task well enough to not need help from the GSA/GSTL anywhere near as often as described by xxTheDudexx, though his store might do a lot more business than ours, we're a B volume store technically, but will be A after this year.
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Thanks everyone. It looks like this is going to be a lot of fun!
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Couple people? You mean on like Black Friday, right? Because on a standard day there's no way in hell we have more than one person there
Our store has three of us though that can competently multi-task well enough to not need help from the GSA/GSTL anywhere near as often as described by xxTheDudexx, though his store might do a lot more business than ours, we're a B volume store technically, but will be A after this year.
I thought IGS was for ULV stores?
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We're just low volume, thank god we haven't hit the u yet
B
Barcode
Guest
Couple people? You mean on like Black Friday, right? Because on a standard day there's no way in hell we have more than one person there
Our store has three of us though that can competently multi-task well enough to not need help from the GSA/GSTL anywhere near as often as described by xxTheDudexx, though his store might do a lot more business than ours, we're a B volume store technically, but will be A after this year.
I thought IGS was for ULV stores?
My store was like a B . Maaaaybe a C . We had igs (pfresh)
My AA super target didn't thank god....
Don' think so, we turned into iGS when we transitioned to Pfresh because Starbucks went where Guest Service used to be. We did 34.9 million in sales last year, IIRC 35+ mill is A (or higher obviously) so we were just barely a B store.
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Wow!
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We have had IGS for two years. One of the first stores to get it. Like everything, there are pros and cons. Now the service desk tms can help check out guests when there are no returns. On the flip side, guests doing returns can get pretty annoyed waiting behind guests making purchases. The complaints lessened over the months as guests got more used to it. We sent all the 3 tier carts to the Backroom. They were taking up too much room. We replaced with black wire shelving from the Salesfloor. Works great!
Rock Lobster
Executive Team Leader
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I have seen/heard of larger volume stores starting to get this now as well. The space where service desk was is pretty valuable and I think once Target figures out what drives the MOST sales in that area, they will realize it is more value added than a service desk in the corner. I have seen college shops, apples stores, and even liquor stores!
AnOkayName
TPS
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What is IGS? Still new to Target lol
I didn't know what it was till recently when someone asked me if my store was iGS either, we don't use the term at my store, but it is what we are I realized after searching.
It's "Integrated Guest Service".
As best as I am aware the differences are:
The Service Desk is right near the checklanes and registers 1, 2, and 3 are at the service desk, as such the service desk serves as a normal checkout in addition to everything guest service does at other stores. The service desk also isn't scheduled specific team members to work at it, they just schedule cashiers and then assign one of the scheduled cashiers to the service desk.
Seems iGS stores as such also tend to try and train a much larger percentage of their cashiers to work at the service desk as opposed to having specific people trained for it that work at it instead of at the checklanes. That might just be my store though and not iGS in general, but I've seen people on here who are GSA's and GSTL's mention that at their stores the vast majority of cashiers are never trained to work at the service desk, whereas here I know our GSTL wants everyone to be trained to work at the service desk (which is annoying because most of the people he has work at it are at best half-trained for the position and are much less adept at working there than the three cashiers we have that actually know the position inside and out).
Our GSTL usually waits before training people at the service desk though, but he wants any long-term cashier to be trained at it. ie. We currently have five cashiers I can think of off the top of my head who haven't been trained to work at the service desk, but if they all lasted a year from now I suspect they'd all have been trained to work at it by then.
Weird, we still have the two-tier carts, but we combined a few.
Toys and Electronics are now the same cart (one tier for each).
Pets/Chem are one tier, and HBA is one tier in another cart as well.
So instead of carts for 1-9, we have 1, 2/3, 4, 5, 6/7, 8, 9.
EDIT: Just realized you said three-tier carts, not two-tier, are these the same carts we're referring to? What we call two-tier carts have two baskets, and a flat third level on the bottom like a normal shopping cart bottom that bigger items can be put on.
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Couple people? You mean on like Black Friday, right? Because on a standard day there's no way in hell we have more than one person there
Our store has three of us though that can competently multi-task well enough to not need help from the GSA/GSTL anywhere near as often as described by xxTheDudexx, though his store might do a lot more business than ours, we're a B volume store technically, but will be A after this year.
I thought IGS was for ULV stores?
Unfortunately no. There is an A volume store in my area that has it. They do seem to always have two team members at IGS though so that's at least something.
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Don't count on it. They will either move the metrics so you are still a B store or will move the metrics so instead of gaining anyone, you'll simply be able to avoid losing anyone.
mrknownothing
purveyor of things
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Please, Target Gods, don't let this happen to my A+.
To paraphrase SpongeBob: You can take away my hours and my leaders, but when you take away my service desk, that's when I get mad!
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My store has had IGS for a little more than a year now, and I've exclusively worked up there the entire time. I still hate it now as much as the day we got it, but I've gotten very good at managing it. I have some tips.
1. Always be doing something. There are always defectives on the counter that need attention or maybe you can build a box to start putting defectives together. People I work with have the habit of letting returns build up too, and I don't understand it. We have the reshop carts right behind us. Kindly explain to the guest that you need to put the return away real quick, and then ring them up. The nifty sort screen after a return helps if you're new or unsure. It literally takes 2 seconds and I've never had anyone who was upset about me taking the two seconds to do that.
2. Ask for help. You will fall behind. IGS is designed in a way that you basically can't be ahead if you're on your own. Ask your GSA or GSTL if they have a cashier to spare (unlikely) or if they can ring for five minutes so you can catch up. You don't need two people constantly because it only takes a few minutes to clear a counter of crap, in my experience. Once you have it clear, you can pretty much keep it clear in between spurts of guests. Maybe some GSAs or GSTLs are less understanding than mine were, but keep trying to convince them. You just need to strike a balance where your supervisors know when they need to jump on real quick so you won't be bogged down forever. Without constant help IGS does not work. It barely works with it, but without it, it falls apart.
3. Make other team members pull their own weight. At the old service desk, I'd sort reshop carts, I'd repackage things, I'd zone nearby areas, etc. IGS doesn't really allow for that. Sales Floor and other team members need to sort their own carts and someone else needs to zone accessories and the dollar area. It just doesn't work otherwise. I try to help with repackage items still, but the people at my store pretty much know that I can't get to everything and they know when to bring it to me or just do it themselves. Obviously this is a lot of trial and error in a new IGS scenario, but in time you'll figure it out. It's also nice to show people how to defect things, but that backfires a lot for me. It's annoying when people don't read the screen and they donate melted ice cream or make a shattered mirror salvage, but occasionally I am surprised by the help I receive.
4. Know everything about the service desk. There are multiple ways to do pretty much everything. The PDA method of defecting things and printing barcodes is slow, but sometimes it's useful. Just be good at knowing what to do and how to do it with whatever tools you have at any given time. This all comes with experience, but I feel like a lot of my coworkers are scared of learning or just unable to think sometimes. The idea is to be fast about knowing what to do and actually doing it so that the work doesn't build up. Almost everything you do is reversible, so don't be afraid to make mistakes.
I'll think of more later, but really the most important thing is to always be doing something. Even in between guests. If someone returned a couple shirts that are now on clearance, go grab the tags, stick them on the shirts, throw them in the softlines cart, and help the guest. It takes all of ten seconds in most cases. Now, I will say, I don't send back the neatest looking reshop carts because I'm so quick with it, but it barely matters most of the time. At my store we have a bunch of three tier carts that the sales floor people then transfer to regular carts, so who cares if the three tier is messy. You're going to take the stuff out of there anyway. I'm sure other stores have more logical ways of doing it (maybe not though...).
I was regular old service desk for a year before IGS, and I loved it. IGS made me hate it, but I'm the only one of the old service desk people who actually learned how to live with it, so I'm still always up there no matter what. You get used to it, but you'll never stop hating it.
1. Always be doing something. There are always defectives on the counter that need attention or maybe you can build a box to start putting defectives together. People I work with have the habit of letting returns build up too, and I don't understand it. We have the reshop carts right behind us. Kindly explain to the guest that you need to put the return away real quick, and then ring them up. The nifty sort screen after a return helps if you're new or unsure. It literally takes 2 seconds and I've never had anyone who was upset about me taking the two seconds to do that.
2. Ask for help. You will fall behind. IGS is designed in a way that you basically can't be ahead if you're on your own. Ask your GSA or GSTL if they have a cashier to spare (unlikely) or if they can ring for five minutes so you can catch up. You don't need two people constantly because it only takes a few minutes to clear a counter of crap, in my experience. Once you have it clear, you can pretty much keep it clear in between spurts of guests. Maybe some GSAs or GSTLs are less understanding than mine were, but keep trying to convince them. You just need to strike a balance where your supervisors know when they need to jump on real quick so you won't be bogged down forever. Without constant help IGS does not work. It barely works with it, but without it, it falls apart.
3. Make other team members pull their own weight. At the old service desk, I'd sort reshop carts, I'd repackage things, I'd zone nearby areas, etc. IGS doesn't really allow for that. Sales Floor and other team members need to sort their own carts and someone else needs to zone accessories and the dollar area. It just doesn't work otherwise. I try to help with repackage items still, but the people at my store pretty much know that I can't get to everything and they know when to bring it to me or just do it themselves. Obviously this is a lot of trial and error in a new IGS scenario, but in time you'll figure it out. It's also nice to show people how to defect things, but that backfires a lot for me. It's annoying when people don't read the screen and they donate melted ice cream or make a shattered mirror salvage, but occasionally I am surprised by the help I receive.
4. Know everything about the service desk. There are multiple ways to do pretty much everything. The PDA method of defecting things and printing barcodes is slow, but sometimes it's useful. Just be good at knowing what to do and how to do it with whatever tools you have at any given time. This all comes with experience, but I feel like a lot of my coworkers are scared of learning or just unable to think sometimes. The idea is to be fast about knowing what to do and actually doing it so that the work doesn't build up. Almost everything you do is reversible, so don't be afraid to make mistakes.
I'll think of more later, but really the most important thing is to always be doing something. Even in between guests. If someone returned a couple shirts that are now on clearance, go grab the tags, stick them on the shirts, throw them in the softlines cart, and help the guest. It takes all of ten seconds in most cases. Now, I will say, I don't send back the neatest looking reshop carts because I'm so quick with it, but it barely matters most of the time. At my store we have a bunch of three tier carts that the sales floor people then transfer to regular carts, so who cares if the three tier is messy. You're going to take the stuff out of there anyway. I'm sure other stores have more logical ways of doing it (maybe not though...).
I was regular old service desk for a year before IGS, and I loved it. IGS made me hate it, but I'm the only one of the old service desk people who actually learned how to live with it, so I'm still always up there no matter what. You get used to it, but you'll never stop hating it.
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