Archived Service Ambassador

[HLN13]

Hey everyone - my store is going through a remodel and my ETL recently talked to me about becoming a service ambassador — she said it would be a solid 40 hours and that we just guest service people.

I’m wondering if anyone has ever done this position before and what they thought of it?

It seems pretty boring just helping people find stuff all day, but a guaranteed 40 every schedule like she mentioned is somewhat appealing?

 

[Yetive]

It's as boring as you make it. As long as you like talking to guests for 40 hours, you will like it. It is pretty easy, a good schedule, and 40 hours. Don't get in the habit of talking to other tms instead of guests though, because your leaders will hate it. Potentially, Ambassador gives you more visibility with your store leaders as well.

 

[Fluttervale]

Ours did reshop too.

 

[IWishIKnew]

It can be easy, as long as you keep track of where stuff moves to. Your job will (largely) be to help take the pressure of HL folks in helping take a lot of guest service questions, answer call boxes, etc. while HL does their normal stuff (plus push extra freight and try to figure out where to put stuff when there's no location, etc.). Since you're HL already, you'll probably be really good at it, but my store tends to put front end people in that role and it kind of sucks because they don't know where anything is and aren't always really good at figuring it out, so now we're answering their questions over the walkie on top of everything else.

A good service ambassador is a godsend to hardlines. The ones that get put in that role because their workcenters don't want them there, well, that goes about as well as you'd expect.

(Not to slag on the front end, as we have one SA who is a cashier who is stellar, but she's a rock star in general. The rest of the front end group tend to be okay, but need a ton of handholding to find stuff. The worse is a SL TM who, I swear to god, walkies every fucking request for some reason or another "just to be sure" or some shit or she asks where something is, we tell her, and she asks again, and again, and again. OMG, woman, it's your fucking job to know where things are! Shut up and do your job!")

 

[IWishIKnew]

They're starting to have the SA zone and do reshop and stuff if it's not too busy, or cover electronics/H&B (if that is their normal work center). That's a fairly recent development, though, as the store has gotten more chaotic and HL can't keep up.

 

[HLN13]

They're starting to have the SA zone and do reshop and stuff if it's not too busy, or cover electronics/H&B (if that is their normal work center). That's a fairly recent development, though, as the store has gotten more chaotic and HL can't keep up.

Personally, I wouldn’t mind this, but my ETL made it very clear that we would NOT be zoning, doing reshop, covering breaks, etc. I guess maybe it will change once the remodel actually start starts. (Crew is just about wrapped up setting things up in the parking lot, I believe we officially begin next Monday)

 

[IWishIKnew]

Personally, I wouldn’t mind this, but my ETL made it very clear that we would NOT be zoning, doing reshop, covering breaks, etc. I guess maybe it will change once the remodel actually start starts. (Crew is just about wrapped up setting things up in the parking lot, I believe we officially begin next Monday)

Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh...that was the case for us until about the last week or so. I can't speak for day shifts, but after about 8pm or so, when foot traffic slows down, they've been having SAs help out a bit. They're still to focus primarily on guest service, but they added 2 sections to the HL zoning responsibilities and no additional staff and it's a mess. The SAs are pretty bored that time of night, anyway, so it's not been a big deal for them.

 

[HLN13]

Yeeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh...that was the case for us until about the last week or so. I can't speak for day shifts, but after about 8pm or so, when foot traffic slows down, they've been having SAs help out a bit. They're still to focus primarily on guest service, but they added 2 sections to the HL zoning responsibilities and no additional staff and it's a mess. The SAs are pretty bored that time of night, anyway, so it's not been a big deal for them.

Makes sense. Are you at one of the MN stores going through the 10million remodel?

 

[IWishIKnew]

Is the $10 million the full remodel? We're in the midst of that now, yes.

 

[Amanda Cantwell]

Have the target app on your phone and a zebra with you at all times to help guests find where stuff is.

 

[Yetive]

I would say have a my checkout too.

 

[BadWolf4531]

I did this years ago when my old store did their P-Fresh remodel. It wasn’t bad. We had clipboards with store maps on them that were updated daily to show us which departments hadn’t been touched, which had already moved, and which were in transition. If I remember correctly we weren’t allowed to push reshop or respond for backup, so if there weren’t any guests on the floor it got kind of boring.