Archived Service Desk Training?

[Nauzhror]

I'm actually curious. I keep seeing people mention "Service Desk" shifts.

Are they actually scheduled as such?

My shifts always say cashier on the schedule, so do the shifts of everyone else that works the service desk yet 95% of the time "Cashier" means service desk for me, the only exception is when the actual GSTL is in charge, not sure why, but he puts me on a lane about 50% of the time whereas the 3 GSA's and Sr. TL never put me anywhere but service desk.

 

[Retail Girl]

Our store schedules people at service desk under "service desk". If you are scheduled under cashier, that means that you are cashiering.

 

[Nauzhror]

Our store schedules people at service desk under "service desk". If you are scheduled under cashier, that means that you are cashiering.

Odd, I just always walk over to the service desk when I get to work, check when my breaks are, and then ask the GSA/GSTL where they want me, schedule always says cashier, does for the only other "primary" service desk cashier we have as well.

There's several people at our store that occasionally work guest service, I think 10 team members that have guest service access and 2-3 others that don't, but occasionally work guest service (not counting all the people with supervisor access), but there's only two of us that work there during the vast majority of their shifts, and none of us are ever scheduled as service desk.

Not sure if our store has need for more GSA's/GSTL's (does a Sr. TL serving as one fairly often signify that it does?), and I've debating inquiring about becoming a GSA, but figured if the other girl hadn't been promoted to GSA yet that my chances weren't very good. she's worked at Target for 4 years, she's 20 and has worked at this store since she was 16.

There's only three reasons I can come up with for her still being a cashier and not a GSA/GSTL.

1.) She doesn't care to move up the ladder.

2.) She is very strict when it comes to the rules, she often angers guests by strictly sticking to the rules - I don't, I do my best to bend the rules when it seems reasonable to do so and find ways to make guests happy. The STL does the same, anytime the aforementioned cashier calls the STL over he immediately gives the guest whatever the guest wants.

3.) She's got a bit of a temper, and is generally known as someone you do NOT want angry at you.

Despite #2 and #3 though she is quite often a "top performer" and is often team member of the month - though I'm not really sure that that really means much since it seems most departments have 1 team member of the month, except...guest service, we had 4 in November, two of which were her and I.

 

[Retail Girl]

So do they just do the cashier schedule and hope there will be someone scheduled who can do guest services at the appropriate times? Most of our cashiers are not guest service trained and never will be...so that would make doing a schedule pretty dicey, IMO.

 

[redandkhaki]

So do they just do the cashier schedule and hope there will be someone scheduled who can do guest services at the appropriate times? Most of our cashiers are not guest service trained and never will be...so that would make doing a schedule pretty dicey, IMO.

I can't even imagine doing the schedule like that.

 

[Nauzhror]

So do they just do the cashier schedule and hope there will be someone scheduled who can do guest services at the appropriate times? Most of our cashiers are not guest service trained and never will be...so that would make doing a schedule pretty dicey, IMO.

I think they likely have people in mind who are guest service trained, and try to have at least one scheduled at all times, but they don't specifically label their shifts as "service desk".

I actually am curious about one part of your post:

Most of our cashiers are not guest service trained and never will be

What generally determines who does become trained to work the service desk in your store?

I actually was disappointed when 2-3 people hired after me worked the service desk before I did (none of which work at it currently even half as many ours a week as I do, and none of which were ever trained to work at FA afterwards either), but assumed that the general intention was to have all cashiers trained to work at the service desk even if they weren't likely to ever work the majority of their shifts there as opposed to only training a small portion of them ever.

I did assume those newer cashiers that were worked at it before I did had some quality the GSTL was looking for that he felt I didn't, but wasn't sure what it was, and figured that the qualities likely determined the order of who got traind, not whether you'd ever be trained or not.

The GSTL actually never showed interest in me working at the service desk or in food ave until he came in found out one of the GSA's had already trained me to do so without him being aware, it was one of the GSA's I get along with very well (older lady that I joke along with on daily basis, she initially used to ask me if I understand what my goal was as a cashier and teased that my job was to sell, not to collect and discourage guests from buying items every time my reshop bin would be full) that initially decided it was time I learned to do more than cashier. Likely explains why the GSTL is the only person to ever toss me on a lane regularly.

 

[redeye58]

More than weird.
Our store has certain TMs keyed for service desk (GS trained, have GS clearance, etc). The GSTLs/GSAs will have a few they know they can use in case of call-outs but service desk has always had a schedule.

 

[Retail Girl]

Most of our cashiers cannot/will not problem solve. There is no drive to think beyond what the register tells them. Most of them are wonderful people (a few of the little old ladies need to stop complaining and retire), but if the register can't tell them what to do, they feel the need to call over the GSA/GSTL to hold their hand.

For example:
If the register denies the coupon but you are holding the item in your hand, accept the coupon.
If there is a dollar descrepency between what the product rings up and what the guest says, fix it.
If the guest tells you after the fact they need a gift receipt, print it instead of sending them to guest services.
If you are running low on change and the GSA/GSTL cannot get free to get you change, move to a different register (and for the love of God, the world is not ending).
If there are strays sitting on the endcap next to where you are standing waiting for the next guest, don't ignore them until the GSA comes along and suggests picking them up.
Don't panic when you have a REDCard application and you have another guest in line.
Pull your speed score up into green occasionally.
Stop treating every issue as a national emergency.

Obviously not every cashier does every one of these things, but you get the picture. If you don't have a little bit of motivation and willingness to think, we really don't want you at guest services.

 

[Nauzhror]

Makes sense, suppose I don't notice those things as much because I am rarely the one going over to cashiers to solve their "problems".

My speed score averages ~96, I have very infrequently went 100+ G's in a row, but more often than not a guest will prevent that from happening by searching their purse for several minutes for the right card, or their ID, or something else. Oftentimes I cheat and just his suspend till they are done, but that doesn't work if they have any items which required I check their ID to purchase since such transactions can't be suspended.

I do however definitely have people come to guest service with issues that the cashier could have easily fixed if they weren't afraid to think for themselves. ie. I forgot to give the cashier this coupon, I need a gift receipt, I was charged twice for an item, etc.

Sometimes I probably go too far towards taking the initiative to think or myself though than some people might like. I dislike relying on others, if something makes sense to me; I do it.

ie. I just ran out of singles, the lane next to me is empty, the GSTL is busy: I will grab a $20 from my drawer, walk over to an unused register, open it, pull out 20 $1 bills, and put the $20 in that drawer in its place - no harm done, but I'd bet it's probably against what i deemed "best practice" even though I've never been told off for doing so. Switching registers as you mentioned is an alternative, but I usually want to avoid making the people in my line put everything back in their carts and follow me to the new register.

 

[Retail Girl]

Oh, I know...sometimes it is impossible to switch registers. But there are times when I'm busy at guest services, I'm getting carts, or I'm otherwise tied up, and the cashier (who is not busy) will come over and declare they are out of something. Then I ask them to move registers for a bit until I can get to them, and they have a mini-meltdown.

 

[Nauzhror]

The whole "Switch registers" thing does make me wonder though. When ten cashiers are on a single drawer in a day, how likely are they to actually know which one pocketed $200 out of the drawer when it comes up massively short?

I know theirs cameras, but as far as I understand no one is sitting their watching them constantly, it's more of a scenario where they are recorded, and if something happens then the recordings can be checked, but in that instance they are going to wind up paying the AP member more than $200 in time worked for him to sit down and watch the recordings to find out which cashier stole the money (or severely fucked up somehow).

Don't get me wrong, I'm not plotting to start snagging money from drawers with the assumption they'll never catch me, but when I first started working here I was rather shocked at the frequency with which people changed registers, and wondered what stopped them from assuming I'd stolen money if/when someone else who was on the same lane as me during the day did so.

 

[Retail Girl]

Those are the questions AP doesn't like us asking. In all honesty, they probably run the film to see if anything major pops out. After that, they probably note who was on the register and then start looking for patterns. Because if someone does it once, they will do it again...only now they can look to see who was on the register last time and who was on it this time and start narrowing things down. This is just a guess though...they have a lot of security measures down that simply amaze me.

I make it easy for them...when I do things that I know are going to flag someone, I let ap know as soon as possible so we can all save some time, they can check the film to check out my story if they feel it's necessary, and we can discuss why it happened and if something different should be done next time.

 

[redeye58]

Between AP & CSA, there are ways.
The cashiers that were busted never did it 'just once'.

 

[Nauzhror]

I make it easy for them...when I do things that I know are going to flag someone, I let ap know as soon as possible so we can all save some time, they can check the film to check out my story if they feel it's necessary, and we can discuss why it happened and if something different should be done next time.

My GSTL does his as well. The last time was a $1,200-$1,500 purchase the weekend when we had the 10% off coupon to scan for every guest. I got the guest to sign up for a red card, they got the "needs 7-10 days to verify application" message. Standard process here is to give them 5% off manually on that purchase in such instances. Let's just say that keying in a $60-$70 coupon doesn't work as expected, it's not even that it asks for a supervisor override, it just flat out says, "Uhh, no, that's way too big for a coupon" so the GSTL had to come over and have me suspend the transaction and do silly things with their transaction to make it work.

 

[Retail Girl]

Yeah, we used to give the 5% off manually as well to those who had to wait for a decision. Then they sent down a notice that anyone who was caught doing that would be termed. So now if the ETL wants to override that and do it, I make them do it under their own numbers.

 

[redeye58]

"Uhh, no, that's way too big for a coupon"

Could imagine the register balking & saying that .. lol

 

[Nauzhror]

Yeah, we used to give the 5% off manually as well to those who had to wait for a decision. Then they sent down a notice that anyone who was caught doing that would be termed. So now if the ETL wants to override that and do it, I make them do it under their own numbers.

Hmm, weird, I do it, but usually call over the GSTL or GSA so they know I'm doing so, I assume safe to do so unless I've been warned not to? I can't imagine them immediately firing me for doing something I was never told not to do (as opposed to something I did after being told not to do).

I probably did show up on AP's radar the same weekend actually because of a few other guests. We were open till 12:00, and had guests in line till 12:10, I was manually doing 10% off on those guests purchases, one was also a red card attempt that needed cerification so I manally took 14.5% off of his, but no GSTL was around, so it looked something like this to avoid needing a supervisor override:

$150 purchase

$5.00 target coupon
$5.00 target coupon
$5.00 target coupon
$5.00 target coupon
$1.75 target coupon

I thought about holding up the line for a supervisor to show up, but said screw it, if anyone asks why I did it I can explain it to them

 

[HardlinesFour]

The whole "Switch registers" thing does make me wonder though. When ten cashiers are on a single drawer in a day, how likely are they to actually know which one pocketed $200 out of the drawer when it comes up massively short?

I know theirs cameras, but as far as I understand no one is sitting their watching them constantly, it's more of a scenario where they are recorded, and if something happens then the recordings can be checked, but in that instance they are going to wind up paying the AP member more than $200 in time worked for him to sit down and watch the recordings to find out which cashier stole the money (or severely fucked up somehow).

There is a Camera over every register that clearly captures a shot of your hands, the drawer, and the scanner. What's even better, is if we think your up to something, I can pull up your register screen instantly, and watch you in real time pretend to scan items. There's also something called Cash Register reports, that come through our computers to notify us when there is a shortage. Since most stores have DVRs now, it takes just seconds to pull up the video, and fast forward to the right moment.

Don't try to pull things over on AP. I've seen quite a few allow a cashier to keep stealing until they hit felony amount, and nail them than. Not to mention, if your caught, you'll get fired, and they'll put your name into a retail theft database, so other retailers will see it if you apply elsewhere.

 

[HardlinesFour]

"Uhh, no, that's way too big for a coupon"

Could imagine the register balking & saying that .. lol

I've seen some go "Coupon AMT Too Much. Approval Needed"

 

[Nauzhror]

There's also something called Cash Register reports, that come through our computers to notify us when there is a shortage. Since most stores have DVRs now, it takes just seconds to pull up the video, and fast forward to the right moment.

I'm not sure I understand this.

Surely the register itself can't know how much money is in it at any given time. How much should be in it sure, but not how much is in it, as such knowing when money was removed that shouldn't have been seems...rather tricky.

Due to that, knowing what the "right moment" is seems like something that'd take quite a lot of watching videos of that registers recording closely.

"Uhh, no, that's way too big for a coupon"

Could imagine the register balking & saying that .. lol

I've seen some go "Coupon AMT Too Much. Approval Needed"

I've had that happen around the $30 mark, it was the $60+ amount that it just flat out refused, no supervisor override option even.

Overall I'm a very "honest" person, but I wouldn't be shocked if I eventually got fired because to me the "spirit" of rules matters much more to me than the verbiage of the rules does. If something seems rational to me I tend to do it and not care as much whether the wording of the rules says I shouldn't do it.

 

[redandkhaki]

you can do coupons up to 100 dollars off at the register. Not sure why it wouldn't work for you but that's the max amount. If you need to do more than 100 you need to split after 100.

 

[HardlinesFour]

[video=youtube;rzJzki5i6Q8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzJzki5i6Q8[/video]

 

[Nauzhror]

That video doesn't really answer those questions.

Yeah, it shows their are cameras zoomed in enough to see detailed images, but unless someone is sitting and watching them when someone steals that's not that useful, and if they aren't then going back and watching the video for an entire day to see when the money disappeared seems likely to e more effort than it is worth unless it was a large amount missing.

I'm a very curious person, I actually think AP is something I'd enjoy working in, but I assume it likely has requirements that I don't currently meet, plus as far as I know our store pretty much just has the one AP member and he's APTL. I've seen one other TL wearing a TPS jacket, but he's not officially part of the AP team and I've never seen anyone but the APTL who is at our store.

 

[HardlinesFour]

you can do coupons up to 100 dollars off at the register. Not sure why it wouldn't work for you but that's the max amount. If you need to do more than 100 you need to split after 100.

Just make sure (when there that amount) that there Legit.

 

[HardlinesFour]

That video doesn't really answer those questions.

Yeah, it shows their are cameras zoomed in enough to see detailed images, but unless someone is sitting and watching them when someone steals that's not that useful, and if they aren't then going back and watching the video for an entire day to see when the money disappeared seems likely to e more effort than it is worth unless it was a large amount missing.

You know, I'm just going to say this. Go ahead, steal the whole cash drawer if you want. Please don't come back and here, and say, "why didn't you guys warn me". POS is designed to know the amount it starts with, refilled with, and ends with everyday. I'm not going any further into this.