Archived Taking items up to the registers for guests

[Guest]

This happens a lot at the store where I serve time at. Personally, I think it's a waste of time and slows down the flow of the cash registers which can create backups. I can understand if you are at a grocery store and forget bread or milk because grocery stores are usually smaller than Targets. In my opinion, you should just suck it up and come back through the line again. I know Target loves to treat guests like royalty but the amount of the bending over backwards for guests is just ridiculous.

I hear on the walkie talkie sometimes about a guest forgetting a 12 pack of some soda and a team member having to go all the way to receiving to get it. That is just way too time consuming and slows the cash registers down. You forget your product that you wanted, tough poo poo.

 

[KhakiPants]

When I cashier, a lot of that depends from situation to situation. If it is just something like they forgot bread I will usually word it more along the lines of "Do YOU want to go back and get another one?" And then I usually offer to hold their stuff at the register and suspend the transaction while they go grab it (a lot of times people are fussy about having everything on one receipt, so I wait to finish the transaction and I also don't like a full cart of bagged groceries going back through the store from a loss prevention standpoint.) Usually when I word it like that the guest will go grab it on their own. However if they ask instead for it to be brought up, I'm not going to say no. However, sometimes I will spot some mold or a damaged product, know that if they buy just one more they get some kind of special promotion, or the guest is elderly, handicapped, or has a bunch of tired kids, and in those situations I'll offer to have one brought up. If I already have one of the product up at the register I'll go ahead and ring it, so we aren't waiting for the other one to pay. Plus whoever is watching the front will usually meet grocery halfway for the item.

I know it is annoying for you, and not to sound like a corporate stooge or anything, but that is usually a really good moment for the guest when we do this for them. The vast majority of people who I help out with this are super grateful and leave with a smile on their face. Plus, like, driving sales, you know? Plus, my main work center is the service desk and every time I see a damaged product or trying to add something to get a promotion on an already completed receipt, I just know that is more work for me later. A lot of this is just trying to create less of a hassle in the long run.

 

[gun runner]

One of the last ones I remember before I left was a damn car seat. The guest picked out one with a pretty damaged box which for car seats usually means they're just fine anyway. They took it all the way up front and then decided they wanted one with a nice box.

I only rushed doing these because I knew the poor cashier was standing there having to stare at the lamesauce guest making everyone's life more difficult.

 

[spoilers]

Everything @KhakiPants said! If it's happening a lot at your store, that may be an issue your front end needs to deal with, but I call for a TM to bring something up maybe once a week at most. It's definitely in the way the cashier words it, if it's something on their end I'll say "if you'd like I can suspend this and hold your things up here while you grab one, or you can pay for this and come back." They rarely ever ask for someone to bring it up because they've already admitted it was their fault. If it's damaged, a drastically wrong price, or something on our end, I'll offer to call to make it better in their minds... as khakipants stated, they usually leave happier.
But if your cashiers are hearing that a guest forgot to pick up soda and immediately jump for a walkie to call the salesfloor, they're being too nice IMO

 

[buliSBI]

Agreed. Especially for requests over the phone from guests wanting stuff waiting on them at the front as soon as they come in.

If it was something real simple to bring up that a guest just forgot. No problem. Bread, soda, milk, elderly guest or a damaged producted. But if the guest wanted another style sheets or towel, something that would take a while to describe and I didn't have the numbers, then I would direct the guests back to the floor to get it themselves. Its more trouble to figure out where something is than suggesting to the guest they need to go find it themselves.

I loved my first store, the only time we were to bring items to the front or pull an item for a guest is if the guest was in the store. If the guest called from another store asking if we could hold an on sale TV, we told them we do not hold any items that we store in our backroom or pull unless the guest is in the store.

That store had a strict hold policy in which we did not hold any clearance, backroom, or seasonal merchandise. As we did not want to pull any items and risk the guest not show up or take the sale from a guest already in the store.

Then my last store allowed anything to be put on hold, or bring up to a TV for a guest on their way. We had hold bins overflowing and and then all the flats would be used up for guests coming in.

 

[AllThingsTarget101]

We suspend it and help guests while waiting on the item if at all possible, the process doesn't usually cause a backup for us unless there is a reason we cannot suspend it like alcohol already rung up.

 

[oath2order]

My store rarely has this happen, but after having to get items for guests at the registers numerous times on one extremely busy day (overflowing push line, reshop was piling up), I pretty much just told off the GSTL that if they had guests who wanted something when they were at the registers, they needed to get it themselves. She stopped calling for this.

By far, one of the worst days I've ever worked.

 

[Super]

I've dealt with this..and tbh guests will take advantage of the situation and rather than have one pissed off guest go and complain to the front end leader at the time. You do it and they know that's how it works and use it too

Sometimes I feel like the guests have more power then us tiny TM's

Dat Vibe...

 

[Triscuit]

I had a guest once say she forgot something and had to run back to get it. It was slow so i was like whatever. i suspended the transaction and i just turned off my light for a minute until she finally came back. she comes back with it and decides that she needs to go get some juice too. so she leaves once again to go get it. Really? So i have all her bags sitting on the counter and it starts to get busy so i ring up guests that are now in my line and she comes back and tries to cut in front of everyone so she could purchase her juice. i was like uhh no you have to wait behind everyone else.