$15 off your purchase if you’re instantly approved for a store credit card when you put your purchase on it. We thought this was a simple and easy to grasp concept.
APPARENTLY NOT.
We have a store credit card done through VISA that we push. One of the selling points is that if the customer is approved for it instantly in store, they get a $15 discount for their first purchase with that card. There are, naturally, some caveats to this. The card is an actual VISA credit card, which some people seem to not realize, so you have to have some semblance of decent credit and steady income. We cannot process an application that will be approved with a PO box; Those will either be outright denied or put on pending and sent further information through mail. We need to have a physical address. We have no control over any of the credit card stuff, when the actual card is received, what your limit is, when it expires, what address they send it to, nope, nada, zilch and we can’t change any of that because VISA is a separate company.
Had a lady today that understood exactly none of those ideas.
She insisted I use her PO box instead of her physical address, even after I told her that it wouldn’t be approved that way. I even asked two people, who she heard give the same answer, for the same reasons. She attempted to insist I do the application process again, but use her physical address and just call the card people to tell them where to really mail it. …Uh. No. VISA would laugh if we even tried. Then she said she was supposed to get the $15 off even if she wasn’t approved because she applied and that’s all we advertised. …Also NOPE, she was shown as least twice on the application pamphlet where it says you have to be approved. Our in store advertising says too, for crying out loud, it plays like twice an hour. And then, it was false advertising that she couldn’t put the purchase on whatever card she wanted instead of the VISA. Then, she wanted to know if we would redo the whole transaction and give her the $15 when she SURELY got the card in the mail with the $15 off coupon. There isn’t a coupon, VISA and my store are different companies and I just wanted to rip my hair out.
That was the point when one of the other customer service cashiers took over because I was fucking done with the woman.
Quick and easy ways to get on a customer service cashier’s nerves: Don’t listen, don’t accept reality and lie to my face about what we both know that I told you.
She finally checked out with yet another cashier she decided to yell at and demanded our corporate number.
Yeah sure, lady, you go complain to corporate about how we wouldn’t let you just have $15 and the VISA people are discriminating because you have a PO box and don’t want anyone to know where you live or some raving crap.
I dread the day she comes storming back saying she didn’t get her non-existent coupon or there must have a mistake she wasn’t approved.
…Actually, on the latter, I’d kind of be looking forward to it. I’d kinda sorta really fucking want to be the one to smile at her and tell her WELP, SORRY ABOUT THAT, TAKE IT UP WITH VISA, NO DISCOUNTS FOR YOU.
This card says it expired last month, but I just want to try it and make sure.
...
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Yessir, just swipe it through.
/swipes
THAT CARD IS EXPIRED
That card is in fact expired, sir.
How about that. Alrighty! I'll use the new one!
'The hell just happened.
Sir. SIR.
Follow me here. I’m not trying to overcharge you or charge your card twice or find out your apparently nonexistent PIN number.
Just go with me on this one, I KNOW it sounds crazy.
If you want to run your debit card as credit, you HAVE to hit the credit option on the card reader. Yes, I’m sure, you tried hitting the debit button to run it as credit twice and you’re just CERTAIN it’s going to work this time, but humor me, give it a try.
Oh, lookie there, it worked.
I know, these things are all different and none of them are the same, how about that, you had to hit CREDIT, here ya go, just sign the screen, there’s your bag and your receipt and have a nice day…
…somewhere else.
No, Ma’am, I did not throw your change at you. I put your change and receipt in your hand, as I do with every customer I help that pays with cash.
Hate to break it to you, but you’re just not that special to me for me to get angry at you.
Context: Lady comes up to my register for cashing out while talking on her cell phone. Not unusual. Ring her up, tell her her total, she gives me money, I get her her change. I put the change and her receipt in her free hand and she looks up and asks if I’m okay.
I assumed she was referring to my not saying anything. I just smile and say I didn’t want to be rude and interrupt her phone call. She says, no, it looked like you threw that at me.
…
Lady, why would I even.
Second, I work at a sporting goods store. If I was throwing something at you, you and everyone around us would know it.
Third, if I was going to throw something at you, I would have used the silver dollars I happened to get this morning.
I told all of my team leads and every customer service cashier about this lady, just in case she called to complain. They all double-taked at me and laughed. YOU, DO WHAT? PSH, DON’T EVEN WORRY ABOUT IT.
In hindsight, maybe I should have faked labor pains or something. Would have broken up the monotony.
No, ma’am, that isn’t a clearance sticker. There’s a sticker over here that clearly says “CLEARANCE” and has a price on it in large print. The much smaller sticker you have pointed out to me has a date on it. It’s a return sticker. So no, no I will not change the price of these shoes to 3/12/12. That isn’t even a decimal number.
You can’t be nasty and condescending to people and then expect them to bend over backwards for you. This isn’t how the world works.
If you come up to my register and ask me nicely about something, I will do everything in my power to help you and even bend a rule in your favor if something is in a grey area. Such as an item having one price on a tag and another where it and other items like it are displayed. If you’re nice and it isn’t a big difference, I’ll go with the smaller price.
But if you’re rude, interrupt me when I’m trying to figure out what exact pair of shinguards and soccer balls are on sale for two for $10 (a sale that I knew didn’t exist in the first place, but benefit of the doubt), and tell me like I’m a five year old to hang up the phone while I’m speaking with another associate regarding your transaction and ring you up, no, no I am not just going to change prices willy nilly for you. I don’t care if it’s “only five dollars”.
If it’s “only five dollars” why don’t you just pay it?
You also don’t get any points if you take down a sale display and wait in line to show it to me and how it proves I and my computer are wrong.
You get negative points if the sign actually proves me right. And the sign doesn’t say “two for ten” or anything to that effect on it and clearly excludes both items in question that you selected.
You lose if you still insist you’re right. Game over, please insert coin, go bother someone else with this, because you’re obviously not listening to me.
So. I had a customer pay a higher price for an item because she decided instead of letting me call a department for a price check, she wanted to throw a little hissy fit that she didn’t want to walk all the way back to where she had picked up her item for a price check…even though I said I would call them. It would have also taken maybe two minutes as the store was closed and they were maybe our second to last customers in the store.
But sure thing, lady, swipe your card and walk away, I certainly won’t stop you leaving. Your impatience and rudeness just cost you ten dollars.
And her friends were just as dumbfounded as I was.
I remove clothing from hangers automatically so I can fold said clothing and put it neatly in a bag. This is just reflex for me, not really company policy or anything. I do ask if customers want their hangers first though, because some people do.
But if they ignore me, I just go on autopilot and take them off. Which is what happened with a couple I had to today, until suddenly-
Excuse me, if there any way we could keep those hangers?
All you have to do is say so.
Good we'd like to keep them.
...
I was very confused. If I valued my job a little bit less, I would have made up three wacky trials for them to go through to earn their legendary hangers of hanging. Seriously, am I so "beneath" you, you can't answer a question relevant to your own desires?
I want a diet coke.
...Okay, the cooler is ten feet from my register. I need a bottle to ring up. No, I can't just take the money and ring up one after you leave, nor do I have the sku or upc memorized. I know that given we have buttons on our computer screens to let us ring up certain heavy and possibly hard to lift items (like our 24 packs of bottled water) or things we don't necessarily have barcodes on (CO2 would be hard to tag), it might be reasonable to think we have drinks on there, but yes, we need the individual bottled drinks. At least one of every type you want. I don't mind ringing one up twice and letting you pick up the second on your way out, but I do need that initial bottle.
Luckily I'm not a lazy fuck and when you stare at me blankly when I say I need the bottle, I don't mind walking the ten feet to grab one.
But you bet your ass I am going to take my time counting your exact change twice.
Yes sir, I have to count what you give me twice, it's company policy for register operations.
It happens almost without fail.
If I have a day off I have no plans for and I’m just sitting around the house, nothin’.
But if I have plans or am out of town?
RING RING HEY DO YOU WANT SOME EXTRA HOURS CAN YOU COME IN PLEASE
I felt bad about it this time though. It was the really nice and helpful team lead that called me and he sounded so disappointed when I said no.
