Please answer your phone

Hay hay hay

Well-known Member
I try not to waste my time and fuel driving 30 miles to a store to see if they have what I need. Example: Do you have 7ft T posts in stock? Do you have orchard grass seed in stock? Do you have 19-19-19 fertilizer in bags? So I often call to check, and the call might last only 30 seconds.

It is surprising how hap-hazard many stores are in answering their phones and how little many of the clerks know, when or if they do answer.

Is this a local issue or is it common way of doing business everywhere?
 
Most chain stores now have online web sites where you can check if an item is in stock. Now-a-days an email or text will gets me a faster response than any phone call.
 
Yeah because I like to stand in line waiting to check out while the clerk is running in the back to check stock for some guy on the phone.
 
The slaughter house made that mistake just one time. I took some cattle in one morning. They got their wires crosses somewhere along the line and thought they had to come and pick them up. We had a phone call when we got home saying when they'd be here. We tried to call them at least eight times to tell them we had already dropped them off. They showed up then while I was in the field and the wife was gone. They left a note on the door saying that we would have to reschedule or drop them off ourselves. The wife finally got ahold of them the next day and told them what was going on. I guess the guy who answered the phone didn't even wait to start yelling at the staff for not answering the phone the day before.
 
It is slow but still faster than driving to town, at least for me. Many folks at the stores have no idea what I'm asking about, but that is just our modern world, unfortunately. Some know what I mean, and some know more than I do about what I'm buying, so it all works out in the end.
Zach
 
Low pay pretty much goes along with most retail outlets these days and most stores I go to are begging for help,and they are usually short handed.So it all adds up to minimum service by employees that may or may not know much about the business where they work.Good help and enough help translates into higher prices and most buyers go to the place with the lowest price.
The old adage that you get what you pay for or at least if you don't pay for good service you more than likely won't get it these days.
Having a farm in semi-suburbia has its advantages within ten minutes of my farm there is a Lowes,Tractor Supply,excellent plumbing supply,Super Walmart and 4 name brand auto stores.
So at least my wasted trip doesn't take long.
 
Trouble is too,if somebody with ambition goes to work for one of those chain stores and wants to stay with them and climb the ladder,management feels threatened by them and finds a reason to get rid of them,one way or another. I know that from personal experience from the short time that my youngest son worked at TSC. He had no problem with in store management,it was the district manager who finally found a reason,after he couldn't force him to quit with a bunch of BS.
 
Low pay in retail is a recent trend? Just curious - when was it a high paying job? 30 years ago I remember my sisters working for a local mom and pop in a small town. They got paid minimum wage and had to punch out at closing time even though they ended up working half an hour to an hour off the clock to after the door was locked. When Wal-Mart came to town they wondered why all their help quit and went to work for them.
 
Yes, a friend of mine was trying to use that online inventory at 3 different Menards stores last week to check on paint. Went to each store because they claimed to have 9 gallons of the paint he needed and when he got to the stores one store had 0, one store had 1 gallon and another store had 1 gallon. None of the online inventories were worth anything to him. That's the typical experience I have with anything online that needs a competent person to keep it running. Doesn't happen.
 
We do business only with stores that provide good service.

I will search online and find the part/stock number for exactly what I need before I make the call.

I will call for pricing and availability on all merchandise before making a trip.

If the part is ordered, I ask when it will be available.

The day it is supposed to be available, I will call to make sure that it is pulled and waiting on the counter before ending the phone call.

After the part is bought, I thank the counter person and tell them that I appreciate their help.

Seems to work everywhere I get good service.
 
I feel your pain! It's not just the retail stores, it's everywhere!

I have given up trying to email for information, spend the time writing, send it, wait... Three days later give up and try to call only to get an answering machine and leave a voice mail that never gets returned!

Why do these businesses waste their money on web sites and media advertising if there is no way to get information?
 
(quoted from post at 11:32:00 04/25/16) Yeah because I like to stand in line waiting to check out while the clerk is running in the back to check stock for some guy on the phone.

Yep that gets to me too, especially at a parts store. Most of the time if I'm at the store I'm crunched for time. If I'm standing there with the part on the counter and my money in hand, it gets my goat for the clerk to leave for several minutes to hunt up something for some guy on the phone. I try to be understanding but sometimes it's hard.
 
After having been burned a few times like this, I use this approach. I call and say I am looking for such and such and I want to make sure they have it in stock. I tell them I am driving x number of minutes or miles to get there and it is important they really have what I want. I make it very clear that I will be VERY unhappy if I drive all that way and they don't have what I am after. After they check and say yes they do have it, I then ask for their name so I can ask for them when I pick it up. The vailed threat method seems to work pretty good. The key is making sure the young and inexperienced clerks actually understand what you are asking for.

OTJ
 
Good reply, that bugs me too when they leave me at the counter to answer the phone. But why don't stores designate one person to answer all phone calls, so they can do right by both customers ??? Most people will say it costs too much, but there is a huge cost to not handling the customer properly and no way to calculate how much it is.
 

I've found that their computer inventory is often not correct, at least at the time they look at it. The system says they have X number in stock and they often don't have it at all or fewer than what it says. You wonder how they can run a business when their system doesn't reflect what's in the store.
 
I am totally with you on your post. But sometimes that could be a double edge sword. I do hate when someone answers the phone while i am standing at the counter. But on the other hand what if it was you calling and asking for a part while i was standing there. I would say answer the phone and ask the person to hold for just a sec then get the guy at the counter that had his money in his hand. I think its just common courtesy to deal with a man/woman standing in front of you. And would be an acknowledgement to person calling that you did hear the phone.
 
I dont think its so much low pay as it is . Man i really hate to say this but a lot of young folks these days seem to be dumber than a box of hammers.
 
I drove 60 miles to pick up a pair of tractor tires.The salesman said he was going to make sure they had them and call me back. Later he called and said they were ready for me to pick up.
I get there and there a different brand and tread than I asked for. I let him know I wasn't happy, but I'm sure he didn't care.
 
Some years ago I drove to a local department store to pickup a gift for my wife. She wanted some new bed-linens the store had advertised. I waited for a clerk and she (finally) appeared and I showed her the linens I had picked out. Just about then, her phone rang...she picked it up and said "I'll check" and disappeared into the back room. I reached over and hung up the phone. The look on her face when she reappeared was priceless.
 
Menards computors do that automatically but they only do it once per evening and it will say right there where it says how much they have product may have been sold after computor up dated it evening before. So if you go in towards end of day you are more likely to have that problem that somebody bought the stalk in the morning after computor updated things and before you got there.
 
Local Advance Auto was staffed by a bunch of "don't give a darn, don't know nothin" guys in their 20's".
Advance built a totally new huge store and staffed it with more senior people. Now I get waited on by 50 and 60 year olds that "don't give a darn, don't know nothin". New staff---old staff, same skills and attitude. I don't think it is just an age thing.

Frankly, I don't see that these employees would be much more involved in their jobs even if it was higher paying and more stable.
 
In my store if you called while I was with a customer. I would tell you that I am currently working with a customer and when I finish up with that customer that I would be more then glad to give you my full undivided attention. Would you like to hold on or would you like me to call you back. I carry a portable hand set and can check stock any place in the store for you at that time.
 
No, low pay at a retail job is not a new trend, but wages and salaries have not kept up with the cost of living. Back in the day you could set up a basic household on a minimum wage job and work your way up.

In this day and age, forget about it.

You can't get a basic car for a hundred dollars anymore and tinker with it to keep it going, and have insurance for a couple hundred dollars a year. Now you spend $5000 for anything slightly decent, which means a car payment, and you pray to God that it doesn't break down because you're then running up a huge mechanic bill because you can't work on the complicated electronic systems yourself. Insurance is going to run you around $100 a month if you've got a clean driving record.

You can't go to the doctor's only when you get sick anymore and pay cash. Now you MUST have a health care plan which costs hundreds of dollars a month, and then you STILL pay the bill at the doctor's office because of the "deductible." It's *ILLEGAL* go without healthcare.

A cell phone and internet access are almost necessities in this day and age. You need the internet to search for a better job. You need the cell phone so they can contact you about the better job.

You constantly need to be job-shopping looking for that place that'll pay $1/hr more than where you're at now because you're certainly never going to get that much of a raise, and even if you do they will find a reason to get rid of you as soon as you start earning too much!
 
No low pay at out store, have three parts men that all make over 60 thousand a year but this time of the year their may be 4 people standing there then the phone ring. They are instructed to put the caller on hold until all the live standing customers are worked. Sometimes that means the call going back to one of the girls and let them get a number to call back. It just goes with the tractor business, right now for about three weeks man just cannot have enough help.
 
Just curious - when did people set up a household on minimum wages that included a pretty nice car (I just paid $4500 for my Taurus with only 66K on the clock) have health insurance (dad raised 12 kids through 1986 and couldn't afford health insurance)? And since when is a cell phone and internet access a basic necessity of life? The performer Prince was worth over $100 million when he died and didn't have either one (yet still managed to keep in contact with his dope dealer).


Setting up a "a basic household" to me means roommates, bicycles, foot traffic, long hours of work and a couple jobs with extra work picked up on weekends. I lived that way for 5 years and paid for a college education in cash.


Minimum wage in 1960 was $1 an hour - about 8.05 an hour today - not all that far from the current minimum wage of 7.25 an hour. And in 1960 there were a lot more exemptions to minimum wage, farm workers were only paid 60% of minimum wages, students were also allowed to be paid less. Establishments that earned less than $250,000 annually (in 1960 - today over 2 million today) were exempt from minimum wage requirements.
 
That should happen more often. A paying customer with cash in hand should be worth a lot more than some guy on the phone that may or may not show up after he shops pricing......
 
Just last Saturday I was at my local home town hardware store looking for a plumbing part. This store has a total of three employees.
There was a customer in front of me, so I had to wait a little bit. (No problem, the other person was there first)
The customer gets taken care of and the owner of the store then comes over to me to wait on me.
Except right at that exact time......the phone rings.
Guess who got taken care of before me?
I should have ordered the part online.
 
Local auto parts store answers the phone and says "I'm working with a customer right now. If you'd care to hold, I will put you next in line." That seems to work fine- the guy behind me then knows that the phone caller is next, before him. And usually the phone guy hangs up anyhow.
 
The better system would be for someone just to answer the phones and take a message for the parts guys are that are busy and give the parts guys the numbers to call back when
they free up.People go crazy sitting on hold.
 
Most modern parts stores operate by the "body theory" method of operation. That is, they do what they can to make it possible for a trained monkey to do the job, and then turn loose whomever is available for the job. They receive minimal instruction. The main thing is ability to operate the computer. As long as they can look up a part on the computer, they are considered employable.
The problem arises when a customer asks for something that is not necessarily listed in the computer. Like bulk brake line. Or a "match it up" spark plug. Or even a belt or a hose for a non automotive application.
The entire system is designed to operate with a minimum of human intervention.
Also, corporate policies vary from company to company, and even district to district. I knew a fellow that was a district manager for one of the auto parts store chains. His policy was that the phone not be allowed to ring more than three times before answering it. Pity the employee who let it ring that fourth time before answering it. He or she would be warned once, fired the second time.
 
If you really want to throw them off try getting something for that homemade thing you're building. If you don't have the brand-they cannot help you, period.
 
I was picking up some sod early one april. Only one source-it was that early in the season. I was standing in line-one customer in front of me. Old guy-owner I believe-gets off the phone and tells me he has no more sod available-I could see had had a half a pallet out there! He had just promised the guy on the phone what he had left. I was FURIOUS!
 
I think it's commonplace with today's computers my brother called the Home Depot to rent a chipper they said yes it's here we drive 25 miles to rent it the chippers in the parking lot but the computer says it's out so they can't rent it to us what a waste of time. That's how dumb society has got we rely on a computer to tell us if something is there when a person can look out the window and see it sitting there the computer doesn't know.
 
A while back I told the guy at the parts store I frequent. That same thing. I took the time to walk in here. You can't take the phone order first. Or I am out of here.
 
I had a customer that wanted a taller than normal commode. I had my wife calling around looking for what was available and she called Home Depot. The guy that answered the phone told her they had to be special ordered and hung up on her. He never described any model nor gave her any dimensions.
 
Same thing happened to me at Sears Roebuck-remember 'Roebuck?' The second time it happened, I reached across the counter, picked up the phone and hung up. Clerk just looked at me, then sold me what I wanted. Having worked in retail since High School, I told him ALWAYS wait on the customer with cash in hand; the callers are just 'shopping'. I assumed (yeah, I know) he understood to be polite to the caller. IU've been on 'hold' many times, and it didn't bother me, as I'd '
been there, and done that'.
 
Amen, Leroy. Our Menard's have ALWAYS told us, via computer, what the various stores in a 50 mile radius have in stock. Even when some items are "pre-sold". Lowes and Home Depot don't come close. Reading the comments here it seems to this Midwestern feller that pushing back when trying to spend money is a 'No No'.
 
(quoted from post at 15:22:24 04/25/16) Just curious - when did people set up a household on minimum wages that included a pretty nice car (I just paid $4500 for my Taurus with only 66K on the clock) have health insurance (dad raised 12 kids through 1986 and couldn't afford health insurance)? And since when is a cell phone and internet access a basic necessity of life?

Let me try to break it down:

Back in the day, you COULD set up a household on minimum wage because you COULD buy a cheap car and fix it yourself.

You weren't FORCED to buy medical insurance by the government, or pay a large penalty that costs as much as the insurance.

You NEED cell phone and internet to constantly look for a better job, because you can't work your way up anymore.
 
(quoted from post at 07:00:10 04/26/16)
(quoted from post at 15:22:24 04/25/16) Just curious - when did people set up a household on minimum wages that included a pretty nice car (I just paid $4500 for my Taurus with only 66K on the clock) have health insurance (dad raised 12 kids through 1986 and couldn't afford health insurance)? And since when is a cell phone and internet access a basic necessity of life?

Let me try to break it down:

Back in the day, you COULD set up a household on minimum wage because you COULD buy a cheap car and fix it yourself.

You weren't FORCED to buy medical insurance by the government, or pay a large penalty that costs as much as the insurance.

You NEED cell phone and internet to constantly look for a better job, because you can't work your way up anymore.

That's flawed. Back in the day, late 60's early 70's most of the people my age and older didn't know how to fix their car. I made a good deal of extra cash after I join the army in 74 working on other guys cars.

Back in that day we lived in NJ in the outlaying burbs. Most of our neighbors commuted to Newark and NYC to work. Minimum wage was not enough to set up a household. Rent was the killer.

Rick
 

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