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More on the dehumanization of society

I was at Evil Big Box Store #1812(tm) this evening talking to a customer service manager, whom I worked with when I was employed there part time from 1996-1998. She was telling me that they don't hire people to work the hours I worked at that time.

She also told me that they don't want people making announcements on the public address the way I used to. Funny how businesses are all getting away from the personal touch. It seems the cashiers are getting away from the "thank you for shopping at..." more and more. Perhaps some of these businesses would quit losing customers to the internet if they would try personalized service a bit more often.

I also saw recently a situation which could have been avoided when I was cashiering. At another department store this man paid for about 4 dollars worth of merchandise with a fifty. The cashier handed him his change and the man claimed she shorted him 20 dollars. I suspect this was a scam by the customer. This could have been avoided if the cashier would have counted the change back to the man. But I was told later that company policy forbade that practice. So this store loses some money and the cashier gets written up.

Proper customer service, common courtesy, and some genuine appreciation goes a long way.

Comments

clean and crazy said…
when i worked at toys r us in California it was against the law to ask for ID when paying with a credit card. there was a woman came in with a 1200 shopping cart, Christmas time, and she handed me a credit card with a Vietnamese name on it, she was not Vietnamese. so i asked for ID and she ran out the store, i did get in trouble for that too.
apparently the store lost a 1200 dollar sale that the credit card company would have to pay for regardless of who owned the card. nice huh.
Pat Jenkins said…
too bad you don't have your own store to manage wixy so you could put your thoughts to use!!
Ms Hen's said…
what a story crazy and clean..wow.

And they ask for ID here in NYC.. and they are supposed to announced the amount of money given and count the change back; but I don't hear that anymore; at least i had to when i was a cashier at 16 ..

things change.. did not even notice that Cliff until you brought it up.. very interesting.
I can only sadly assume that some of the cashiers do not know how to count change back???
Jen said…
I've just about given up on Proper customer service, common courtesy, and some genuine appreciation ~ and the 'counting change back' has been dead and buried for a long time! What a shame.

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