I wanted to get a portable DVD player for my mum for Christmas, so in my lunch hour I went to the Currys that's a few doors down from our store. I pride myself in my customer service, and everyone else in our store gives a high level of service too, so I was expecting something pretty decent in Currys, since its a big chain store and gets pretty much the same customers we do. (If someone asks us for a dvd player and we send them over to Currys, and if someone asks Currys for a cd or a game they send them to us.)
Well, the store had about 4 customers in, two of whom were being served, and about eight members of staff. There were three of these on till, one of them was helping a customer, and the remaining four were free. Two were standing at the front of store chatting to one another and were not security guards (I knew the guards from this store as they pop in to say hello on occasion, and they were working the door anyway.)
I approached the portable DVD players and someone walked past me and asked if I needed any help. I was barely a second into the shop, but thought it showed good promise anyway, so answered that I didn't, thanks all the same, I'd let him know when I needed some assistance. He answered that i could ask him or any other member of staff, which was awesome cause it meant I didn't have to rely on just one poor overworked personal shopper. He rushed off and started helping someone else. He did a great job at what he was meant to do so this post ain't about him.
I chose which of the players I was most interested in and looked around for the personal shopper, saw that he was busy, and that most of the other assistants and staff were as well. The two guys chatting at the front (who had big fat MANAGEMENT TEAM badges on) were standing right next to me. I was in their line of sight. There is no way they could have missed me.
I looked at the player again and crouched down and looked at it a bit harder. I did a thinking pose. I even said, "hmm, yes, I think I will take that one" fairly loudly. In my store, this would be enough to have any member of staff asking if I needed help (either store assistance or psychiatric), no matter how busy they were. I don't want this to seem like entrapment or anything, I just couldn't tell if these guys were doing a floorwalk or something and it would be annoying for them to be disturbed, so I went through the motions to see if another member of staff (although I couldn't see another one who was free) would help me. After all, this is a product that they don't store on the shelves so I couldn't just grab one and take it up to the counter.
Well, turns out the management guys were talking about the size of someone's tits, so I felt fairly sure I could disturb them in their oh so important work.
"Hi there, sorry to disturb you, could I get some assistance please?"
They carry on chatting, moving onto someone's arse instead.
"Excuse me, could I get some help?"
Apparently it was a fascinating arse.
I ahemmed. The taller one huffed and said, "can I help you?"
I finally managed to convince one of them to get the item I wanted from the stock room. Tadaa! Now comes the queuing up process.
At the time, the girl refuses to look up and give eye contact. I say hello and she ignores me. She offers me some insurance in a monotonous "i don't care" voice and I decline, so she shoves the player into a bag (oh, so I need insurance in case you break it before I've even bought it). She tells me how much I need to pay and I offer her my card; she doesn't take it so I ask if I need to put it in the card reader, which she's just pushed towards me. "In here?" I ask, positioning my card into the CnP machine. Blanketty blank. So in it goes.
The reader says, "Processing, do not remove card!"
She says, "won't work in there," in much the same way as the "computer says no" sketch in Little Britain.
"Oh, okay," I say. "It's telling me to enter my PIN. Do you want me to press cancel or anything?"
More blanks. I press cancel and remove the card and hand it to her. "Thank you. Next time leave it to us, okay?" she says, in a sneery voice.
"Alright," I say.
The transaction goes through. "Thank you," I say. There's no one in the queue behind me so I don't see why there shouldn't be some niceties. Plus, it's habitual for me now. "Have a nice afternoon!"
Hah. Guess what I got? A big fat blank!
Well, are my customer service standards just too high, or was this truly mediocre service?