Is it really getting that desperate in retail?

Lucky you for being offered money of the display model, as according the muppet that was there when I bought 2 laptops they didn't do that as its company policy.

I asked him if he seriously expected someone to pay full price for one that's been on for hours and used by loads of people.

However, I have noticed, you get VERY different treatment in the Apple section than you do elsewhere in the store.
 
Devrij said:
I work at a dsg store and can tell you we don't get commission. Our bonus is based on customer satisfaction scores taken from exit surveys and mystery shops, that and our margin per hour, but unless you work in a mega store you never hit the margin per hour Target.

A MAC sale is big money for a store that only takes maybe 6k a day, so I'm not surprised the op was chased about. If they were better at their jobs they could've kept him in the store without it being a rubbish experience. The problem is that people always do the hard sell instead of asking questions to actually tailor their sales to the customer. You can still make margin without selling crap to people who don't need it. It's the targets that force staff to push certain products.

If any of my team let a mac sale walk without trying every angle they would be asked why not.
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I worked in the Currys megastore in Bristol, and If I hit £60 of margin an hour, I would get a £50 bonus a month, our mystery shops were always great, cause we were fantastic at the fives bullcrap.

They couldn't give two turds about customer service. Mac sales are margin rich, we used to joke about it when a pc world manager came asking for a spare body, and we used to joke 'is it a mac sale'
 
Wouldn't blame the salespeople after all they don't make the rules. Maybe managers etc who put those rules in place should start getting fired as they're paid more to be able to think, getting staff to harass customers out of the shop is hardly thinking.... so why are they being paid :P.

If I get harassed by some salesperson in the shop, I normally just leave and buy it elsewhere if it is convenient to do so and not more expensive to me or something I was in a hurry for. Even if I was planning to buy it then before they started harassing me.

In any case now a lot of the time in stores, particularly game stores and electronic hardware stores etc I am just there browsing with the intention of purchasing it for cheaper online without getting lots of rubbish like extended warranties thrown at me.
 
Your example is a little extreme but I'd rather have them actively trying to help than just ignoring me.

I've worked in Curry's and it's funny how so many of the people who complain about being pestered then moan about no one being around to help them.

In a shop you will be asked questions, good thing too as most people looking at computers don't have a damn clue and just want the cheapest bit of tat available.
 
MonkeyMan said:
Your example is a little extreme but I'd rather have them actively trying to help than just ignoring me.

I've worked in Curry's and it's funny how so many of the people who complain about being pestered then moan about no one being around to help them.

In a shop you will be asked questions, good thing too as most people looking at computers don't have a damn clue and just want the cheapest bit of tat available.
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Sadly its true. I'd much rather leave people to it seeing as 88% of the people who walk through the door don't buy anything and are wasting my time, but some people do need help and won't seek it out unless you go to them.
 
[TW]Fox;19252276 said:
Actually you are wasting their time by either not having what they want, or not having a competitive price on what they want.
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Are you Mary Portas?

I don't work in retail or the hospitality industry simply because as a person, I would not put up with the idiocy and arrogance of the general public. So, in my opinion, hats off to the people that do it, for next to nothing.
 
Nope, but I spent almost 8 years working in retail seeing the story from both sides of the counter. Customers are without a doubt often irritating, but not as irritating in general as the sales staff who think that customers owe them something or that they are somehow better than the customers.

Very few of them seemed to grasp the idea they were there to SERVE the customer, and the customer paid the sales staffs wages.
 
The Craig said:
Worst "I can afford to wake up and impulse buy a macbook pro" post ever.
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Interestingly it is thought that the most impulsive of purchasers are those least able to afford to do so, something marketers take acute advantage of through things like store cards...
 
albert said:
Why didn't you just go online and reserve one to pick up .. much easier and usually cheaper .....
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The number of times i've had to sort people out who've reserved something which we don't have.

The reserve and collect thing is terrible

edit: If you cant tell, I hate anything to do with DSGi
 
I remember trying to buy a dvd drive from pc world with a £5 voucher thing, the woman at the till didn't notice it and then when she asked for the money and I told her it took nearly 10mins to sort it out, total incompetence. No wonder people are abandoning these stores. They also tried to sell me a £300 warranty on a £900 tv, by the time the warranty had expired the tv wouldn't even be worth £300.
 
[TW]Fox;19252463 said:
Nope, but I spent almost 8 years working in retail seeing the story from both sides of the counter. Customers are without a doubt often irritating, but not as irritating in general as the sales staff who think that customers owe them something or that they are somehow better than the customers.

Very few of them seemed to grasp the idea they were there to SERVE the customer, and the customer paid the sales staffs wages.
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You pay your doctors wages too, your lawyers, your bankers, your school teachers, your politicians, your football players, your actors, etc. Pretty much everyone in this world is connected by one way or another, are you going to treat everyone like garbage too? People complain far too much, I find the British public very pedantic and miserable, the very tiniest thing can set them off and they act like the world just collapsed in front of them.

So many times I see people practically crying in shops, as if I would let myself get upset, or even bummed out if something I wanted wasn't in stock that day, but no, for some people, I've watched it with my own 2 eyes, it ruins their day, they act like someone just killed their dog or something. I feel sorry for people who work in retail, I really do.
 
When I worked at a phone shop over Christmas we had it drilled into us to sit down every person we could who looked at the contract phone section, then the more experienced staff took over and often didn't let customer escape. We all needed to do this to hit our targets otherwise we would lose our commission, which made up a big part of my wage.

There were times when I did feel a bit bad pestering people all the time, and sometimes convincing them to buy something they didn't really want. But then again there were times when I was simply trying to be as helpful as possible and the customer takes offense from it and throws everything back in your face.
 
franco_22 said:
You pay your doctors wages too, your lawyers, your bankers, your school teachers, your politicians, your football players, your actors, etc. Pretty much everyone in this world is connected by one way or another, are you going to treat everyone like garbage too?
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I was polite and friendly to everyone, never pushy, and can count on one hand the number of times I was treated like garbage. I wonder if there is a link...

Well maybe I'd need both hands but it wasn't very often.
 
had this recently in a currys/pcworld joint store, were very pushy with the whole warranty thing and kept trying to sell me a "backup" disc after politely telling the salesperson numerous times i only wanted to buy a basic laptop with no added extras warranties or anything else i ended loosing my rag and walking out. drove 30 minutes to another branch and bought the exact same product at the exact same price.
 
Guys, just one question, what's wrong with the previous model Macbook?

Edit - to clarify, did OP not want to buy a previous model for any particular reason or because you wanted the new one and it wasn't what you wanted?
 
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