Customer Service Requests

Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 16

Last week at our morning meeting, we were told by our zone 3 manageer that we are to do whatever to get to the customer service bells. And that means run. Our times were way to long. Of course the day before, the worst time in zone 1 and 2 was 52 seconds in lighting. Everything else was under 45 seconds. Lumber and millwork were well over 100 seconds. He said that side of the store has an excuse, as they are short help (even though they have more hours scheduled weekly then all of zone 1).
Now we are told if our mystery shopper is bad that we will be written up, so that means if I am in plumbing and have to go to the other side of the store of the saw or millwork bell, that I have to stop and make sure every customer is finding everything ok, while running to the bell and making damn sure I get there in under 45 seconds, oh wait 30 seconds, considering you lose 15 seconds before the first page.
Now our store manager is going around, hitting the bells to make sure people are coming.
I am waiting for the person running to the bell to fall and break an ankle or twist a knee, then tell workers comp, and osha that they were told by a manager to run not walk to the bell.
I think Lowe's is at the point they just loved being sued.

Later fellow slaves
sunklowe

Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 214

It's a shame what they'll put the employees through to get their bonus, isn't it? Management can get in big trouble going around hitting call buttons, i've heard that last year some were fired for hitting the call buttons and turning them off in a few seconds to get a better score. If theres a customer that needs help management should help them until someone who knows something can get there.
As for getting written up for a bad mystery shop thats stupid, if that happens don't sign it, but do write in your comments. A real manager will solve things without the threat of a write up, a real manager will also fight for their people, there are some of those out there, but very very few. A legal write up would be running in the store, thats a safety violation, don't do it even if they tell you to, they'll get you for it.

Joined: 28 Jul 2003 Posts: 17 Location: earth

At my store it is called "testing the call buttons". Its just part of our work load to hit the call button 4 or 5 times a day to make to times GOOD.

Joined: 06 Jul 2003 Posts: 41 Location: out west

Ya know what's really cool? Take the freakin' call buttons and unhook one of the leads from the battery, but leave the battery in so the little red light still shines. That way the guest gets that warm fuzzy feeling that some one will actually be there soon to answer their questions. But the damn button doesn't do a thing. You just turned it into a mangement button, just there for looks but it really doesn't do a damn thing. Evil or Very Mad

Joined: 08 Jul 2003 Posts: 20 Location: anywhere , America

My store also "tests" the buttons every day to "make sure they are working". Demanding response times under a minute is outrageous. It takes at least that long to get off a ladder, or cut short a customer phone call, or put your product down and get to the button. To punish for not achieving this goal is only hurting morale. There should be a small reward for the departments with the lowest times weekly. Maybe an extra break, long lunch, McDonalds coupon book, SOMETHING. Maybe they won't be saying " Aawww, Damn it!" as they come off the ladder to get the button.
Oldskool, I love your suggestion. Sorry for the customers, but our jobs are on the line. I wonder how long it would take for management to figure out it's not working? I'm certainly not gonna point it out......... Very Happy

Joined: 04 Aug 2003 Posts: 4 Location: southeast

Hey everyone,
I noticed that the same problems that I used to have at Lowe's with the call buttons are still going on. There are two ways to silence the buttons from overhead. The first is a page release, which transfers the overhead page to your phone (useful if the buttons hang or if someone just keeps on paging). At my store, on the wireless, it was Function-7, or from any phone, #5#35. Using this, the button still goes off, the times are slow, but they aren't heard overhead. The second, my favorite, resets the call button system. Call your store, when the auto-attendant picks up, press #13#*, and wait 10 seconds. This will stop the button from going off, you have approx. 5 minutes to get to the button to actually turn it off. This one was nice when I finally got my well-deserved cigarette lit at 9:35pm and some jackass decides that they need some paint mixed, even though our store was closed. Oh yeah, by the way, please use these with discretion. The switchboard at cust. service lights up when the wireless is on, and someone that really wanted to figure out who is messing with the buttons could figure it out pretty easily.

Joined: 09 Oct 2003 Posts: 16

I may have to try the phone trick i like that Very Happy

. As far as testing the buttons. It is not that..he is going around, hitting them, then waits until you get there, and if it is not in time, then he starts paging you. He did it the other day, then paged the department manager and the sales manager to that department "immdeitaley". Good attitude to have over the PA system on a Saturday afternoon. Now since he doesn't know exactly what is going on at the time he pushes the button (ie. your with a customer, or outside doing a code 50, etc.), then he is now creating more unjust stress and workload on people that are already overworked and highley stressed.
Incidentley, our PTC was telling me she just went through our turn over records, and we have had a significant increase in turn overs since our current store manager took over, then any previous store manager in our stores 10 years. You would think that people in the district, regional or corporate level would frown on that when you consider the amount of time and money involved in hiring and training new people. As matter of fact that would be a great way to help make the bottom line a little better.
When I started in our store 5 months ago, we had numerous people that had been there 5+ years. Now most of them are gone. How obvious does it have to be to see that there is a problem. With the state of our economy, you can not say that they all are finding new jobs. As matter of fact, HR should start surveying people who leave after being with the company a certain amount of time (say 5 years), especially if they walk out or just quit showing up. Try to find out what happened and start keeping track of it on a store by store or district by district level. This would be a great tool to find out why customer service is decreasing and stores start having problems.
I believe the best solution to Lowe's shame anymore would be a way to communicate to all the chief stock holders, you know, the ones whos votes really count then it comes time for officer elections. They are the ones with lots to lose. If they truley knew what was happening to there investment dollars, and what the future may hold, changes would occur.

Just my 2 cents
sunklowe

	Forum Index -> Lowes	All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1