I've been trying, lately, to teach customers on Uscan about the Alt ID. Because some of them have their smartphones and have this app that displays their plus card barcode on the screen to be scanned. Problem is, Uscan's scanner can't read the screens on their smartphones, so they gotta call the attendant over to have them scan it with the handheld. Problem here is, handheld works most of the time and is glitching some of the time. Or, in my store, handheld is gone or being used by other Uscan. In those cases, I resort to manually typing in their plus card barcode number.
Anyway, my main point is, why not teach the customer to use their Alt ID so they don't have to even bother calling over the attendant. If they don't want to. I know some prefer the cool gimmick of having a digitized plus card appear on their smartphones to be scanned. But if the scanner on the Uscan can't read their phones, then that gimmick is kinda pointless in terms of efficiency. I mean, you know how it is when it's busy. If the customer is lucky, the attendant is right there for them, and the handheld is working. But what often happens, attendant is busy doing a million things and customer has to wait. Or attendant is somewhere else goofing off, and customer has to wait.
I've managed to teach a few willing customers to set an Alt ID on their kroger app. And they were grateful to me. Surprisingly, a lot of these customers didn't know how. Other customers had this third party app that displays the plus card, which I doubt could set an Alt ID. I don't know what this third party app is, if any of you know, please tell me.
It has been an interesting experience, and I got to practice being a sort of salesman. But, yeah, only a few customers were willing to learn. Most of the others didn't care and were frustrated why I can't just get my handheld thingie and scan it. Well, I'd love to, but it's not working at the moment.
It's also interesting just how many people don't know they don't need a physical plus card. You can create a virtual plus card on the kroger website without ever having a physical card.
Some customers, mostly older folk, come in and see those special prices where ya gotta have the digital coupon, then go to checkout and are surprised those prices don't show up. I explain to them that they have to have the digital coupon loaded onto their card. They look at me, well what the hell is a digital coupon? I've got the card right here (physical card), ain't that enough? I explain further, well you gotta go to the website and create an account and link your physical card to that account. Basically trying to explain to them how digital coupons work and that a lot of those special deals they see all the time require those digital coupons and that it would be beneficial to them to create a kroger account and learn how to use it.
Of course, it's rocket science to them and they get frustrated that they have to go through all this trouble.
I gave up with this. Half of society is technology challenged and I praise those that go out of their way to learn it. My grandmother never learned more than a tv remote beyond the 1970 era. This became a challenge when her technology started to disappear and we had to seek 2nd hand store for stuff she could use. I gave up with teaching digital coupons to the general public and just use the code 53380 digital coupon code. We've had these for close to a year and it'll take at least 5 more years to teach society. I just make it right. My goal is to spend no more than 1-3 minute with a customer.
Our handheld doesn't work worth a crap. It doesn't even let me log in most of the time. A lot of the apps don't display a number to type in, so I have to transfer their orders to the paystation just so I can use the scan gun. Not only is it a pain in the ass to have to do that, but it gives me the willies letting customers use the paystation.
I've found that I can't teach customers anything. Even if the occasional customer is willing to learn, it's not worth the time spent pissing off all the rest. And Uscan is too busy for that kind of thing anyways. ****, I can't even teach my customers to press "Pay Now", let alone the "Card" button.
I didn't know you could just assign an alt id on the spot with the app. That's awesome. Ecoupons have been such a disaster that I haven't been able to bring myself to install it.
Lately, we've had handouts on the registers with barcodes that force ecoupons. They've only been for the 4-day sales, but it's a start.
