during our last dept head meeting , the K-tv segment was about engagement. the lady addressed the fact that some of our employees may be said to be 'shy' with customers and not able to do the a$$ kissing dance with customers... she basically said that its not an excuse to be shy.. and would we excuse an employee with Kleptomania? When did we stop seeing our employees with disabilities as human beings, and compare shy employees to thieves?
we do have an employee with debilitating shyness and he has come a long way over the 9 years I have known him.. but that wont be good enough if he gets mystery shopped,will it?
someone told me, and I dont know if its true, but that those who ran the companies that Kroger recently bought, are trying to run ours now... they made a mess of their own, and now they have all these great ideas?
Personally,our manager told us that the osat score is more important than sales. yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it? when sales slip, it will be another puppet show, written by those great minds. give us enough people to keep our store clean, filled, and treat us like they want us to treat the customer.
Haven't seen a video like that (yet), but it wouldn't surprise me to hear words like that come out of a corporate drone's mouth.
Shyness is also not a defined mental illness. Social Anxiety Disorder is, and it's basically the same thing. If an employee has it documented by a doctor and gets griped at during the mystery shop, that diagnosis may save their job (or a write-up, or whatever).
we had a corporate blue badge come throw our store and he got mad that no one greeted him... He told the managers we failed and were not ready for the mystery shopper. So they called an immediate huddle to complain about it... This program is going to fail no one has time to talk to every customer while where working and take them to the other side of the store to show them where the product is. Plus most of our customers don't even look at us when they walk by if you get lucky they will just walk on top of you.
during our last dept head meeting , the K-tv segment was about engagement. the lady addressed the fact that some of our employees may be said to be 'shy' with customers and not able to do the a$$ kissing dance with customers... she basically said that its not an excuse to be shy.. and would we excuse an employee with Kleptomania? When did we stop seeing our employees with disabilities as human beings, and compare shy employees to thieves?
we do have an employee with debilitating shyness and he has come a long way over the 9 years I have known him.. but that wont be good enough if he gets mystery shopped,will it?
someone told me, and I dont know if its true, but that those who ran the companies that Kroger recently bought, are trying to run ours now... they made a mess of their own, and now they have all these great ideas?
Personally,our manager told us that the osat score is more important than sales. yeah, that makes sense, doesn't it? when sales slip, it will be another puppet show, written by those great minds. give us enough people to keep our store clean, filled, and treat us like they want us to treat the customer.
Kroger (as a company) stopped seeing employees as human beings a long time ago. When this Engagement focus fails to do anything, just like Taste of Mexico, Refresh and all the other grand ideas dreamed up by corporate fools that have been out of touch with how it is in stores for some time now, the blame will be placed squarely on the employees once again. Any perfectly reasonable explanation given by an employee as to why he/she failed a secret shop will be ignored and labeled as an unacceptable excuse.
This whole emphasis on Engagement/Secret Shop initiative is going to accomplish two things: one, it's going to put employees on pins and needles because they're going to worry if they miss "engaging" with just one customer, it's going to be the moment that the visitor conducting the Customer Connection shop will be watching, and two, it's going to bring down productivity/efficiency, because of the pressure is going to be on to constantly be engaging customers rather than getting shelves stocked or other work done.
Every time some genius earning a disgusting amount of money at the corporate level comes up with an idea to improve customer satisfaction/employee efficiency, it typically has the opposite effect. Work at Kroger is about to become even more stressful/aggravating, because management is either going to be saying, "you're not acknowledging, assisting and appreciating the customers enough!" or "you're not getting enough of your work done!" All because store management is probably, at the same time, being yelled at by corporate because of employees failing the Customer Connection shops or store OSATs dropping due to higher out of stocks (employees not being able to stock as much because they're too busy standing around smiling/engaging), customers being asked repeatedly if they need any help finding anything (assist, assist, assist!) or there not being any baggers to bag their groceries or get carts because the baggers end up having to talk to/assist every customer when attempting to return to the front after doing a go-back/carry-out/price check/whatever.
GenesisOne wrote:...because management is either going to be saying, "you're not acknowledging, assisting and appreciating the customers enough!" or "you're not getting enough of your work done!"
There you go! Management fails. They wouldn't think of hiring a couple of folks to walk around and assist customers all day. But you better hurry up while you wait on customers!
If it's popped up in multiple stores they probably heard that on a conference call. That's usually how these catch phrases are disseminated, like "whistle while you work," the "happy song" engagement blitz, and so many more than I can think of.
I love sitting in on a call and suddenly the manager is on the floor blathering whatever was said with no thought involved.
I had a corporate person tell us we were waiting for a new policy to be "blessed by the Pope" (the lawyers) not once but twice. I was offended.
Every time some genius earning a disgusting amount of money at the corporate level comes up with an idea to improve customer satisfaction/employee efficiency, it typically has the opposite effect.
This is quite true. They have offices back in Dayton staffed with people who spend all their time dreaming up this stuff and it becomes THE WAY but they don't think about what happens in the stores. For example the free food last year for using money services. Milk and eggs are never close to the front end, if someone wants their free eggs or milk they have to shop again later or walk to the end of the earth to get it. It was stupid. Plus the card doesn't get scanned at that desk much anyway. Customer's don't want to give it because they get no fuel points and no discounts, associates don't want to scan it for money services things because those already take so long and you've got a line of people to get through with no relief help.
People are always trying to put their card in for no point items like cigarettes and alcohol at my store, it's really annoying because it will lock up the register for a bit if I've already entered EFT.
People are always trying to put their card in for no point items like cigarettes and alcohol at my store, it's really annoying because it will lock up the register for a bit if I've already entered EFT.
Lol yes! College students and the elderly seem to forget that a pack of smokes won't drop in price for anything but a mfr coupon.
we had a corporate blue badge come throw our store and he got mad that no one greeted him... He told the managers we failed and were not ready for the mystery shopper. So they called an immediate huddle to complain about it... This program is going to fail no one has time to talk to every customer while where working and take them to the other side of the store to show them where the product is. Plus most of our customers don't even look at us when they walk by if you get lucky they will just walk on top of you.
Are you in Cincy/Dayton division and are you talking about Mr.Madlinger coming in? That story is making the rounds with this Customer Connection thing.
That is exactly who I thought he was referring to.
BTW, that video is the most boring thing ever. I had to watch it after a huddle a couple days ago and everyone about fell asleep. Who has a 15 minute conversation about avocados?
That is exactly who I thought he was referring to.
BTW, that video is the most boring thing ever. I had to watch it after a huddle a couple days ago and everyone about fell asleep. Who has a 15 minute conversation about avocados?
And THAT is why this will fail. Who has that kind of knowledge other than a foodie ? Unless Kroger plans to train everyone to be "expert" then they cannot hold us to the standard offered in that video.
That is exactly who I thought he was referring to.
BTW, that video is the most boring thing ever. I had to watch it after a huddle a couple days ago and everyone about fell asleep. Who has a 15 minute conversation about avocados?
If anyone knows as much about avocados as the guy in the video, then they should either be a produce coordinator or a chef.
That is exactly who I thought he was referring to.
BTW, that video is the most boring thing ever. I had to watch it after a huddle a couple days ago and everyone about fell asleep. Who has a 15 minute conversation about avocados?
And THAT is why this will fail. Who has that kind of knowledge other than a foodie ? Unless Kroger plans to train everyone to be "expert" then they cannot hold us to the standard offered in that video.
Time to start studying up on your produce... whether you work in produce or not, because that's the kind of "engagement" Kroger is looking for and expecting its employees to deliver. While you're at it... you better start brushing up on the various cuts and kinds of meats, so regardless of your department, you can help the customer pick out the perfect roast, steak, kind of chicken, and so on.
I think that video is perhaps the best example to date of how out of touch corporate is with reality. Maybe in a more perfect world, where every department is adequately staffed so that employees have the time to stop and assist customers for extended intervals and each employee is paid a better wage so that all employees would care more, thus attracting a higher-quality workforce that doesn't have a high turnover rate, what's presented in that and other videos would be less preposterous, but that's certainly not going to be happening any time soon.
That is exactly who I thought he was referring to.
BTW, that video is the most boring thing ever. I had to watch it after a huddle a couple days ago and everyone about fell asleep. Who has a 15 minute conversation about avocados?
If anyone knows as much about avocados as the guy in the video, then they should either be a produce coordinator or a chef.
If anyone knows as much about avocados as the guy in the video, they are probably taking them home and having sex with them.
I am busy trying to get backstock and truck out of the cooler so i dont have time to engage every customer. Sure says alot about a company that thinks these types of programs will increase there sales.
