I don't want to come off as some corporate **** sucker but making personal connections with the people that shop with us is an important way to getting people to come in. I see regular faces daily that come back and have shopped with us for years. They are normally joys to be around and have seen me in my bad and good times. When you can put a face on those around you and they can put a human face on the soulless corporation they give their money to it's the best way for the customer to feel good and want to come back.
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Would you like fries with th... I mean, your milk in a bag?
If I've learned anything from my time at Kroger, it is that if someone gets pissed off, give them free stuff, apologize over and over, and find some employee to blame it on and say that they are new and you will make sure they receive better training.
Optimally, the best way would be to make sure there are enough employees and make sure they know stuff. That's not going to happen though. Kroger will always try to get by with the lowest number of employees being paid at once. They will also do anything they can to prevent people from getting full time, plus the average time someone works there is short because the pay and treatment it so bad. If a customer finds an employee and wants help, they expect him to know where stuff is, have a decent knowledge of the products, and know stuff about the store (when do sales run? when do you stock stuff? what is your return policy? do you carry x?). If the average employee worked full time and had been there for a while, we would be a lot closer to that. Instead, few people have full time and most people are inexperienced.
. . . make sure there are enough employees and make sure they know stuff. That's not going to happen though. Krogrr will always try to get by with the lowest number of employees being paid at once. They will also do anything they can to prevent people from getting full time, plus the average time someone works there is short because the pay and treatment it so bad.
A company interested in providing good service wouldn't sabotage its own business by shortchanging its workers.
It's interesting to watch the cyclic nature of these trends; in retail for instance, right now none of the big corps could give a damn less about customer satisfaction. And they're right not to, because the customers keep coming back for more callous indifference and abuse. But some of the smaller chains like Dollar Tree, Furnish One and Shoe Outlet are stepping up to make their customers happy and well served.
Another industry that is reversing this sh!t trend is pharmaceuticals-----man, customer service there has done a 180, at least in the mid west!
When Kroger and Walmart start matching the lost $$ to the poor staffing/bad shopping experiences, then we'll start seeing some changes. Maybe.
