Cashier conversations!

Irishcrx

I'm sure I'm not the only one that this drives demented but I was in the local supermarket last night picking up a few bits and pieces for dinner and had the privelage of spending almost 15 minutes at the cash register waiting to pay even though there was only a que of 5-6 people.

Now , it's 6 O'Clock in the evening, peak time for most with everyone coming in after work and they only have one till open and to make it even better and less convienient the cashier was a bloody chatterbox she spend about 5 minutes talking to this aul one at the till while theres a que of 4 people behind her just staring at her blankly whilen she sits there with the change in her hand yattering away!

' And how's Mary? ahhhh yeeeeeaaaaahhhh that's great , myself and me husband blah blah blah'

Here's a story for ya you twat , your in ****ing work not the pub so shut your pie hole and start working I don't want to be standing here listening to your crap I'm hungry and want to go home....See we don't have this issue with the self service machines she should fear them.

Rant over.

SEPT 23 1989

You need to move to the city

we have no time for chit chat

Dodge

My guess is it was about 3-4 minutes at most and you're just an angry person. Seriously, try not to get too worked up about people being friendly to each other. It'll do you good in the long run

DavyD_83

Super Valu by any chance? :P

Penn

SEPT 23 1989 wrote: »

You need to move to the city

we have no time for chit chat

Sounds like such a magical place...

danslevent

I am a cashier. Having the chats with the customer is what makes it for me. €8.65 an hour isn't the best but the pleasantries exchanged with customers make it a lot better!

Lollipops23

I remember when a customer moaned about myself and another girl having a giggle at the counter in work- she had finished being served and was just packing her stuff up. Nothing rude was mentioned etc, but I know we did joke about something or other.

Stuffy bítch told us she didn't come into the shop to listen to our conversation.

Man did she ever need to get laid.

Sauve

danslevent wrote: »

I am a cashier. Having the chats with the customer is what makes it for me. €8.65 an hour isn't the best but the pleasantries exchanged with customers make it a lot better!

:mad:

Irishcrx

DavyD_83 wrote: »

Super Valu by any chance? :P

Yep , the one and only!

Rasheed

Go to Lidl. I've never met a chatty cashier there.
I don't think they're allowed to waste time with such counterproductive activities......

Cupcake_Crisis

I find it worse when there's 2 or more cashiers at a till and they're having a conversation with each other like you're not even there. It's very rude, and something i never dreamed of doing when i worked in retail.

kneemos

Cough loudly and look at your watch,repeat frequently.

du Maurier

Not too gone on employees chatting excessively, or moreso at inopportune times when the place is wedged. Get on with yer business of sorting out some customers and then you can get back to chatting up your fellow employees when there's a lull!:pac:

I don't really mind the customer-checkout staff chat.

ash23

Soooo....it's bad customer service to be friendly to the customers???

Surely the problem is not that the cashier was being friendly and more that the management had only one till open.
If it bothered you that much, complain to management about the lack of staff, not about the cashier being nice.

I feel bad for shop staff because the cost cutting measures mean they are busier than ever but at the same time, they are still expected to give people their time and be friendly and helpful. They can't win.

Either they fly through their work and say very little and people complain/they chat and people complain because they are being delayed/they are slowly replaced with automated checkouts and people complain about having to do it themselves.

Penn

Difference between a cashier being nice while completing a transaction and a cashier holding up the queue by chatting with a friend after the transaction has been finished

DAZP93

Pisses me right off, especially if you have a tasty hot chicken roll in your hand going cold..:mad:

ash23

Penn wrote: »

Difference between a cashier being nice while completing a transaction and a cashier holding up the queue by chatting with a friend after the transaction has been finished

A lot of people frequent certain supermarkets for the chat. Might be the only person they get to talk to all week.
The likes of Supervalu can't compete with Tesco and Lidl in price so make up for it by staying old school and relying on customer loyalty. I see it in the town I live and the town I'm from. Supervalu checkouts are much slower but they are way chattier.

Which is why if I'm in a hurry I don't go there. But I know plenty who prefer that to the self service in tesco or the Aldi speed round.

Irishcrx

Penn wrote: »

Difference between a cashier being nice while completing a transaction and a cashier holding up the queue by chatting with a friend after the transaction has been finished

Exactly , I have no issue with a bit of friendly chat and banter while your passing through. But ongoing conversations whle people are waiting to be served is downright rude and unprofessional, and she was even looking at us while chatting not giving a flying ****...

Very aggrovating, If I did that to a customer in work I'd be sacked.

Eve_Dublin

Irishcrx wrote: »

Exactly , I have no issue with a bit of friendly chat and banter while your passing through. But ongoing conversations whle people are waiting to be served is downright rude and unprofessional, and she was even looking at us while chatting not giving a flying ****...

Very aggrovating, If I did that to a customer in work I'd be sacked.

What she going to do though? Ignore an old lady who might not get a chance to talk to anyone else for the rest of the day? It's only 4 minutes out of your life for the love of jaysus. Chill the fook out, man.

ash23

Irishcrx wrote: »

Very aggrovating, If I did that to a customer in work I'd be sacked.

Our ethos in work is to give our full attention to the person we are currently serving. Different companies have different priorities.

ruthloss

Irishcrx wrote: »

I'm sure I'm not the only one that this drives demented but I was in the local supermarket last night picking up a few bits and pieces for dinner and had the privelage of spending almost 15 minutes at the cash register waiting to pay even though there was only a que of 5-6 people.

Now , it's 6 O'Clock in the evening, peak time for most with everyone coming in after work and they only have one till open and to make it even better and less convienient the cashier was a bloody chatterbox she spend about 5 minutes talking to this aul one at the till while theres a que of 4 people behind her just staring at her blankly whilen she sits there with the change in her hand yattering away!

' And how's Mary? ahhhh yeeeeeaaaaahhhh that's great , myself and me husband blah blah blah'

Here's a story for ya you twat , your in ****ing work not the pub so shut your pie hole and start working I don't want to be standing here listening to your crap I'm hungry and want to go home....See we don't have this issue with the self service machines she should fear them.

Rant over.

Do you have a Club Card? No. Would you like one?:(

kneemos

Rasheed wrote: »

Go to Lidl. I've never met a chatty cashier there.
I don't think they're allowed to waste time with such counterproductive activities......

It's five hours in the cooler for starting a converration.

Irishcrx

ash23 wrote: »

Our ethos in work is to give our full attention to the person we are currently serving. Different companies have different priorities.

Grand , so do that and then move along and serve the next person waiting. It doesn't mean you have to listen to their life story does it?

Annasopra

kneemos wrote: »

It's five hours in the cooler for starting a converration.

And evil evil stares for packing your bags slowly

kneemos

mango salsa wrote: »

And evil evil stares for packing your bags slowly

Indeed.There's a definite aura of hurry up.

ash23

Irishcrx wrote: »

Grand , so do that and then move along and serve the next person waiting. It doesn't mean you have to listen to their life story does it?

Yeah but if the person I'm talking to decides they want to tell me their life story I have to just smile and go with it.

The person she was talking to was probably someone who is in there weekly and has been for years. They'll spend more in a week than most would spend in a year in there.

Some companies don't operate by the "get em in and get em out". Get over it or if you are going to give out, give out about the logic of having one till open at a peak time. Not about someone who is just being friendly.

Penn

ash23 wrote: »

A lot of people frequent certain supermarkets for the chat. Might be the only person they get to talk to all week.
The likes of Supervalu can't compete with Tesco and Lidl in price so make up for it by staying old school and relying on customer loyalty. I see it in the town I live and the town I'm from. Supervalu checkouts are much slower but they are way chattier.

Which is why if I'm in a hurry I don't go there. But I know plenty who prefer that to the self service in tesco or the Aldi speed round.

But again, that's at the expense of other customers, and surely that's bad for business. By all means, chat to the customers while doing your job, but once they're finished, any further delay solely because of chat does nothing but annoy the waiting customers. If there's no-one waiting, chat away for as long as you want.

Giving great customer service to one customer can result in giving bad customer service to another. Wouldn't a happy medium be "chat during transaction and then politely end the chat to deal with the next customer"?

ash23

Penn wrote: »

Giving great customer service to one customer can result in giving bad customer service to another. Wouldn't a happy medium be "chat during transaction and then politely end the chat to deal with the next customer"?

Wouldn't a better solution be "have two checkouts open" so that they can deal with the people who are in for a chat whilst also serving the people in a hurry?

I don't understand any supermarket only having one till open. Some people will have trolley loads and others will have a bag of crisps. That's why there should be a till open for "10 items or less" and another for larger amounts.
I'd be annoyed over that more than I'd be annoyed over the cashier but each to their own.

Pottler

"Hi, beep beep beep beep. That'll be 5.99 please.....Thanks, here's your change....NEXT"


cue thread on Boards : "I was in my local shop the other day, and yer wan was as rude as can be, you'd want to hear her, rant, rant, boil...:D

ChubbyHubby

ash23 wrote: »

Soooo....it's bad customer service to be friendly to the customers???

You're not being paid to have a conversation and most customers didn't go there to chit-chat. It's bad customer service when most people just want to pay for their stuff and get the hell out.

Surely the problem is not that the cashier was being friendly and more that the management had only one till open.
If it bothered you that much, complain to management about the lack of staff, not about the cashier being nice.

I feel bad for shop staff because the cost cutting measures mean they are busier than ever but at the same time, they are still expected to give people their time and be friendly and helpful. They can't win.

Sorry, you saying you can't be friendly and helpful without having a 5 min conversation with some customer when there's a queue forming? Having a conversation with the customer is hardly in the cashiers job requirement. It's a supermarket, not a local ma and pa shop.

Either they fly through their work and say very little and people complain/they chat and people complain because they are being delayed/they are slowly replaced with automated checkouts and people complain about having to do it themselves.

Who the hell ever complains about some cashier won't chat to them? You saying not chatting is being unfriendly?

leahyl

What really annoys me are people who don't even make an effort to pack up their bags as fast as they can if there is a queue behind - you could be standing there 5 minutes and they're cool as you like packing the bags as slowly as possible - that's why I like Aldi and Lidl - you have to lob everything into the trolley and then do your packing away from the till.

It also really annoys me when cashiers don't even help someone to pack their groceries if the person is on their own.

JRant

If it's customer + cashier having a chat I couldn't care less. Nobodies in that much of a hurry that they would begrudge an old dear a bit of a chat. However what is it with women of a certain age paying for all their items and just as they're about to walk away they ask for scratch cards? It happens in an awful lot of shops.
Now cashier + cashier conversations drive me around the bend. Was in a sports shop over the chrimbo and two "OMG, like totz amazeballs" girls were in a full blown conversation. They didn't acknowledge any of the customers paying for goods and when it came to my turn was left €40 short in change, when i pointed this out i was told i was mistaken. Manager came, checked the till and apoligised, when i pointed out the cashier was just plain rude and ignorant she made a bee-line for the cashier and asked her to apoligise as well.

ash23

ChubbyHubby wrote: »

You're not being paid to have a conversation and most customers didn't go there to chit-chat. It's bad customer service when most people just want to pay for their stuff and get the hell out.

You are though. You're being paid to give the customer what they want. The company then decides what that is. Sometimes it's low cost which means cuts to the time given to a customer (Aldi and Ryanair being good examples). Other times the prices are higher but you expect to be given more time and not rushed.
I worked in a place when I was a teenager where an old guy came in every week and we used to walk around the shop with him helping him with his shopping because he was partially sighted. Now I work in a place where if some customer rings up to chat about the weather you just smile and go along with it until THEY are ready to hang up, not when we are ready to get rid of them.

Sorry, you saying you can't be friendly and helpful without having a 5 min conversation with some customer when there's a queue forming? Having a conversation with the customer is hardly in the cashiers job requirement. It's a supermarket, not a local ma and pa shop.

Who the hell ever complains about some cashier won't chat to them? You saying not chatting is being unfriendly?

Not what I said at all. Just saying that perhaps that customer she was chatting to is a regular and they always chat to them and to not do so would mean that person would feel they were rushed or handled badly.

I just think it's gas that so many threads are about customers feeling fobbed off or unheard or rushed or that they are getting poor customer service and here's a girl who's being nice and chatty, not rushing customers as being just another number to get through as fast as possible, and there's a thread complaining.
:rolleyes:

cantdecide

I was in a filling station before Christmas trying to get a road sambo and there was a three way conversation going between between two yungwans at the till and the girl at the deli counter about some mad night they'd had at some house party the night before. Saying things like 'shur Shane puked in the living room' and 'I drank this much and that much' and 'she went off with this guy' and all as if there were no one there but the three of them.

Agricola

I hate ignorant cashiers. There was a guy who ran a petrol station with his family near where I used to work and he was the absolute pits, as were his kids. Neither him or his kids could say hello, please or thanks - the only people who made an effort to be civil were the foreign nationals workings there.

All you'd get was zero eye contact, a request for a sum of money and then the change would be thrown back at you onto the counter, normally ignoring your outstretched open hand!

So a friendly cashier is something that is a very small but pleasing thing in life. But yeah, they should really keep the discussions to a minimum and try to move people along during peak times.

Shenshen

ash23 wrote: »

A lot of people frequent certain supermarkets for the chat. Might be the only person they get to talk to all week.
The likes of Supervalu can't compete with Tesco and Lidl in price so make up for it by staying old school and relying on customer loyalty. I see it in the town I live and the town I'm from. Supervalu checkouts are much slower but they are way chattier.

Which is why if I'm in a hurry I don't go there. But I know plenty who prefer that to the self service in tesco or the Aldi speed round.

Best of luck to them, but it's the one main reason why I never, ever shop in SuperValue if it can be at all avoided.
Crappy music over the tannoy and waiting ages with your shopping while the lady at the checkout chats away with someone, and if you're really out of luck some spotty kid trying to pack your bottles of lemonade on top of your eggs so you give them money to go horseriding in Iceland... sorry, no, not for me.

Give me Aldi or Lidl, no fuss, no awful music, quick and friendly checkout, and cheaper as well.

lovelyjubbly

ChubbyHubby wrote: »

Who the hell ever complains about some cashier won't chat to them? You saying not chatting is being unfriendly?

I worked in a local shop and yes, regulars do complain if you don't chat to them. The owner inherited the shop from his dad so preferred to maintain good relations with regulars than appease the once-off customers. You can try move people along but if they don't then you have to listen. Most of the regulars were older and you would know a lot about their life whether you wanted to or not.

A big part of that job was having a relationship with the regulars.

ash23

Shenshen wrote: »

Best of luck to them, but it's the one main reason why I never, ever shop in SuperValue if it can be at all avoided.
Crappy music over the tannoy and waiting ages with your shopping while the lady at the checkout chats away with someone, and if you're really out of luck some spotty kid trying to pack your bottles of lemonade on top of your eggs so you give them money to go horseriding in Iceland... sorry, no, not for me.

Give me Aldi or Lidl, no fuss, no awful music, quick and friendly checkout, and cheaper as well.

Same as. I make small talk at work all day so I don't want to do it in the evenings. Weekly shop is in Aldi where I can get in and out with minimum fuss. Bits and bobs are done in Tesco where I can use the self service.

But some people hate being rushed with a passion and so they go to places like SuperValu. That's my point. Those are the people Supervalu are catering to. It's their selling point.

anncoates

Irishcrx wrote: »

Here's a story for ya you twat , your in ****ing work not the pub so shut your pie hole and start working I don't want to be standing here listening to your crap I'm hungry and want to go home....

She can't hear you.

Let them talk for a few minutes - pleasantries should take maybe 5 minutes max. After that cough and step forward.

leahyl

One can still be pleasant and have a brief conversation with the cashier while packing one's bags at a reasonable pace - it's called multi-tasking - I thought women in particular were meant to be good at this but funnily enough it's always women that are the slowcoaches at the checkouts. It really annoys me - maybe I'm just too considerate but I am always conscious of a queue behind me and if it's a long one then I ensure that I get out of there as soon as I can.

up for anything

If there weren't any chatty check out staff I'd have to pay a counsellor. Leave us our chat.

JRant

leahyl wrote: »

One can still be pleasant and have a brief conversation with the cashier while packing one's bags at a reasonable pace - it's called multi-tasking - I thought women in particular were meant to be good at this but funnily enough it's always women that are the slowcoaches at the checkouts. It really annoys me - maybe I'm just too considerate but I am always conscious of a queue behind me and if it's a long one then I ensure that I get out of there as soon as I can.

Ah yes, multi-tasking also known as being able to do many things at once poorly.

My personal favourite is the woman who has been queuing for 10 mins, had all her items scanned and then looks like a rabbit in the headlights when asked for money.

Penn

JRant wrote: »

Ah yes, multi-tasking also known as being able to do many things at once poorly.

My personal favourite is the woman who has been queuing for 10 mins, had all her items scanned and then looks like a rabbit in the headlights when asked for money.

THAT annoys me. Everywhere... supermarkets, petrol stations, clothes shops etc. Happens everywhere, and not just with women. How do you not at least know where your money is? How do you not have a general idea of how much what you're buying will cost?

If I'm buying approx €12 worth of stuff and I know I have a tenner in my front pocket and a twenty in my wallet, when I get to the till and put the stuff down, I instantly get my wallet.

Yet people are always standing there, having waited in line for a few minutes, stand there watching the cashier scan the items, then the cashier says "That'll be €XX.XX" and the person looks like they're astonished by the fact that they have to pay for these items they want.

Even if you're not getting your money ready while standing in line, at least make sure you know where your money is.

leahyl

JRant wrote: »

Ah yes, multi-tasking also known as being able to do many things at once poorly.

My personal favourite is the woman who has been queuing for 10 mins, had all her items scanned and then looks like a rabbit in the headlights when asked for money.

Very true, I must be the exception to the rule in that I realise that I will actually have to pay for the items and have my purse out ready to pay

Eve_Dublin

I'm from an average-sized town where everyone knows everyone (or at least back then) and used to work on a checkout in supermarkets in my late teens/early twenties. It's not that easy to shake off customers, even if you wanted to. I never had the heart to cut a conversation short with an old person. I'd get my regulars in every day and it was very obvious there that they were just lonely. Any suggestions on how you'd actually end the conversation without coming across like an arsehole?

leahyl

Eve_Dublin wrote: »

I'm from an average-sized town where everyone knows everyone (or at least back then) and used to work on a checkout in supermarkets in my late teens/early twenties. It's not that easy to shake off customers, even if you wanted to. I never had the heart to cut a conversation short with an old person. I'd get my regulars in every day and it was very obvious there that they were just lonely. Any suggestions on how you'd actually end the conversation without coming across like an arsehole?

I guess just still be polite but sort of chat to the next customer - something like "have you got a points card" or something like that but keep smiling away at the previous customer - maybe that will make them realise that you must get back to work - it must be difficult alright with elderly people especially who sometimes just want a chat.

efb

Last time I was in tesco I kept getting 'unexpected item in the bagging area' from the checkout.

I find Dunnes far too slow and problematic- I love lidl - v pleasant and efficient