How often do customers complain about you? Less than once per year? How serious is it taken by the store manager? Have they ever taken your side? Yes "Joe", she was a real b*itch. I'm on your side". Maybe your meat manager would take your side, but I've never seen a store manager take the employees side. Often coworkers will take your side and in fact be happy they weren't the unlucky one who had to help her/him.
What do you think of people who complain? I don't mean that the roast was tough, but something like "he was rude" (when you weren't)? Do you think that the person must have a bad life and is taking it out on you? Especially old ladies? I mean, I'm sorry that the worst thing that happened to you lately is that I didn't smile. Hope I didn't ruin your year.
Do you remember the last complaint that was made against you? What was it? Did you realize you could have handled it better, or was the customer wrong?
Have you ever been rude and almost knew you'd get a complaint but didn't?
How would you feel if a customer complained about the store (but not you in particular) and said they'd never be back? Would you feel like the loss of the customer could hurt you in some way? Or would you feel like "OK. Bye. see you later" and not care. Now you don't have to deal with her/him?
Had a problem a few months ago about a kid I ask not to poke holes in the meat, he told his mother I was hateful talking to him, I wasn't, I only said young man if you poke a hole in it your mother will have to pay for it. she fuss at the store manager about me getting on to him for no reason. Store manager came to me with her and the kid, ask me about it and I told him what I said, Store manager told her that is our policy, she left mad but was back the next week, but want look at me i'm glad lol
Last week I had a talking to about how some of my ground chuck packages where 2.7 and 2.8 lbs instead of 3 or more lbs. I was surprised that was even an issue. The market manager explained that some customer complained about it the night before. the Store manager instructed the market manager to discuss it with me. The store manager wants them 3 pounds or more.. No problem.. Thats not a big deal but both me and the market manager agreed it was a silly thing to be concerned about when there is are much bigger problems in the big picture we wish management would look at.
Have I ever had a complaint against me personally? (like he was a jerk to me). I am sure i have before but I never heard of them. I say this because I know I am not the nicest guy in the world. Sometimes I can come off as a real *******. No I don't intentional go to a customer and blow steam but there have been times when a customer would approach me when I am very aggraviated about something and I am sure i didn't come off as super friendly. But noone in management has ever had a talk with me about such a complaint so maybe there never was one.
How often do they complain? I probably get a business related complaint about once a month...they didn't like the meat, someone missed a package that should have been pulled, or they opened it at home thought it smelled funny and brought it back or the prices are too high.. that happens to us all occassionally. Personal complaints against me because of my demeanor never happened to my knowledge.
How would I feel abotu costomers complaining to the store but not me? If It involves the meat dept. I want to know about it. If they didn't talk to me the person they did talk to better come and tell me what it was about or I will be very unhappy when i find out that someone was unhappy about something and noone informed me out of laziness. That is my business and Yes this does happen sometimes and I get pissed to the point where i got to take people aside and say look when there is a problem with my department I need to know about it every single time.
If the customer threatens to leave and never come back? I do have customers who occassionally complain about the prices. I have no controll over that..the prices are what they are. I kind of have this "no is making you buy it" mentality.. (no I have never said that to them) The fact is if you don't like the prices and or anything else that is just out of my control i can't help you . if you want to complain and waste time i would rather see you just go somewhere else see if you can find better prices. I know some of you members(i won't name names) are going to jump all over this with comments about how you would always make the customer happy no matter what ...yeah yeah i know.. In my meat dept the prices are what they are I am not going to fix prices for people or i ll have the whole town asking me to do that.
You know Larry, I have had interviews with questions like these. Your turn. what about you?
Last week I had a talking to about how some of my ground chuck packages where 2.7 and 2.8 lbs instead of 3 or more lbs. I was surprised that was even an issue. The market manager explained that some customer complained about it the night before. the Store manager instructed the market manager to discuss it with me. The store manager wants them 3 pounds or more.. No problem.. Thats not a big deal but both me and the market manager agreed it was a silly thing to be concerned about when there is are much bigger problems in the big picture we wish management would look at.
Have I ever had a complaint against me personally? (like he was a jerk to me). I am sure i have before but I never heard of them. I say this because I know I am not the nicest guy in the world. Sometimes I can come off as a real *******. No I don't intentional go to a customer and blow steam but there have been times when a customer would approach me when I am very aggraviated about something and I am sure i didn't come off as super friendly. But noone in management has ever had a talk with me about such a complaint so maybe there never was one.
How often do they complain? I probably get a business related complaint about once a month...they didn't like the meat, someone missed a package that should have been pulled, or they opened it at home thought it smelled funny and brought it back or the prices are too high.. that happens to us all occassionally. Personal complaints against me because of my demeanor never happened to my knowledge.
How would I feel abotu costomers complaining to the store but not me? If It involves the meat dept. I want to know about it. If they didn't talk to me the person they did talk to better come and tell me what it was about or I will be very unhappy when i find out that someone was unhappy about something and noone informed me out of laziness. That is my business and Yes this does happen sometimes and I get pissed to the point where i got to take people aside and say look when there is a problem with my department I need to know about it every single time.
If the customer threatens to leave and never come back? I do have customers who occassionally complain about the prices. I have no controll over that..the prices are what they are. I kind of have this "no is making you buy it" mentality.. (no I have never said that to them) The fact is if you don't like the prices and or anything else that is just out of my control i can't help you . if you want to complain and waste time i would rather see you just go somewhere else see if you can find better prices. I know some of you members(i won't name names) are going to jump all over this with comments about how you would always make the customer happy no matter what ...yeah yeah i know.. In my meat dept the prices are what they are I am not going to fix prices for people or i ll have the whole town asking me to do that.
You know Larry, I have had interviews with questions like these. Your turn. what about you?
My last complaint came in December. One day in December the store manager caught me on the way out and told me he needed to talk to me. He said he had a complaint about me "and it's bad". I was a little worried, but also had zero idea what I might have done. I asked him what happened? He said, "well, it happened around Thanksgiving" He said a lady just now (Dec 28) told him that around Thanksgiving she was together with another customer that I was already helping. Only I didn't know they were together. They must have been apart at the beginning. So she asks me for something. Since I'm already with a customer, I tell her, I forget the exact words, that I'm already helping someone, but she'll be next. Then I immediately called for help so that someone else would get her right away. And then she explained that they're together. So I end up getting them both a different item or two. Somehow in the way I told her that I'm with another customer, she got offended. She claims I was rude. Well, if it was that bad, why'd she wait 30 days to complain???? Also, is it really that bad? Why did my store manager come up to me and use the words "....and it's bad". I even asked my manager about the 30 day thing. He said "well, that proves how mad she was. She was so mad she had to wait a month" I sure wish I had thought to counter that with "oh good. next time I have a same day complaint we'll know it's not bad since they didn't wait 30 days to say something". I think I told him "it's 30 days ago. How can I remember exactly what I said. I know it wasn't the way she understood it, but maybe I could have handled it better. I'm sorry. I'll be more careful" He wasn't very understanding. This is the kind of person who I have a low opinion of. I feel she overreacted. No need to get a guy in trouble for that. However, she did ask him not to make a big deal of it "she just wanted him to know what I did"
1: That's chicken $hit thing to say. You can't have it both ways.
2: he didn't honor her request (of course)
At my previous job (10 years ago) it wouldn't bother me one bit if a customer told me they're never coming back. I'd just think "good see you later". I really disliked that previous company. Right now, I'm with what I view as the best company in the local. I would hate for anything bad to happen to my company. I'm sure I care more about them than they do me. I would feel different about it now if anyone told me that.
Anyway, I almost told an auto shop this week that I'm never coming back. I decided not to because I'm sure they feel just like I did (before). "ok, good. don't let the door hit you on your way out". I won't be back, but I didn't tell them. Didn't want to make their day. After all, I was just a stupid customer.
last week i was helping a lady and she wanted two strip steaks. she wanted them thicker than what i had on the sales floor so walked her to our service case to show her some thicker ones. a man walked up at the same time and i told him i would be with him in a min. and he went off saying he was there before her. i told him i was already helping her, he told me "forgit it i'm goin to publix" and walked off. my manger came back a few mins. later and asked me what happend and luckly the woman i was helping was still back there and she backed me up.my meat shop dont git compland on to much but there will always be people like that.
I sliced a whole standing rib for a lady over Christmas. Just broke the strings, took off the back rib and sliced it for steaks. I guess she took it home then called the store director, furious, saying "it was worst job of slicing she had ever seen. There wasn't two steaks the same width in the entire package." WTF? I was completely flabbergasted and have no idea what she was talking about. It was very busy so I sliced it on the boneless saw, so every steak was identical I guarantee it. Maybe the last steak was a little thicker. But not by much. After 28 years I'm pretty good at making them come out. The only thing I can think is that I trayed them up in a rush and since its soft meat they kind of flopped over or got smashed or something. But man, that bothered me for the rest of the week.
You'd think after 28 years, I'd have a little thicker skin. But that kind of complaint strikes at my very competence and I take it very personally. It one thing to not like my personality. It's another to tell the store director I can't cut meat.
-- Edited by Meat Monkey on Monday 16th of January 2012 07:33:41 PM
I understand completely. I make homemade Chicken Pot Pies at our store. Intended to be taken home and put in a 350 oven for about 20 min, therefore I try to slightly under cook them. I had an old lady just before Christmas call and say that it was raw, and very upset. Apparently, for what ever reason, she dissected before she even tried to reheat it and thought the dough was too raw. Duhh.... It has to be put into an oven to heat back up for 20 to 25 min, thus fininshing the cooking process. Nothing that I could say could make her happy. Like you, after 26 years at this you'de think it wouldn't bother me, but it does. I get such GREAT reviews on those pot pies.
i haven't had one yet that i know of . But there is one guy at work he must be the bosses love child someone complains about him every week and the boss just says keep an eye on him.
One of the stores I managed for about 5 years had the most difficult and spoiled clientele you could ever imagine. When we would run a loss leader sold as london broil only, or sold as roast only, a very large number of customers would insist you service it and I don't mean just grind it but often cut it into a mix of minute steak, cubes, and stir fry! These people would bog my whole crew down. At first I would tell them no, it was sold as roast only but then they would go to the store manager and complain about me. The Store Mgr would come back and make me do it, make me looking like a fool for trying to adhere to company policy. After that happened a couple times I turned the tables on him, telling the customer "Ma'am, these are supposed to be sold as roast only so I advise you to go up to the office and ask the store manager if he would make an exception and if he says yes we will be happy to do it for you." This way at least the customer had to take a walk, and I turned the customer (and there were dozens of them daily) into a big pain in the a** for the store mgr instead of for me. He got the message.
We also had a double your money back guarantee on meat back then, and I woudl have one lady who would come in every 2 weeks, buy a 6 rib rib roast for like $60 back then. She would have us cut it in half and package each separately. Like clockwork, 3 or 4 days later she would bring back half of half of the rib roast back, say it was tough, and get double her money back ($120) even though she would only bring back half of the 3 ribber when she bought 6 ribs. She did this on all the other meat she bought. After several times I went out and spoke very politely to her explaining that I had very high standards and cutting specs and even my wife only bought out of the case, but I just did not think that I had any products that were up to her standards and woudl appreciate ii if she bought her meat elsewhere. Boy did the SHTF!! She wrote to our corporate HQ and they sent her flowers, and apology and some gift certficates. I had a hearing on this and when the facts were known management backed me.
Yeah well... it turned out she was doing the same thing in the produce and seafood departments that also had double yor money back guarantees, and even in other depts. like non-food she would return hairspray half empty and get replacements.....
In the end the company closed this store. Even though it did about a million dollars a week they could not make a profit on it. Several other stores in the neighborhood also closed or regularly changed ownership.
I always love hearing your stories Jim, It sounded like a nightmare there. It actually gives me the chills do you still wake up with cold sweats. I would if i had to put up with that for all those years.
You're very close. I've been in a totally different field, telecommunications, for the last 15 years, but it is not unusual for me to have nightmares about work, and in all those nightmares I am still a meat manager trying to make something happen!
We have pretty standard return policies. Either bring back the "bad" product or a receipt and you can get your money back or exchange. This doesn't happen very often but when it does it's usually the same customers. We have one lady that every 2 weeks buys a rotisserie chicken, eats half of it and then brings it back claiming it's under cooked. She always gets a full refund. Those chickens are never undercooked! If anything they're overcooked!
I hate to say it but the worst offender is our customer service manager. This woman is a major pain in the a**. Yesterday, she brought in 4 beef tenderloin steaks claiming they "smelled funny" and she wanted an exchange. The kicker, she bought them at our other location. I told her she needed to return them to that store. She looked at me and said she wasn't going that way and wanted them exchanged. I opened the package, the steaks were slightly dark and smelled like butter. They were fine. I looked at her at said "I'll be happy to exchange these for you. Next time return them where you bought them." She said "That's not one of our policies, but I'll do what I can." THIS IS THE FREAKING CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGER!!! I smiled and said thanks. In less than 2 minutes I was on the phone with administration and now the policy states you have to return "bad" product to the store you purchased it from. Since I couldn't sell the steaks, I gave the perfectly fine steaks she returned to my staff. I may have lost $30 dollars in sales but at least my staff got to eat a decent steak out of it.
Never had a customer complaint about anything I have done.
Tonight, I did run into.... or should I say was run over; struck down like a frog in the road, crushed by a semi-tractor-trailer.
We sell tenderloin steaks select at $11.49/lbs. These are cut from peeled butt tender portions, essentially case ready. Chain policy is ordinarily no trim on these steaks.
A woman came in and insisted on 4 tenderloin steaks with no visible silver or fat. I could see this was a dangerous situation that could downhill if not handled well.
So, I told her that I would cut her a fresh package of steaks just for her.... to get rid of her so that I could go back to actually making margin with the other 1500 shoppers I expected.
"Not good enough... How am I expected to cook these? I'm the one getting hosed" she said.
By this time I had gone through two entire peeled butt tenders for her..... ouch!
Now, I discovered she wants 4 perfectly portioned 10oz each, tournedos (center-cuts) with no fat, no silver, only red, perfectly round and 2.5" tall.
I was faced with an explosive situation now. The woman was standing in the midst of a 20 person deli queque.
I kept hearing the words over and over again, "I'm the one getting hosed." (from the mouth of a 65 or 70 year old woman... likely crazy as juggling dynamite.)
Ahh... I have 5-up tenderloins we as a rule never cut, but only sell out of a primal case.... a one-hundred and something dollar 5-up tenderloin cut into tenderloin steaks.... highly-trimmed steaks that will sell at $11.49/lbs and not the $20/lbs that it should be at.... ouch.
I think I lost $80 on the sale.... but at least I saved my job. It was easier selling choice and prime tendies at $27/lbs or more. It was much easier... never lost money.
-- Edited by JimmyMac on Friday 21st of June 2013 11:09:23 PM
Never had a customer complaint about anything I have done.
Tonight, I did run into.... or should I say was run over; struck down like a frog in the road, crushed by a semi-tractor-trailer.
We sell tenderloin steaks select at $11.49/lbs. These are cut from peeled butt tender portions, essentially case ready. Chain policy is ordinarily no trim on these steaks.
A woman came in and insisted on 4 tenderloin steaks with no visible silver or fat. I could see this was a dangerous situation that could downhill if not handled well.
So, I told her that I would cut her a fresh package of steaks just for her.... to get rid of her so that I could go back to actually making margin with the other 1500 shoppers I expected.
"Not good enough... How am I expected to cook these? I'm the one getting hosed" she said.
By this time I had gone through two entire peeled butt tenders for her..... ouch!
Now, I discovered she wants 4 perfectly portioned 10oz each, tournedos (center-cuts) with no fat, no silver, only red, perfectly round and 2.5" tall.
I was faced with an explosive situation now. The woman was standing in the midst of a 20 person deli queque.
I kept hearing the words over and over again, "I'm the one getting hosed." (from the mouth of a 65 or 70 year old woman... likely crazy as juggling dynamite.)
Ahh... I have 5-up tenderloins we as a rule never cut, but only sell out of a primal case.... a one-hundred and something dollar 5-up tenderloin cut into tenderloin steaks.... highly-trimmed steaks that will sell at $11.49/lbs and not the $20/lbs that it should be at.... ouch.
I think I lost $80 on the sale.... but at least I saved my job. It was easier selling choice and prime tendies at $27/lbs or more. It was much easier... never lost money.
-- Edited by JimmyMac on Friday 21st of June 2013 11:09:23 PM
I like how you wrote "I could see this was a dangerous situation that could downhill if not handled well". I get that feeling sometimes. For sure I have a lot of room for improvement in how I handle people. For sure, I chose the wrong profession. But it's too late to change.
Never had a customer complaint about something you did, didn't do, or said? After how many years? That's an impressive accomplishment.
I have been cutting for two-years... it's my fifth profession. I used to be a gas company meter guy in the worst and the best neighborhoods. You get a knack for knocking on a door of an unsuspecting stranger and subsequently strolling about their home. I can drive the streets of Boston and there is only a few places I haven't been inside. Door to door. I also worked full-service case for a summer.
In custom harvest I was warned about a woman who would have a beef ground-up into burger (almost the whole dang thing).
Upon receiving the 1-pound hand-wrapped (paper and plastic) burger packs, she would weigh them; each and every one of them, to ensure they were all 1-pound.
You do realise when you break and bone-out, and then grind a whole beef cow, you get something like 500-packages of burger.
Picky-picky.
I have heard it said that the sign of insanity is not found in craziness and unpredictability, but in pure, unremitted use of the faculty of reason; that is, utter consistency in thought and action, an end-in-itself.
