Where to begin?
1. Anitquated equipment. The computer was constantly freezing up. Some days it was the front computer, some days it was the back computer. Then the scanner would freeze up. Some days you'd have to call Tech Support who would put you on hold for what felt like an eternity. And even though you're still waiting on customers (because you're the only one there), the customers complain that you're on the phone...as if you're taking a personal call on company time instead of trying to get your equipment to work!
2. Last minute promo changes. You'd check email at 6:00 and here's some promo change that has to be in place by tomorrow morning. And you're the only one at the store. So, you NOW have posters to change, displays to change, shoes to untag or tag, customers to handle, the store to clean, and they STILL want you out of there by 9:15! I lost track of how many times I stayed as much as 3 hours late (off the clock) trying to get the store in order because I had a rush on customers and wasn't able to do hardly anything on some last minute promo change. Incidentally, a LOT of other stores do their promo changes after their store closes...but not Payless...we have to do promo changes while having to do the customer journey with each and every person.
3. The customer journey has too many steps. People get resentful when you keep trying to tell them everything that the customer journey entails. Which means they stop listening and then flunk you on the survey.
4. The survery. Terminology. Too many customers don't listen to what the associate is telling them and don't understand the teminology in regards to the survery. "Promotion?? What promotion?? That girl only told me what was on sale! She didn't tell me about any promotion!"
5. Micro-managing. EVERYTHING at Payless is micromanaged. And I mean EVERYTHING! From the way the tags are positioned on the box to the layout of your backroom to how those orange tags should be put on the box. The associates aren't to have an original thought about ANYTHING! We couldn't even hang a calendar in our backroom.
6. No rewards for good work. At one point in time, I was the highest seller in our store. All I ever got was a certificate that said "good job".....and sometimes I didn't even get that. No pay raise. No type of reward or incentive for doing good work. For what it was worth, they had Payless Bucks at one time, but I understand they've done away with that.
7. Nothing on the bottom of the receipts about how returns are handled for BOGO. People would buy the BOGO promotion and then try to return their more expensive shoe. They wanted full price returned to them and didn't understand that their half-off shoe was going to go back to it's original price.
I've learned that MOST people don't understand simple math and are very quick to say that Payless is trying to rip them off by not giving them back full price on their BOGO deal. Something on the receipt explaining returns would elminate a LOT of this.
8. Returns. Hopefully, this has changed. But we had to accept EVERY return that ever came along. It didn't matter if it was shoes that were falling apart that we had sold over a year ago....if they came back on a return, we had to accept it. There needs to be a time limit on returns. For most stores it's 90 days. If it's past 90 days, we can't accept the return...simple as that.
9. CRM. We had to ask the customers for their information such as name, address, email, and phone number. For the most part, this wasn't a problem. However, too many men think you're hitting on them! Even when you tell them it's for Payless and they see you putting the information on the computer. Do men EVER get a call from sales associates askng them out or something?? Here again, I've noticed that other stores are getting in an addition to their computer where the customer can type in their OWN information. The associate only has to tell them that they can enter their infomation on the small screen. She doesn't have to personally ask them for their information.
10. Conversion. The conversion sensor needs revamped. If someone is standing over at the wall looking at the slippers or flip flops (depending upon the season), the dinger keeps going off for as long as they are standing there. The dinger counts strollers. The dinger is going to count each member of a family even though Dad is the only one doing the buying. So if the dinger counts Dad, Mom, and 3 kids. Dad could buy 5 pairs of shoes which is great for your UPT's, but you're only going to get a 20% on your conversion.
While I could go on, I'll stop at 10. Hope you made it this far.
