A Mommy Blog About Raising Men, Not Boys.
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Sunday, April 05, 2009

Bass Pro Shops Is Rocking The Customer Service - NOT

Soooo, you know we might not be the outdoorsiest of all possible families but our kids like the festive atmosphere and fun tank of giant fish, wild animal vignettes made of real dead wild animals and the like.
We don't BUY a lot in there, because I like said - we're not terribly outdoorsy, but we've bought this and that over time. Today however we were poking about in their camping section because we are toying with the idea of going camping. We were just having a look-see, you know, checking out what might be there that wasn't at ye old WalMart (guess what, not much + it's all twice as expensive).
REGARDLESS - Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World is a lot of fun to putz around inside of so we were having a sort of fun short trip when we noticed that man, they had a lot of employees there - TONS of them. Standing around, not doing anything, not greeting people.......

  • Case in point - five employees behind a counter all huddled into one corner talking - a customer is STANDING on the opposite counter with his wallet and credit card out. He's TAPPING his credit card and they aren't flinching. Not even bothering to look around. Ummm, hello - in this economy? Are you FIVE EMPLOYEES really ignoring a guy with his credit card out?
  • Next up - the rude cashier. We've drug out kids to the check out where we're gonna buy them two little chairs and we get them into the closest line - we're next to check out. Blonde check out girl says "aisle 5 is open." which I understand is STANDARD cashier fare - she was trying to be helpful. What she doesn't know is that between US and aisle five is a minefield of crap that they've put in our way- stuff for our kids to touch and break and bother and want and truthfully, it's NOT WORTH IT. SO we say politely "No thanks we're good." At which point she stares at us blankly - and sort of angrily. Then, another aisle opens up - and she tells us about that one again - and we again tell her NO we're good....which obviously pisses her off. She checks us out, doesn't say thank you or have a nice day or BAG OUR STUFF or OFFER TO BAG OUR STUFF and turns around and goes to help the cashier behind her bag stuff.

I'm sorry Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World. Did we bother your cashier? I mean, was that a problem that we didn't want to change lines? Was it wrong of us to be happy where we were and just want to wait our turn? Because we were pretty happy there in line, having had a mostly good visit despite SEEING bad service in action - we'd never been mistreated by you.

Here's a little tactical advice. Reduce your headcount. Keep your full timers who are paying for mortgages and families and lose the teenie boppers. This will cause the people who remain employed to be more inspired to WORK if there aren't 85 extra people on the floor.

Or, instead of taking the slash and burn management style here is an even better idea.

Training. Get some. Quickly. I can recommend books and seminars.

Or, you could visit a Cabela's Store.

I'm just sayin'.

1 comments:

Harper Ganesvoort said...

They could send teams to visit a Barnes & Noble. At least my Barnes & Noble, but I suspect any good one will do. We believe in customer service at B&N; it's one of the things that keep us alive over, say, Books-a-Million or Borders.