Target Employee Says Whatever She Feels Like At The Time
Abbey is annoyed with a woman who works at the new Target store in Washington, D.C., because the woman lied to her and wasted her time:
One of my roommates just got a Wii, so I decided to go to Target and get "Wario Ware: Smooth Moves." Before hitting the store, though, I gave their electronics department a call to see if they had the game in stock. A woman in electronics picked up the phone and when I asked her if she had the game, she quickly said, "Yeah, we've got that in stock." So I got up off my couch and walked over to the Target to buy my game.
When I got there, less than half an hour later, I checked the shelves - but no game. I went to the front desk to see if someone could help me find it. After a few minutes of being flirted with by his coworker (as a line steadily grew behind me), the guy at the electronics desk told me that in fact, no, they didn't have the game in stock.
Now, I'd be willing to believe that maybe in the twenty minutes it took me to get to the Target, someone snatched up the last copy of Smooth Moves. But then the guy at the desk (who was really helpful) said, point blank to me, "I don't know who answered your call, but they obviously just didn't feel like looking it up. Sorry about that." (Side note: my guess is that the flirty coworker was the woman who answered my call; she was the only other person working in that department, and she beat a hasty retreat when she heard what I was looking for.)
So, basically, Washington DC's shiny new Target is being staffed by people who would rather lie to potential customers than spend what turned out to be literally ten seconds to look something up on a computer. What a wasted trip.
--Abbey
PS - I sent essentially this same message through Target's contact form yesterday and got a standard "sorry, come again soon!" form letter.
You need to chill out, Abbey. It's quite possible that the woman who answered the phone was a psychic in training, and she made a good faith effort to "see" the inventory without averting her gaze from her coworker's butt while he ran the cash register. Or what if it's Target Opposite Day and the employees are forced to reverse their answers? Managers love coming up with weird team-building exercises like that.
At any rate, just pretend that your trip to Target was a bonus Smooth Moves game—Nintendo's pretty innovative, so maybe they've worked real life pointless tasks into the mini-game concept by now.
(Photo: Getty Images)
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This reminds me of the time Target had copies of Vista Home Premium on sale for 10 cents. Sadly they were out of stock.
It's a boring story :(
Target doesn't have managers. They have "team leaders".
HA honestly while it might be really annoying to the customer, especially depending on how of a drive she has to get to target, its pretty funny. Actually hilarious, the beginning says that you got up off the couch and walked to target. I really don't have any sympathy for you at that point, its called exercise and probably does more for you than the video game....
Coming soon: Target weather forecasting, Target sports betting, Target stock analysts, and Target lottery suggestions
@seamer: Working at Target I can tell you Vista was never 10 cents. What you saw was the label for a display box. Target assigns to a label which printed out how much they paid for the display box on it. Had you read the label you would have seen "Vista Premium Display" written clearly on it.
As for your story I believe it. Sometimes people dont check which makes no sense because its incredibly easy to do so. 3 seconds on the computer will tell you if its in stock without even having to find the item itself.
The form later is standard, but you may end up getting a call from the store or a real letter later on. It takes 1-2 weeks for them to check into all those surveys.
@KIbbit: meh, its really that this isn't news worthy, is it really a huge deal that the video game wasn't there or some one lied to you. The workers probably get $8/hr so the they only give target $8/hr worth of work...
Rule number #1: Always get the emplyees name, and their department
Rule number #2 Always ask the emplyees to set tv item aside for you when calling to check stock.
L
After working retail for years until I was literally fed up with it, I can't blame the girl. She's getting paid minimum wage; do you really think she cares if you are too lazy to get off your couch and look yourself? That is why Target HAS retail stores; so you can go look and see what they have. If you are too lazy to go out and go shopping around, buy it online. Why should it be the employees job to shop for you?
I really don't like to blame the consumer; especially this one, as he WAS lied to. But I am getting tired of people expecting service a la the Plaza Hotel from a department store clerk. You answer the phone for minimum wage, and then see how motivated you are to go looking around the store for a product.
It could be my imagination, but I called Target customer service with a detailed complaint about an experience in one of their NY stores... and they seemed to have responded to the complaint.
I would suggest to the OP to call, rather than email. In my Target, I see people all the time that look like they're from the Target corporation and reworking the store. Again, it could be my imagination, but I think Target actually does to be responsive.
@aaron8301 - you know, some people like to call ahead to make sure we aren't waisting gas and time before we leave the store. Call us lazy - I call it efficient.
That isn't the point of this story. We all know that minimum wage is horrible, but you are still being paid and it is your job and responsibility to answer a simple question as asked by a customer.
She didn't want to do look it up, she was not doing what she is being paid to, as little as it is. People that work at these stores are expected to treat the customers with respect, and HELP them, that is why they are called customer service representatives.
How would you like to go to a Walmart with nothing but a self check out? Employees are paid so that someone can call in and receive help, not just to stand around.
Why does the customer have to go to the store to see if it's there? The employee is already in the electronics dept, is it that tough to look it up on the computer or even go look in the case? And if they aren't willing to do that for $8/hr then maybe they should find another job.
@aaron8301: they arent being asked to shop.. thats not their job. their job IS customer service... and they failed to provide that. Maybe you shop differently, but some people like to go to a store where they KNOW the product is in stock, instead of going around the whole city strying to find something. its more efficient to call ahead and verify.
would you rather her walk there.. then walk back, then drive to the next store, then drive to the next, then drive to the next? waste of gas, time, causes pollution and congests the roads, which DC doesnt need more of. the employee is hired to provide service.. and even if its $8 an hour she still took that job. shes making $8 an hour to stand behind a desk and spend 10 seconds looking something up on a computer when someone calls. would you pay someone more than $8 for that if you ran the store? no, because that amount of effort only deserves $8. The employee fails to even accomplish those tasks.
the consumer can be picked on for being lazy, but its not her fault at all for being lied to and having to waste time.
The thing is, that girl got paid the $8/hr if the customer was pissed or not.
Oh, you mean that Soviet Target in Columbia Heights was sold out of something? That place sucks. They're always sold out of everything.
On a handy note, if you look something up on target.com you can see what stores near you have it. It's not foolproof, though, because I called once and someone was just being lazy. I took a shot and made the hour long drive and lucked out anyway.
@PTWhipplebang: B-But they have M.O.D.s (manager on duty). I guess its easier to say than T.L.O.D.s
I don't know about target, but I used to work at a retail store where most people could not check inventory easily. Most computers did not have access to the inventory system. That meant either a) searching high and low all over the store for the particular item, and/or b) getting someone on inventory to do a systematic search (which could still be wrong), or c) just making something up to tell the customer. Since doing a) and b) could literally take about 20 minutes, it actually was a pretty bad solution for a customer calling in.
From the apologizer, it sounds like checking would not have entailed too much work, however.
Why should it be the employees job to shop for you?Because it's their job to answer the phones and provide accurate information to the customers?
Kind of the same thing happened to me, except backwards, when COD 4 came out, I asked the rep if they had any left for the PS3, she quickly replied, "Oh, no, we sold out of that awhile ago." I went and checked anyways (it was 25 feet away) and there were 4 copies left.
I think she did you the favor of buying a crappy game. I think she should get praise.
I was searching everywhere for a certain size pool for my kids, and low and behold, the only local place who had it, you guessed it, TARGET. Oh, F, I hate that place. But I love my kids, so I went. I have no complaints, though. Called ahead of time, asked if they had it in stock. It took a couple of minutes on hold, but they said yes. I asked them to put a hold on it for a couple of hours so I could get it, seeing as their store was 60 miles away.
When I got there, they had it sitting in customer service with my name on it. So some stores DO care. This particular person is just an asshat employee who values d*ck over their job responsibilities.
Dude, there's a Best Buy in the same building.
@aaron8301: Plaza Hotel service would be her calling around and finding out who did have it and then bringing it to me. And actually, I have been to a Target and a Lowe's where the employees did (almost) exactly that. They called to every store within driving distance to find me what I wanted and asked the employees at those stores to set it aside for me. I didn't ask them to do all that. It's just that when I asked them to help me find an item and their store didn't have it, they went out of their way to help me find it. And I made sure to let their managers know how helpful they had been.
OMG i can't believe that someone working at target did that to you!!!
slow news day consumerist?
@parad0x360: Normally, I agree with the content of your message (display boxes @10cents).
But these weren't labelled "display only". The shelf sticker was for the actual product, and the boxes on the shelf weren't even there. We went through 5 employees and a manager to verify that the 10 cent price was correct, and even the manager had to give in and acknowlege that somewhere in the system, someone either fucked up and/or someone with the authority to made themselves a few copies of Vista really cheap and didn't remember to fix the prices. We did see an inventory screen showing an instore availability of 0 items, so we knew we were just out of luck. The manager also called nearby stores to see if they had any, but they too were also out of stock (at the legit price).
I didn't want to have to write that all out, but you forced my hand!
Borders Books at least used to do this as a matter of policy, as far as I could tell. I work near one and would check their website's "search inventory" to see if the book I needed was in stock at the store before walking over there. Three times in a row they book the site claimed was in stock wasn't actually on the shelves and was out of stock according to the in-store computers. I finally realized that they just wanted me to go to the store in hopes that I'd buy something.
It wasn't as if it was a wasted trip. No one leaves TARGET empty handed, no one!
I do not know what this clerks problem was. Why didn't she just say NO. We do not have That Item. Done....
If Target is close enough to walk to, can't you just go and see if they have it yourself? It doesn't seem like it was an extensive or exhausting trip.
I'm going to start calling my grocery store to make sure they have stuff in stalk so I don't waste my time walking there from now on.
"In soviet russia game buys you"
i just dont see how this concerns the website. Big deal...we've all been lied to about something in a store. Do we wanna contact corporate and tell Target they have a lazy person working in their store?
I like it too, but they're always broken and they have people there to help you when they stop working. CSR is needed to help you for everything, its to the business's best interest. They shouldn't pick and chose, they're not shopping for you, they're helping make your shopping experience better.
I'm not sure what this contributor wants? Should Target fire this girl because she's a poor employee? Should everyone who reads the Consumerist stop shopping at Target because of one apathetic teenager? Was the game even on sale or did she have a gift card?
Retail outlets only get so many copies of console games. If you HAVE to have a game, either pre-order or buy online. Or shop at Babbages/Game Stop/Gamers/etc. The girl was a dumb bitch who doesn't care about you or your feelings.
I just described all teenagers and most people under 30 with that statement, as well.
for the record, that game is awesome. don't let target stop you from buying it.
First off... Minimum wage is like %5.65- Target pays more than that so let's stop with the minimum wage thing. I used to work at a dept. store where regular sales associates made $12+ an hour- not saying that's a lot of money but that's about what some cubie workers get paid.
Secondly, I think there's a chance that the game did get sold in that 20 minutes, or, the sales clerk (not being familiar with vid games) confused it with the DS version or something.
Trust me, if a customer wants to verify stock and an employee feels lazy, they're just going say, "Sorry... we don't have it" that way, they don't have to deal with it. I mean, think about it, if they lie and say they have it, then they will have to deal with that cust. eventually.
I admit, there have been times when I would say I would check, put the phone down for a few minutes, come back, lie, and say, "Sorry... we're out." BUT, I only did that when the customer wanted me to go through twenty racks of clearance to find that one shirt from a year ago on markdown for $4.99 in her size. As a former manager explained it, "How much do I pay you an hour? How long would it take you to find the shirt? How much is the shirt? Do the math."
I worked @ Target a few years ago as a loss prevention "specialist". You would not believe some of the things I saw go on @ that store. For instance, there was a camera pointed at the sudafed aisle. The people buying the limit of three packages (or whatever the limit was, I forgot) were photographed then followed to their car via the moving cameras both inside and outside the store. Once outside the store we were told to zoom in on the license plate and still photos were taken both of their face and the car plate. These were placed in a big photo album. Ocasionally local detectives and police would come in and look through the book and they would randomly run the plates. I'm pretty sure this is illegal. It was done all the time. There was blatant racism (african americans were watched/targeted the minute they walked in the door.)The tapes were filled with attractive white women shopping. Zooms of their breast and butt were the norm. Sometimes there was no manager or "team leader" present in the store @ ALL!! I was mortified beyond belief. Needless to say the whole thing made me sick and I quit not to long after starting. I hope this store was NOT the norm for Target, as it was...shocking.
As others have said - yes it is their damn job to check. I ALWAYS call ahead unless I'm just driving by and decide to stop in somewhere.
It doesn't matter if I want a $10 set of headphones or a $1,000 fridge - I always call and have them set it aside. Often at the front desk so I can go in, pay, and get the hell out.
Also how many times have you been shopping and been told "Gee we don't have one here, but there's two at our store 10 miles across town." Why the hell does anyone want to spend their Saturday on freeways and parking lots driving from one store to the next if I can do all the arrangements on my PC and phone. (That's if for some reason I didn't just buy it online.)
So yeah I call, verify a name/department, and make sure SOMEONE physically has their hand on my product. Hey I just realized what I wrote but not deleting it.
sheesh james
This is Target, not Nordstrom. About the extent of expected assistance is them getting big items out of the back and out of the store.
Target is a discount store, I wouldn't expect full service there any more than I would expect the local stop and rob to pump my gas and check my oil.
@lincolnparadox: It's quite possible that the reason people post here as well as contacting the home office of the offending store is to point out the lack of customer service - and to hopefully do something about it. If I were the manager of this store and I read this article, I'd want to hold a team meeting to go over customer service again with my staff.
If it's a new store, perhaps she wasn't trained on how best to answer the phone. The OP could have asked her to place it on hold for her, or, better yet, the person who answered the phone should have OFFERED to place this on hold for her.
I've worked retail in large book and music stores, and offering to put something on hold was just something we did for the customers. If they didn't come in within a 2 hour time limit, it went back on the shelf.
And people who work retail should realize that the customer service skills they pick up (good or bad) will follow them the rest of their careers - whether they're in retail or not.
next time have them put it on hold for you...? if you're nice enough maybe they will. i remember having a "team member" put a buncha clearance Luella stuff for me.
Ummm...so. Is this a problem the OP expects should rally the troops to picket Target? Seriously, what kind of response is this person looking for? Okay, so an employee lied instead of the getting off their lazy behind to actually check to see if the game was in stock. I am all for telling The Man where to shove it when he is screwing over customers but to be more than just mildly irritated about something like this, c'mon.
Ha ha... this happened to me in 1982 when I wanted to get some game paddles for my VIC-20 at the Sears at El Con Mall (ha!) in Tucson. Twenty five years later things don't change much.
That employee was dumb. Fine, be lazy, but everyone knows that when you want to blow off a customer on the phone, you tell them you DON'T have it, so that they don't come later and create an awkward situation for you.
Target is like 'this close' to getting the Walmart treatment for me, only if I get a gift card.