This.
Nah I agree with you. I don't think the customer responded well but that greeting, likely or not, was unprofessional.
This. When i worked retail and some one asked me to go check in the back, it just means I get 5 minutes off of the floor to do whatever i want. Go the bathroom, check my phone for texts/messages, etc. I'm not actually looking because I know we don't have it since your not the first person to ask, you like the 800th person to ask.
Why was it unprofessional? How is it any different than an automated system stating something prior to the person calling in talking to a person.
Yeah. I've worked retail and that would be me working in electronics hell I'm pretty sure def had times just had to say that after several calls tell people straight up we don't have x. The customer was an idiot lol.
Its not. It more than likely want he is told to say when he answers the phone. Every retail job has a script you have to say when you answer the phone. He was probably trained on saying "We do not have any ps5s" when he answers the phone. Maybe he could be more enthusiastic when he says it, but whatever that's being nit picky. Literally nothing unprofessional with that greeting.
Starting to see who are people who have never worked a retail job in their life. Customers in many cases are assholes about hot items, and anything to try and not waste our time is a good thing. Lol.
This is a very accurate description of my electronics shopping experiences at Wal-Mart. Sometimes would talk to 3 different employees before somebody would get an item from the stock room. Like, I'd do it myself if I could, I don't want to pester the staff
You don't assume that is what they are asking, you have to open with a generic intro that is inviting their question, regardless of what it is. Not every single electronic call has to be based around the PS5, some may want store hours or ask about the XBOX Series X. You would never know though the way this worker opened the call, especially when he had his coworkers/friends giggling in the background.
No. It's not. I worked in retail management for almost twenty years, and I can tell you, the people getting mad at a greeting saying whatever hot thing they're calling for is not in stock aren't mad because of the greeting. They're going to be shitty either way. And telling someone you don't have something right off the bat isn't jumping to the negative. It's a factual statement. Just because the customer isn't happy doesn't mean it's negative.
Why get angry in the first place? You can just ignore the PS5 bit and start asking your question to CS. The customer decided to get pissy about it and called them the r word.
He asked for the rep to repeat the question, he didn't jump out at him right away. I also currently work customer service in an government body and take calls daily and answer to the public 35 hours a week. Maybe I am wrong but I assume "no we dont have any PS5's' isn't the greeting that customers waiting on hold for _____ time get. It just dismisses the call altogether, you can't assume every single person is calling over that.
Who knows the hold time, I don't take it out on CS as I do it myself and I am the type of person who asks for surveys for good customer service or am complimentary for people who do their job. We have a hold time of 90 minutes so I try and be as empathetic and helpful as I possibly can. Customer asked him to repeat the intro, and he did it the same exact way, customer gave him a chance before jumping in(Albeit nasty but I assume he heard the giggling over the phone which is rude)
If the customer wasn't calling for a PS5, do you honestly think this interaction would've happened like this?
I've had multiple instances of Best Buy employees "checking the back" for me and finding the item in question.
Customer said how do you know that was what he was calling about? Could be XBOX question or TV or phone related questions, who knows. Employee was positive it was a PS5 question though.
Alright why get angry? Just ask your damn question if the PS5 plug in the intro doesn't pertain to you? I worked at a pharmacy and had to plug in that we were sold out of TP, hand sanitizer, etc. PS5 is the hot item that's very hard to find, so it's expected to get tons of calls in electronics for that.
I agree I would ignore and shake off the representative but that doesn't mean this was good customer service or he was doing a good job, glad the representative got called out for it but I guess he sees it as "lol" and sees this will get views so maybe not.
Yes. Its very clear who has and hasn't worked in retail.
You do realize that the CS was trained to say this right? Every retail store has a standard greeting and saying 'we don't have any ps5's' is apart of the standard greeting. In retail, they normally change the standard greeting during the holiday anyway and this is no different. Its probably done so that they don't waste time asking about ps5 when they have none in stock. Granted, they should probably have the ivr do that but not everyone listens to the ivr. They just mash buttons until they get an actual live person so they are more than likely trained to say "we don't have any ps5s" when they pick up the call.
Yeah he should not have, rep probably should have took the caller more seriously instead of giggling with his coworkers or friends too. I would be pissed as a caller but the caller overreacted.
It is not rude. Are you aware of the issues Wal-Mart stores had with people trying to get these to things. The directive came from above. It's Wal-Mart, which is a volume, not service based company. If probably more than 25% of the calls came in for ps5 to the electronic section then the ps5 introduction isn't unwarranted. We hear automated system saying the same thing all the time. This is someone calling Wal-Mart not a fine establishment where different protocols would be different. At the end of the day Wal-Mart is a company built by margins. Which is indicative of the service and quality of items you get. Should the kid probably asked how they could help after the PS5 statement, sure.
How?
I don't know how you can take out of the video the representative was helpful and did a great job. They giggled over the phone, laughed at the customer's reaction and repeated the same exact greeting afterwords after being asked if they can repeat the question.
At worst, they should not have recorded the video. That is, quite literally, it.
What are you on about? Call went as follows:
Look, I'm sorry that Walmart person was rude to you, but it's probably time to move on.
My first job.
We watched the same video. Where am I being an apologist? He set the call up with his friends to respond. You hear giggling over the phone, you assume it's a 1 on 1 call. I know the job sucks and again I have called customer service in the past and try and be good to people but this just seemed like a dismissive representative off the get go. We aren't disagreeing that the caller overreacted, just the rep jumped the gun by assuming he wanted to buy a PS5.
To be fair, having worked at EBGames (Canada) for 10+years, we were told to say that whenever we ran out of newly released consoles. I did the same for XB1, PS4 and Switch in recent last gen.
It's not his fault if he jumped the gun if the last 100 calls were asking about the PS5. Had the same issue with the PS4 or Switch launches when I worked at EBGames. Everyone was asking for them, despite not having any in stock.
You missed the 20 or so other people in this thread saying that every store ever says for you to pre-empt calls like that when call volume is high for a specific thing.
