Let me state straight away that I am a Future Shop employee. I have worked for the company for about a year now, and have seen everything that is described here in these posts. I’ve seen sale associates blatantly lie to the customer’s face, cheat the customer, insult their co-workers, steal commission from their co-workers, help their co-workers, be friendly to the customer, provide top notch service to the customer, and generally sell the best product for the customer’s needs. Every time I come to this website, I read entries where people are saying that the sales associate will do everything in their power to get you to buy the most expensive product available, even though you will only use 1 feature out of the million that it has. Sometimes this is true, but it depends on the sales associate. Let me make that 100% clear: Some sales associates are pieces of shits. Others however, treat customers with respect, listen to them intently, and provide the customer with options. Even I, while I was still in uniform, was being cheated and forced to buy a product that had none of the features that I was looking for. Needless to say, I no longer go to this sales associate when I am researching for something to buy.
Not to be rude, but we as human beings have brains that are sophisticated enough to allow us to make choices. We can look at a situation and determine what emotions occur. You need to be extremely stupid, in-bred, clinically mentally unstable/disabled, and/or drunk to agree and trust whichever sales associate comes up to you and says “Hi, how are you today? Is there anything I can help you with?”
The extended-warranty is a completely different matter. I have to deal with it everyday. Many customer’s stare at me blankly when I tell them that certain issues are not covered under warranty. Then shortly after they get angry at me, tell me to call the manager, and then demand that I show them where in the warranty contract does it say what is covered by warranty. Of course, me and the manager will show them. It does not help though, some customers are extremely stubborn and will want every little fault/scratch/issue to be covered by warranty. READ THE WARRANTY AGREEMENT!
To the people who get extremely pissed-off and at some points, violent. We know that you will not do anything to us, no one wants to get arrest, get locked up, look like a complete tool in front of everyone, or look like a child who is has a temper problem. I have been accused of deliberately damaging customer products (even when this was the first time I had met them), deliberately not wanting to help the customer, being difficult to deal with, I even had a customer get so angry that he broke the front door sensor; he then waited outside the store at closing time, started up his giant truck, and passed me at an insane speed, and spat several vulgar phrases in my direction. Was I phased? Of course, I was shit scared. Was I about to go cry in the corner, never go back to work, and give this man everything that he wants? No. I talked about it with my co-workers in the lunch room and we laughed about. To be honest, we find all these customers that get red-faced, super angry, threaten to bring legal action, and/or violence hilarious. Back to my point, if you want your issue resolved, talk to us about like a grown-up. If you have anger issues, get them resolved before you come trying to waive your man meat in our faces. You are only wasting both our time. Be kind, tell the sales associate/customer service agent what the problem is. If they cant do what you want, ask what they can do. You never know, they might not be able to do it, maybe all they need is a managers approval.
So to sum up what ive been talking about: I am a FS employee. Some sales associates will cheat you out of money. Others will not. Use your brain, if you feel like you are being cheated or pressured to buy something, leave or get someone else. READ THE WARRANTY AGREEMENT! Be kind to the people with who you are dealing with. We are all people, we all deserve respect. If you dont show respect, we wont show you any, and vice-versa.
You are of course quite right. Having worked at FS I can vouch how frustrating it is to try and help people when
a) other employees in your dept. don’t give a sh!t;
b) other employees have lied to the customer during the sale and now the customer needs service which is not covered and you have to clean up the mess (of course, this usually involves extended warranty and by now that employee has left the company so there are no repercussions for them);
c) we are all human and not supermen (or doormats for the customer) and we do have feelings. If you want good service, imho, treat the poor underpaid slob behind the counter as an adult and as a human being FIRST. We will do the best we can with what we have to work with, according to current business practices, and as defined by whatever WRITTEN agreements you have with FS. I have seen the best service given with the least amount of hassle when there is a mutual respect between the customer and the FS employee. If you insist on acting like a spoiled little brat, then you will be treated as one at worst, and with kid gloves at best (ie. work-to-rule and no helpful suggestions/solutions for you: you will get exactly what you asked for and nothing more) . Even though you are seeing that FS employee for the first time today (or ever) and expect them to be fresh and perfect, that employee has already dealt with 50 customers in person or by phone before you even set foot in the store and they may be showing some wear and tear as a result. Oh, and another thing: don’t lie to us. After working there long enough we have seen it all. Again and again. That’s what we do. So when you try to B.S. us, you stand out like a sore thumb. And it’s hard to treat someone with respect who thinks we are stupid enough to fall for their story.
Left by themoonisblue on June 14th, 2010