Enforced cheerfulness $FAIL
27 December 2011 02:50 pm![[personal profile]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firecatI was in Walgreen's just now, and the cashier was wearing a button front and center on her uniform that said "Is my smile a 9?"
I assume that she had to wear it. I was tempted to ask, but I didn't want to waste her time because there was a long line. It made me furious on her behalf. If your policy is that employees should act friendly, I suppose there's nothing I can do about that, but I really don't like requiring employees to wear buttons that invite the customer to police their behavior (behavior that has nothing to do with whether they're doing the work of cashiering correctly).
I assume that she had to wear it. I was tempted to ask, but I didn't want to waste her time because there was a long line. It made me furious on her behalf. If your policy is that employees should act friendly, I suppose there's nothing I can do about that, but I really don't like requiring employees to wear buttons that invite the customer to police their behavior (behavior that has nothing to do with whether they're doing the work of cashiering correctly).
no subject
Date: 28 December 2011 12:41 am (UTC)In my current place of employment, we sell ethically sourced hand made stuff which is pretty awesome, it's a nice place to work, and we have a small staff with a high retention rate.
So the fact that we have a checklist of customer service which starts off with "make eye contact, smile, offer a non-business related greeting (e.g. "hello", rather than "can I help you") is something that is good for training new staff, but gets quickly internalized, because it's pretty basic polite behaviour in that setting.