Have you noticed the recent trend of stores to cut back on employees? That nowadays waiting in lines have become the norm instead of the exception? I have to wonder if the state of the economy has not changed the way companies do business?
Right now companies are thinking, if I cut jobs perhaps I can squeeze more productivity out of the current employees? Up to a certain point that is true. Workers fearing their jobs will work harder and more diligently. However there is a point where workers can’t work any harder, faster or more diligently. And right now would be a prime example.
Whenever I go to a store I find I have to look for an employee to help me or check me out. Sometimes before I get helped I just leave because I am too tired of waiting. Or when I am at a supermarket or home repair store, I try to use the self-check out line because there is only 1 cashier open and 20 people ahead of me. I want to buy my items, but I find myself weighing whether I really want to stand in line to pay or search out someone to help me. Thus the store ends up losing a client.
I can’t help but wonder when stores will realize that people are not shopping just because money is tight, but also spending money without customer service is hard? That we the consumer sometimes needs help and lack of employees to help us drives us away.
I wonder what will happen this Christmas season? Will it be a super weak season with less shoppers? Will people stick to shopping online? Or will stores realize that without any one to check out people they will lose more sales than necessary and hire people?
4 responses so far ↓
1 savvysuzie // Oct 11, 2008 at 11:06 am
I can’t speak for all retailers, and certainly not the big chains - but my dad co-owns a retail store and they have had to severely cut back on employees just to stay afloat. They are actually having to “lay off” the entire staff including managers and owners in January (it’s a semi-seasonal business) and my dad and the other owners will be basically running the store for no pay until the spring just to make sure they don’t have to close. I doubt that’s the case with big name stores, but go easy on the local guys
2 LivingAlmostLarge // Oct 11, 2008 at 5:15 pm
I understand that, but the truth is that people are going to find it harder to shop. And we are going to shop less because it’s harder to stand around waiting.
I am sorry that small stores are feeling the pinch, but they are not alone. Plus all the people your dad laid off will likely not be able to shop sadly.
3 Tim // Oct 12, 2008 at 7:11 pm
For the longest time the economy has been good and people have felt entitled to a job so much that they just walked away if anything remotely negative was said about their performance and hopped to another job. That was the job market. The hopefully good thing that comes out of people losing jobs and employment becoming tight, is that people actually stop feeling entitlement and start feeling that they ought to perform.
This past decade customer service was absolutely atrocious, because employees simply didn’t care. they were there for the paycheck and because the economy was well, employers didn’t have the threat of firing people. Ben Stein wrote a good article about going into the bookstore and none of the employees being able to ship a book, despite being able to go to the store’s website and having it shipped.
there just has been such a malaise and laziness among employees. i think once employees see that their job isn’t assured, that they will start to perform. customer service will get better as employment gets tighter.
4 LAL // Oct 12, 2008 at 10:00 pm
True. There is also the truth that people have less money to spend and will be more likely to spend when they are treated well and the store impeccable maintained and clean. Even grocery stores where you “feel” like you are getting more bang for the buck.
Personally dirty grocery stores are a turn off.
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