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To the staff (not all but a significant number) and most especially the managers of the two Games workshops I have visited recently, some sage advice on how to treat me.

I am 32 years old, I am a senior manager in my place of work, I am in a long term relationship. I do not require patronising, I do not enjoy attempts to draw me into a pissing contest on Games Workshop nostalgia, I am not 14 so please do not address me as though I might be, do not 'tell me' what I need to buy, aggressive sales techniques are more likely to cause me to leave than make a purchase, if I tell you I'm thinking of a CoS army for Warhammer please don't tell me how its not allowed in the shop or we'll argue about Games Workshop's stance on orphaned armies. I have no intention of playing in the shop, tables are too ruddy small and I swear, oh and you won't let me cause I'll be using an army your company designed then disallowed?!?.

Do Not Shout At Me, you may have been told on your 'management training journey' that it's showing your enthusiasm and I'm certain the kids dig it, but I do not want to be shouted at, I don't get shouted at in other shops. Do not believe that because many young people hang on your word in the shop that I will do so, I can be expected to challenge information I am presented with and voice my displeasure as a consumer when Games Workshop do something I do not care for ie:

GWM: Oh YEAH! New Daemonettes are SO GREAT!!!!!
Me: Yes, I do like many of the new boxes GW are doing, plastics are greatly improved, I did really like the previous metal ones tho, not the bald, huge claw ones but the whispy tentacle ones just prior to...
GWM: NONONONONO!! They were rubbish, you get LOADS in this box SEEEE!!
Me: Yes, I know they work out alot cheaper and they are good I'm just saying I liked the previous o...
GWM: No! They were Crap mate!
Me: ok, thanks, bye now.
I wander away pondering if he ever said they were crap when they sold them.

So, a polite request, I am an adult, change tack when you approach me, chat, be amiable by all means but do so in a way that suggests you are capable of understanding your customer and not preaching from the GW sales mantra they subliminally drilled into your brain.

Thank you

Yes. How dare an employee in a shop do his job.

What a swine! And perhaps if you tried saying 'no, really, I'm okay thank you' you might have gotten on a bit better.

Well, if you need to tell him 'please don't shout at me' he's not doing his job well.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Yes. How dare an employee in a shop do his job.

...badly?
I fully understand a shopkeeper in a shop should be selling, I'm suggesting the approach is a poor one since they fail to sell me anything and put me off returning. The entire attitude from GW central is one of seeking to get the older players to come back, ever since Mordheim things have been improving as far as I can see, but then you walk into a shop and it's 'Red Age' all over again.

If the employee was really acting that way, then they were doing their job poorly. However, like any company, there will be good staff and there will be bad staff. Maybe that guy was new. Maybe he was having an off day.

Was is true is that the attitude you encountered is not the mandate set by retail senior management.

At my store, if a player wants to use the CoS rules, and his opponent is fine with it, what's the problem? If it's a quiet night and the tables are unused, why can't specialist games be played?

Please don't assume most staff are like the ones you encountered. Most of us are enthusiastic hobbyists who want to genuinely help you.

ClarenceL

The problem is that the atitudes and behavior reported by the OP in this thread are commonplace. I've expereinced them myself in the GW stores I have been in and reports of similar incidents abound on forums like this. But GW apologists like to write this all off as "lies" and "exagerations".

Most troubling is the attitude toward the latest new toys vs. older models that the OP mentioned. This is exactly the sort of crap that GW loves to foster amongst it's employees and customers. Anyone else recall the awful "40k revised" series of articles that apeared in the US White Dwarf soon after 4th ed. 40k hit the stores?

TR

Naz, I don't know where you are getting your facts from.

I work for GW and no one has told me I can't admit I work for the company. Dave Taylor and Chris Go...something post here as well and openly admit to working for GW US.

Like I said earlier, there are good staff and there are bad staff.

Yes, we promote our product, be it the AOBR, or the new marine Spearhead, or the Rohan Warrior box.

Yes, we want you to come to our events and have fun.

Yes, we are here to push sales.

Some people do the right way, and some people do it the wrong way.

Yes, some stores are designed to market the hobby to new players, so they are focused on intro games and starter boxes. Other stores have different priorities.

We try to serve veteran customers as best we can. But the honest truth is that veterans can be the hardest group to help because generally,

-they don't need as much help with modeling
-they don't need as much help with painting
-they don't need as much help with gaming

Heck, many veterans know more about the hobby than we do. But we encourage veterans to come into the shop to build/paint/play and refine their skills. The best thing we can do for veterans is inform them about new releases as we get the information (have you heard much about Space Marines or the Warriors of Chaos) and invite them back to events tailored to their level (campaigns, tournaments, gaming nights...etc.)

I'm not saying this gets done perfectly in every store. I'm sure it doesn't, in fact. But many of us try our best. Good gaming!

ClarenceL

Naz, why on earth are you pulling this stuff out of your ass?

The OP is correct, most GW staff act like a bunch of asses.

What GW should do is to sell a "Hardened Veteran" button.

If a Customer comes in wearing one, then that is an mandatory sign for the staff to lay off, because he almost certainly doesn't need a damn thing from them, if he does, he'll ask them. But annoying the crap out of him is only going to cost them a sale.

Clarence, thank you for the reply.
I entirely sympathise with the difficulties faced by GW staff when dealing with 'golden oldies', I also think there is a great deal of GW bashing for bashing's sake and no doubt there are plenty of GW staff who grind their teeth and sigh in resignation every time
'Veteran Player X' just pops in to tell them how crap everything is now, how they are an evil corporate monster with less social awareness than Macdonalds and how he remembers when all this was fields...

However, I have also seen and been treated to, a poor customer experience, my original post is perhaps in the hopes someone from GW will take this criticism constructively and a memo gets sent out to the effect that store managers are not the games designers, they do not hold sway and when I am in the shop, I expect to be treated with courtesy , not be spoken down to. I can well understand how, due to being 'the voice of the rules' and the face of GW's authority and giving out instruction to young customers in the shop can lead to someone assuming they have more clout than they actually have. The phrase starting 'big fish...' seems to be appropriate I think.

I visit three GW stores in London, the Richmond branch (until it closed down) the Plaza Oxford Street and the High Street Kensington.

I have had perfectly satisfactory experiences in all of them.

I don't deny anyone else's bad experiences, just saying that it doesn't happen all the time.

My wife won't go into GW stores because of this type of behavior being so commonplace. She has no problem with the FLGS, however, since they aren't continuously trying to shove product at her (or me, for that matter). I'm done shopping or playing at GW stores- it just isn't worth the aggravation.

To the OP: You chose a public internet forum to expose your disappointment, what were you thinking? If you want something done about this you need to start an internet petition, it's the only way to make them listen.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:To the staff (not all but a significant number) and most especially the managers of the two Games workshops I have visited recently, some sage advice on how to treat me.

I am 32 years old, I am a senior manager in my place of work, I am in a long term relationship. I do not require patronising, I do not enjoy attempts to draw me into a pissing contest on Games Workshop nostalgia, I am not 14 so please do not address me as though I might be, do not 'tell me' what I need to buy, aggressive sales techniques are more likely to cause me to leave than make a purchase, if I tell you I'm thinking of a CoS army for Warhammer please don't tell me how its not allowed in the shop or we'll argue about Games Workshop's stance on orphaned armies. I have no intention of playing in the shop, tables are too ruddy small and I swear, oh and you won't let me cause I'll be using an army your company designed then disallowed?!?.

Do Not Shout At Me, you may have been told on your 'management training journey' that it's showing your enthusiasm and I'm certain the kids dig it, but I do not want to be shouted at, I don't get shouted at in other shops. Do not believe that because many young people hang on your word in the shop that I will do so, I can be expected to challenge information I am presented with and voice my displeasure as a consumer when Games Workshop do something I do not care for ie:

GWM: Oh YEAH! New Daemonettes are SO GREAT!!!!!
Me: Yes, I do like many of the new boxes GW are doing, plastics are greatly improved, I did really like the previous metal ones tho, not the bald, huge claw ones but the whispy tentacle ones just prior to...
GWM: NONONONONO!! They were rubbish, you get LOADS in this box SEEEE!!
Me: Yes, I know they work out alot cheaper and they are good I'm just saying I liked the previous o...
GWM: No! They were Crap mate!
Me: ok, thanks, bye now.
I wander away pondering if he ever said they were crap when they sold them.

So, a polite request, I am an adult, change tack when you approach me, chat, be amiable by all means but do so in a way that suggests you are capable of understanding your customer and not preaching from the GW sales mantra they subliminally drilled into your brain.

Thank you

???

What do you expect? When you go into a GW shop, your a Dupe that is ripe for the picking. If they don't nick you then they arn't going to think they are doing thier job.
Do what I do, tell the lackeys to have a nice hot cup of S.T.F.U., and if they don'ttop !@#$ing with you that you will turn thier store into a gymnasium.

In GW stores, you are eternally 14. go ahead and act like it. Call out the redshirts and smack one or two around.

!@#$ GW's weaksauce stores and thier subpop !@#$ing employees.

As someone who works at a store i really do need to ask this....


How often do you hear about a good member of staff?

Sure you hear about bad ones all the time- but people do like to complain (heck I've stopped reading most posts on here that I know will just degenerate into a "how poo" fest)

I find it quite insulting that some people*looks above* feel the need to lump all staff members together as being the "bad" kind. Heck I'll admit they are out there- hell I still avoid a store near me as a staff member having gone there as a customer and had the "bad" treatment including being told i needed glue to go with my book....

Is that really the norm? No
does the story stick out because of the absurity, the humour and the down right stupidity of it? Yeah

But does that mean that all staff members are the same?
Hell no


I've literally just come in from a busy saturday working in an "average" GW store- I have talked to probably about 100 people over the course of the day- and I can happily say I have done what I thought was best for them. There are several staff members I know who are like this- and some store managers really foster this sense of doing the best customer service we can. This goes on top of sales training- which if taken too literally can lead to some of the "bad" behaviour some people point out.

Just today, I taught a kid how to pin his models, I then taught a vet who had spent 20+ years playing and painting the same skill having basically understood he'd never asked out of embaressment.
I undercoated a gentleman's highelf army because he lives in a flat (apartment) and doesn't have anywhere he can spray at home
I taught lots of people different hobby skills to the point that it makes my head spin (and even had to check with the painting guide/ other staff members to make sure it was the right highlighting colours etc...)
I've offered advice on army building, painting, playing, tactics and who knows what else.
I introduced a few people to the hobby today, a few didn't find it their cup of tea and I left it at that
A few enjoyed it and will be back tommorow for the beginner sessions to have a few more goes and see if it is something they think they could carry on with
And one of them has started his first army and I was more than happy to start helping him put together and paint his first orks (not a kid btw)
I even sorted out a situation with a cheating sod in a game subtley without causing a fuss.

I know what tone to use with different people, to identify as best i can where they are in the hobby and what help i can provide them- and will back off if asked (oh and sometimes I'm told to back off quite....erm... well not nicely)

And yes I sold some stuff today- I guess thats the "work" i did today where I "pushed" sales- although the cycle i've been told to use is establish what is wanted, recommend a product that fits and confirm that its the thing the person wants- pretty standard sales stuff apparently- and i'll recomment what I think fits what your after- even if its not what i'd personally do (hey even i don't like some sculpts, but some people love 'em)

Heck most of the day I'm more than happy to just talk to people about their hobby. I hear all sorts of stories, people who have just started who haven't a clue whats going on, all the way to veteran players who look down upon me because of the shirt i'm wearing. At the end of the day I want to hear how your enjoying your hobby, and what, if anything, I can do to improve it and help you get the most out of it. Sometimes this is with a product, sometimes its with a bit of hobby help or sometimes its just a simple case of hearing your ideas for a conversion/paintjob/army etc...


Why do I do all this?
Because i'm passionate about the hobby- I enjoy my job- I enjoy the fact that I basically get paid to talk to people and help them out with one of my hobbies. I do the job to the best of my abilities- and even on my off days i'll try my best- heck i'll even bend rules abit if its the "right thing to do" because at the end of the day i'm a person in the hobby too and that becomes before my job- it just so happens most of the time they go hand in hand.

<mini rant over>

So yeah- I'm sorry you had a crappy experience with a member of staff- we aren't all like that- and more often than not they are just hobbiest like you who just happen to be running a store. So try and keep an open mind- especialy if its a store or staff member you haven't seen before- you might be pleasantly surprised

I haven't read the thread yet, but I deleted out all of Naz' posts at his request. Just so you know why there are holes in the conversation now.

Grot 6 wrote:???

What do you expect? When you go into a GW shop, your a Dupe that is ripe for the picking. If they don't nick you then they arn't going to think they are doing thier job.
Do what I do, tell the lackeys to have a nice hot cup of S.T.F.U., and if they don'ttop !@#$ing with you that you will turn thier store into a gymnasium.

In GW stores, you are eternally 14. go ahead and act like it. Call out the redshirts and smack one or two around.

!@#$ GW's weaksauce stores and thier subpop !@#$ing employees.

Maybe they treat you like you are 14 because you are 14.

Most of the time I have a great experience in the Dublin store. But just recently I had a slightly irritating experience. I was picking up AOBR and the staff had said that I could swap my marines for orks, which I thought was pretty sweet. I popped in the day before release and asked again, and the staff said they would gaurantee that I would get the swap. So I was pretty happy. I mentioned that I wouldn't be in until after lunch, it's all fine.

I head in, and the staff are all understandably frazzled. I pick up my box, and say "Can I do the swap?" the staff member laughs at me, and says "You wanted to swap, you should have been here at 9AM!"

I think to myself: "Interesting, no-one mentioned time to me before, except when I brought it up to say that it was not an issue."
But I figured, feck it, it's still a good deal, and the swap was just a bonus. I may as well buy it anyway. I just thought it was pretty bad form on the staff to make promises and then break them, and then respond in a relatively hostile tone to my enquiries. But at the same time, long day dealing with kids, I'd probably be snappy.
On the whole, they're nice chaps, and they have to do all that greeting and stuff anyway, so I don't mind it.

MY GW store experience varies wildly (and it's the same store).

Some days, it's a "Hey, welcome, can we help you find anything?" followed by a "Have you heard about/seen the new..." while I'm checking out.

A good story: One day, I needed acid spore mines. No blisters of such things, of course, but they dug through their in-store bitz collection and sold me 10. That was great.

Other days, it's much more aggressive, and they won't back off and let me browse. That's not so helpful.

A bad story: Once, when my wife came in with me, they asked if she played, then wanted to know why she didn't play, and pushed the conversation until she was defensive as to why she doesn't play. That was not great.

On the whole, I have fewer negative experiences in GW stores than I do in restaurants.

I dont know why they have a "used car salesman" approach. People who play the game do not need to be told how great the game is.

TRUE STORY

I worked for GW back in 97-98 and while I was 2nd in box set/paint set sales in the district, I got fired for not making "machine gun" noises when running demo's. (They said my demo's werent "enthusiastic" enough, so they fired me)

My problem was that I approached everyone that entered the store as an intelligent person that could understand the values of the hobby without me acting like a brainwashed moron. A sales technique that approached people intelligently and was informative of what the hobby was about instead of, "BUY THESE BECAUSE THEY'RE NEW AND THE COOLEST!!!!"

2ND IN SALES out of like 4-5 total stores...I walked into work one day to find the district manager there (some fat idiot that used to YELL at the employees in the back room, an illegal practice in the US by the way, the same as harrassment) telling the Manager to come out and let me go. Unethusiastic demo's WAS the reason, no write-ups, never counciled, none of the normal "get rid of this guy" business practices.

Working for GW was a nightmare back in those days....prolly still is.

Because games workshop employees peruse this forum and care about your bad experience with lower level functionaries in a place they have never been too.

I used to sell electronics at sears, and I can pretty much assure you that the "pro who knew everything" was the biggest tool possible to work with. You don't need help? Cool, get out of my face about it. It's my job to follow you around and get you to buy something. It's a store. They are there to drum up enthusiasm in new customers, as a bearded vet you should just be able to ignore it, buy your crap and get out (as you have stated you prefer to do).


People who "know what they want and want to be left alone" suck the fun out of sales jobs. Not everyone is there to push a margin, some people just like to help you find what you may be looking for.

Well, it is hard not to be inaccurate when making blanket statements. I think the "It's my/our/their job" argument is a bit too broad for this context as the OP is saying that the sales technique could be refined, not that a GW employee should never be friendly or approach a potential customer. But it certainly not their job to be aggressive to the point of annoyance. Nor is every GW employee a pushy mook who won't leave you alone and offers lame advice solely designed to make you buy much more than you intended.

From my experience with the GW's around LA, the staff do follow the script without fail each time I come into the store. For good or bad, they do follow training.
"Hey man how you doing? Looking for anything in particular? What army you play?"
At this point, all reasonable sales pitch. But then it goes into
"Oh cool, cool. So, do you have <insert item here>? Oh you do, awesome, awesome. How bout <insert item here>?"
and this continues until we reach
"Oh you don't? Oh man, I never field my army without at least 3 of those. These are just about the best thing for that army, we have some over here you should really put them in and you'll see the difference." Now sometimes this might be true, but when I come in for a box of IG heavy weapons and an employee tries to sell me 3 sentinels since "man, sentinels are like heavy weapons but way more survivable and maneuverable. Man I'd never take a heavy weapon if I could just take a sentinel." It can be a bit frustrating. Or "Yah, horde orks are great, but nothing says stompy like the full 9 killa kans and 2 dreads. I can put them on order, you can pay now and pick em up in a week, how cool is that?" Especially since sometimes, I do mean sometimes, a particularly motivated employee will then try to get me to start a new army, LOTR, and preorder products for an army I don't yet own. The cycle will only end with a major purchase or a slightly (or not so slightly) irritated remark.

Again, it is their job to move product, just as it is GW's job to make profit. But what bothers me most about GW sales pitch is that too many times, across too many stores, I've had employees try to sell me items not because I could use it, but because they wanted to hit their margins for the week and that is all I was, a mark rather than part of the GW family. It is one thing to sell stuff, but as a more established player, they should be aware that if I'm in the store, I am going to purchase something. I understand the more enthusiastic and aggressive sales pitch to a totally new player, but even then that often crosses the line from sales pitch to annoyance.

To be fair, I've met employees who I've enjoyed talking too, who got me to buy stuff but their advice was sound and in some cases, got me to buy something cheaper but more useful than what I originally planned to purchase. That is customer service because in that moment I felt like I was part of that GW community rather than a nameless guy with some disposable income.

And yes, I've worked retail as well. It was my job to sell games and movies to folk, but after the initial "Hey guys, anything I can help you with today?" it is pretty clear if they want help or if you are just going to be fodder for a forum write up. The problem that many GW employees have, from my experience, is that the people hired or the policy, not sure which and don't have the first hand experience to say which, is that they either do not see or do not care about this distinction.

Sometimes you feel like bantering, sometimes you just want a heavy weapon platoon.

Having been to a fair number of GW's around the world, GW Canada seems to have consistently non-super-pushy sales staff. UK was ok, US are pushy.

@Deadshane. From what I recall, in those days at GW US, there was this manager 'exercise' at a manager's meeting, that each manager pick one employee from their store, and let them go. Guys were like.. "youve got to be joking" "nope, pick one employee and let them go, you pick the reason, but you MUST do it" And so, managers HAD to go back to their stores and arbitrarily pick a guy, and go through the whole ordeal of letting someone go, simply because some asshat big-wig thought it was a good exercise to get managers not gun-shy abut dropping the hammer, and also having the Commisar Effect on the staff that remained.

Thankfully, those days (and people) seem long gone by now, maybe you were 'the guy'

I agree with ShumaGorath.

It sounds like the OP had a bad experience and is frankly just "whining" on an internet forum. If the OP was really that disturbed by the experience, the best thing to do (besides posting sweeping generalizations on an internet board) is to go to the store manager of the particular establishment, and calmly explain how the staff member made your experience unpleasant.

Problem solved.

I have good experience with the GW Hamburg I store. They don't apply an aggressive selling techique to Veteran players. The store manager even allowed me to leave my trunk (Eldar army) in his store overnight.

There's a collective holding of breath each time my local store gets a new manager. Their effect upon their staff is profound. Luckily, my local manager is sound, and would talk about anything other than GW with just as much interest.

I hate being bothered at GW stores, but the truth is many of the shops attract a certain type of male. Don't give me flak for this, because I don't know anyone who hasn't run into some sort of weirdo in a GW store. These guys take manager sycophancy to a new level, and ruin mature players fun immidiately. For the people walking past a the shop, to see and employee howling on a gaming table is not an incentive to investigate the store, nor what it stocks.

Mercifully, my local staff are fine (for the most part), but that's because they know my face. It's getting to that stage that can be a challenge.

I was paying for some SM scouts recently and the guy behind the counter made the usual 'Hey, Space Marines! What chapter are you working on?' line. When I mentioned it was Relictors, he almost did a double-take before confessing he always zoned out at that point in the script because 'everyone always says Ultramarines'.

Once the script had been torn up, we had a decent little conversation.

For the record;

I don't expect to be left alone, I expect someone working in sales to aid me in the shop, talk to me and learn alittle about me and try to sell me more things/increase my interest in other lines the store sells.

This is not a 'GW is ebil' thread, I'm not here to knock the company, as I've said in previous posts, I think they have come on a great way in recent years and everything I've seen has been good.

I am simply stating that the local stores I visited were all about the hard sales in a manner that really was counter-productive and elicited a negative reaction in me and others I've spoken with.

BTW to Whitedragon - did you actually read any of my posts above? I made no such generalisations and have offered counterpoints to my own issue raised. Perhaps re-reading carefully might allow you to post something meaningful to the discussion. The example WAS the manager...

Complaints (rational and non-abusive ones) are free feedback to a company and if taken onboard and acted on, can reduce the level of future complaint, improving customer service. I cannot see how the suggestion to GW that during it's staff inductions, a change in approach for older customers cannot be included.

Here's a nice manager reply I'd like to see.

"Excuse me, does this look like a babysitting service? Buy something or get out."

I've NEVER had a problem with GW store employees. They've always been polite and helpful. If you go there more than once they generally don't harass you. Their "optimism" is a sales technique and beats the lame teenager routine you find in many outlets. Seriously, if you're getting into arguments either fluff, rules, or model wise maybe you should reconsider the amount of time you're spending in a store that is trying to make money. So again, buy something or get out!