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^^This. I absolutely agree. For me, it's when you've asked politely more than once that you just want to browse, and they still keep pestering you.

I appreciate that these guys are most likely put in this awkward position by GW globo-corp. Which is why I always let it go the first three times. I just think that a little common sense could be applied by the sales-person in question depending on the customer.

Unless, of course, they had thought that JJ had hand-picked me to check up on their sales patter and report back to HQ...

....That's right, he didn't even mention the greatswords. I shall Have him turfed out on his ear forthwith!

Personally, I only go in when I want a bunch of stuff and I always know what I want. Anyone starts the "Have you seen the new..." then I just rattle off the list of what I want and let them run about picking it all for me.

I've worked at my father's autoparts store on multiple occasions (sometimes selling, sometimes restocking, sometimes fixing computers, sometimes cleaning... the list goes on and on. I don't have an official job there), and we've always been friendly with our customers. Greet them when they come in, help them find out what they want when they ask for it (on multiple occasions, I've had to hold down the store --on days when I didn't even plan on working-- while my dad went out to actually go and fix someone's car/install parts that someone bought), and if we're not to busy, we even have the occasional conversation with our customers.

However, Gamesworkshop is far beyond 'friendly' in that regard, it's simply annoying and frustrating. A greeting when you enter the store is great. Asking if you're looking for something in particular is fine, but after that, it becomes way too aggressive for me to feel comfortable shopping. It's almost like you have a temporary stalker as soon as you enter the store, until the moment you leave.

First redshirt experience was in Japan. I walked in and became kid in a candy store. Japanese man spoke to me without an accent. I freaked out and bought a new dex (DH, lol) GK termies and some PAGK. He gave me a sweet deal on a GK grand master too. Now i have to get motivated on this IG before i can paint my DH.

Aggressive is when the lady(!) red shirt ignores your question of "where is the Last Chancers boxed set?" and instead tells you to play Orks instead, because.. *sigh* YES, green is best. Now where is that box?

With the old regulars you'd know they'd leave you alone or chat up with you on stuff like TV or *gasp* other table top games, but the current generation of shirts are nothing short but good and proper company tools. You'd almost expect them to go "sieg heil" before the store opens.

Another reason to go to my two FLGS, good guys who remember what you play and always open for a good chat about this or that, especially hobby related or when asking for tips on how to do stuff.

I've bought most of my minis from my local GW, I think.
That said, I'm put off going into my local GW to browse sometimes because of the behaviour of the staff. When you say you collect a certain army and that no, you don't have such and such an item and they then place the box in your hands, it feels like a bit of a hard sell.

Perhaps I'm just odd.

They just need to hit their sales quotas otherwise they'll be put on the first train.

pwotsanchez wrote:The problem with the redshirt sales tactics is that GW are trying to turn awkward nerds into high-pressure sales types. The jittery, pushy interpersonal behaviour that emerges from the resulting cognitive dissonance can be fascinating to watch and very uncomfortable to get trapped in.

You can just short-circuit the whole agonising experience of The Rules Card by smiling broadly at all the staff and waving hello as soon as you enter the shop. Then they relax and leave you alone.

Then when they're not looking, get your knob out.

QFT.

IME there are two factors at work in the majority of complaints about Red Shirt customer service.

1. A lack of proper social skills/training on the part of the Red Shirt.
2. A lack of proper social skills/confidence on the part of the customer.

Either one can make the experience awkward, and either one can lead to the customer posting to complain here or on another forum, rather than having a reasonable chat with the Red Shirt or the Red Shirt's manager.

Yes, Redshirts are often annoying and I'll admit to avoiding GW retail locations as a result. I have a fantastic RT store locally though, so it's not as though the GW location is my only option. The problem with Redshirts has a lot to do with GW's company policies and hiring practices, as well as their target demographic. GW doesn't aim to hire competent sales people, they hire people who play GW games (and occasionally happen to be competent sales people). That list of things the staff must do for every customer does a number of things for GW. First, it obviates the need for more indepth sales training. It also accounts for the bad pressure sell people here have been atlking about, but GW doesn't really care. Why? Becuase their sales strategy targets kids in the 12-15 age bracket who are new to the hobby. GW wants to sell starter kits and first armies, and their sales directives aren't in the slightest bit aimed at veteran players (who often find them annoying and intrusive). The pressure is also a result of the overall corprate identity at GW, and that's one of massive personnel turnover (at more than just the Redshirt level) characterized by intense pressure to perform and a history of random and baseless terminations.

I worked in a RT store for a long time, and I got to know a lot of GW staff over the years. I've heard a lot of horror stories about people getting canned for bizarre reasons and about the byzantine internal politics that govern GW at seemingly every level. I would not want to work for GW at all.

So yeah, I find Redshirts frequently annoying, but I'm generally quite polite anyway since I know what GW's like. I cannot stand the GW brand sales tactics, which are a dumbed down version of a real sales tactics, but I also realize that a lot of Redshirts don't know any better. I also know, from working in a GW intensive store, just how damned difficult it is to find employees that are both skilled at the sales part (with a certain elan in the interpersonal communication and hygiene departments) and also at least moderately in touch with the hobby. It is certainly possible to greet every customer, to approach them while they're browsing product, and to guide them to a purchase (and even upsell them) without being an annoying jerk, but I don't expect to see that at many GW stores.

hmmm whate ive found out is that if you come often enough and become a regular they stop trying to sell you stuff every time and talk about things before there released he even told me about stuff coming into the brand new Nid dex =D

Rinkydink wrote:Just a quckie that really annoys me...

How does everybody find their local GW staffers. Some are great, no doubts, but more and more I find them far too over friendly/pushy. it's really putting me off of ever stepping foot in their shops. Below is my most recent experience;
*snip*

I know what you mean.
There's one NEW kid in my local store who is always trying to sell me stuff I have no interest in.
He's pushy, arrogant (in that he seems to think that he knows what I want better than I do) and has no idea how to deal with the veterans.

When I mentioned that the guard army I was working on was going to be my last army, and that I would not be buying any more GW stuff afterwards, he laughed at me and added "yeah, well... Good luck with that."

The Two chimeras on the counter and handful of paints were then left there as I walked out.

Hell, I know I can scratchbuild them out of card for about $6 each (I've just made 4 hulls for my Manticore, Griffin, Basilisk and Hydra tanks).

My GW's Redshirts shift constantly - as in my store can barely keep them for more than a few months at a time, year tops.

Sometimes, they're all veterans and they basically treat you as though you're a competent hobbyist: They make earnest recommendations for stuff you actually own (You've been having trouble with Animosity in your Orc list? Did you think about a Black Orc Big Boss to mitigate it some?), they don't try to push products down your throat ("That'll be all? Okay then," instead of "That'll be all? You don't want to pre-order anything? You sure you don't need paints? You sure you don't need glue? No primer? Don't need another box of this?"), aren't afraid to not push the product for Jimmy Five Year Old, etcetera.

Other times... they're the reverse. They try to push anything that's on pre-order to someone, they ask you about a dozen products when you went to the register with a bolt thrower, they'll have no trouble trying to get a five year old (and their parents) to play demo games to try selling them a box, etcetera.

Right now, although it's been about a month since I've seen my GW, it's a mix. One of the staffers is notably less-than-amused by GW's current antics. Another of the staffers, they're - while not of the product shoving variety - of the "Jimmy knows how to play" group. Recently, as in just the last two years, this is a major shift from what was the first group. The only advantage I can give is that the new management (which is encouraging the latter form of RS behavior) is also encouraging (see: Actually allowing) in-store tournaments by customers, letting people play the specialist games (for about five years there was only Mordheim / BFG / Necropolis on Veteran's Night, if given the nod by management ahead of time), and is starting to crack down (if barely) on the little kids to the point that they're no longer allowed to spew paint all over the counter, leave half-empty drinks leaking inside the table tins, etcetera.

Zoned wrote:I love all you armchair store owners. I suppose if you ran a store your plan for your staff would be:

1) Let the customers wander around.
2) Don't talk to them.
3) Don't try to help them find things.
4) Don't ask about their involvement in the hobby.
5) Don't ask them if they need hobby supplies.
6) Don't talk about new releases.
7) Don't tell them about the events the shop is running.

That's a sure fire way to keep the store in business.

Like harrassing a customer with a 10-part script is going to pack them in...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kanluwen wrote:Okay.

Let's put this simple.

There's "polite", where you say "No thanks, I'm here for something specific. But I'll give you a holler if I need any help." and then there's "No it's cool, I'm just browsing."

The second is considered an invitation to try to get you interested into something. The first says "No, I'll ask you if I need help."
See the difference?

If I say "No thanks, I'm just browsing," it means 'I don't need your help, I'm just browsing!' There is no other meaning to be read into it, I say what I mean! You can take your interpretations to the philosophers, I'm just a simple forge-god.

Continuing to pester me beyond that is still pestering me. I'm sorry if your boss is a prick who makes you read a script, but could you please go read it to someone else?

Zoned wrote:I love all you armchair store owners. I suppose if you ran a store your plan for your staff would be:

1) Let the customers wander around.
2) Don't talk to them.
3) Don't try to help them find things.
4) Don't ask about their involvement in the hobby.
5) Don't ask them if they need hobby supplies.
6) Don't talk about new releases.
7) Don't tell them about the events the shop is running.

That's a sure fire way to keep the store in business.

Or , this is what also happens:

1) Stalk the customer around.
2) Talk to them about things that are in no way related to what they went to the store for
3) Help them find things , that they werent looking for
4) Ask them about their involvement in the hobby , a nice little chat , ending with if they want to start a new space marine army
5) Ask them if they need hobby supplies , if they answer no , ask them if they want to subscribe to White Dwarf ( GW advertisement pamphlet? )
6) Nice little chat about new releases , and how EVERYONE must also love it as much as they do because its just so cool .
8) I appreciate them reminding the events. ^-^v

Manchu wrote:Why would a business push sales tactics that are ineffective?

Because the corporate executives, who have never worked retail in their lives, think those sales tactics are effective.

If you've ever worked retail, at some point you've had to deal with some stupid thing the execs think is a great idea, but that they obviously never bothered to ask someone who works in retail about because all it does is make your job harder for no beneficial effect.

It's hard to believe that these corporate executives are either disinterested in or unaware of what goes on at the retail location. It's also hard to believe that there would be no mechanism in place to judge whether or not the sales training is or is not effective.

Kanluwen wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

If you avoid going to a shop because of human interaction, seek therapy.

Im not going to fall for that flame bait . I know you are smarter than that , and i have never said not going to GW = avoiding human interaction.

It's not flame bait. If you're being put off by the fact that, God help you, the staff are interacting with you...there's something wrong.

There is a world of difference between interacting... and sticking their nose in where I don't want it.

I am a fully functional person. I can walk, talk, read text, my vision is (corrected to) 20/20, and I can easily lift any amount of weight that I might be required to lift while shopping at a FLGS. I have yet to see a FLGS that is so big and/or crowded that I cannot glance arond and see roughly where what I am looking for would be. I do not need someone to guide me around and show me the various things I might want and read boxes for me and generally hold my hand. And I get actively resentful when someone treats me like I do need just that.

Saying hello, how ya doin', can I help you find anything is de rigeur and I appreciate that they noticed me come in. If I need help, I will ask. If I don't, I will tell them I am 'just browsing,' or, 'just here to pick up XXXXX.' From that, they should be able to get the hint that I don't need help... much less them coming over and trying high-pressure used-car-sales tactics on me.


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Kanluwen wrote:Of course he didn't count the numbers of people that didn't go to the store because they were "turned off by the GW sales pitch".
Because those people...gasp...wouldn't be interested in the hobby anyways. I mean really. Where do you come up with these scenarios?

Ahh.... I play WFB. so I wouldn't say I "wouldn't be interested in the hobby anyways." And the sales pitch (the one the redshirts are supposedly required to go through) woud certainly leave me 'turned off.'

Point has been addressed (by LordHat, last page): GW does not assume you actually know exactly what you want/need or that you are entirely content to spend tons of money on toys. This is the fatal assumption of most FLGS's. As an adult gamer, you may know what you want and don't want (still, this is not always a safe assumption from the sales point of view) but how many younger gamers, new gamers, spouses/parents/girl or boyfriends of gamers, etc know these things. Such a person might be completely out of their depth at the FLGS but GW makes sure they have a redshirt ready to work with them.

Kanluwen wrote:If they're doing it, "everytime you go in there" then TELL THEM TO KNOCK IT OFF.

Jesus, how complicated is this?

Do I need to come up with some kind of magical anti-Redshirt Formula?

They are not mind-readers. They are average human beings(more often than not--under 18 also), at a minimum wage job and doing something that they're told to do. They do not know they are doing wrong unless you tell them.

One would think that the first time you told the guy "No thanks, I'm not interested in Space Marines," he'd figure that out on his own.

But then, this particular redshirt sounds particularly clueless to me.

Which particular redshirt?

Vulcan wrote:Like harrassing a customer with a 10-part script is going to pack them in...

It's not intended to 'pack them in'... it's intended to squeeze the most cash possible out of those people in their target market who do walk in.

If I say "No thanks, I'm just browsing," it means 'I don't need your help, I'm just browsing!'

Which is fine, in another store. In a store that is running on the hard-sell principle, that's not an acceptable answer. If you're left to your own devices, you're not being persuaded to buy the latest hotness.


The simple fact is that, regardless of what you or I personally may think of it, the hard sell works. If it didn't, you would never be bothered by telemarketers wanting to save you money on your phone bill, or people knocking on your door wanting to sell you insulation for your house.

Yes, it's annoying to those outside the target market. But since those people are outside the target, their opinion is insignificant anyway.

Of course, that can just as easily go all pear-shaped, if the company completely mis-judges the buying power of their target market, or generates enough ill-will amongst everyone else for it to carry over to their chosen customers...

Lordhat wrote:

Manchu wrote:Why would a business push sales tactics that are ineffective?

Because they're not. I can tell you from personal experience that sales go up dramatically when every customer who walks through the door is engaged by an employee upon entering the store. Yes, some people get annoyed by this, and will likely not buy anything, but that number is significantly smaller than the number of "no sales" that occur when potential customers are allowed to 'just browse', especially if they're new to the hobby. The price tag is a significant deterrent to getting into a wargame, and unless there's somebody there to tell the potential player/parent exactly what the benefits are, most people will not pay the x amount of (dollars, pounds, etc.) for 'plastic toys'.

On the other hand, there is a world of difference between being 'engaged by an employee upon entering the store' - "Hello, can I help you find something?" - and being subjected to the corporation's 10-part sales speech the salesperson is required to go through before he can acknowledge that I don't need his help.

Or worse, his ham-handed attempts to sell me something I've already told him I do not want.

insaniak wrote:

Vulcan wrote:Like harrassing a customer with a 10-part script is going to pack them in...

It's not intended to 'pack them in'... it's intended to squeeze the most cash possible out of those people in their target market who do walk in.

Yes , thats where the experienced sales person comes in. Because newbie staff are awful at this , and its really really painful / obvious to be in such attempt of a "chat"

See if this sounds familiar:
Sup , you are looking sexy! , can i buy you a drink? no? Want to have a nice chat in my car? i have these awesome new xxxxxxxx speakers
*5 mins later.
Wana ****?

Now suddenly if i get offended , im either having social problems or i need therapy.

Since apparently Vulcan is taking the time to quote, point by point, a series that was done to death:

1) GW's staff, as has been noted, is told to act a certain way. The less creative/socially adept the staffmembers tend to be the ones who are the "nightmare stories". They're the kinds who will, even to someone who they know(at times--ESPECIALLY if they know the person and a manager is watching) perform the spiel and try to sell off the most expensive new shiny thing.
Then you have the staff members who, depending on how often you've come into the store, may greet you by name or show you something exclusively for YOUR army. That's called "establishing a rapport". It involves you AND the employee in question interacting, like decent human beings or even friends. Rather than getting into a huff and storming out because you felt pressured. I'd also like to point out that, with the first set of employees(the less creative/socially adept ones)--that is where you will find the biggest amount of confusion with the "No thank you, I'm just browsing". They view that was a come on to explain something that just came in, especially if you've never been in the store or they don't know you.

2) Obviously you didn't bother reading the entire thread. The second part of your first quote is referring to a FLGS that just opened up. He employed a very close relation to the "high-pressure, constant surveillance" sales method. Because y'know, it's a brand new store and he doesn't know the customers. Add in the fact that it opened on a busy weekend, and he wanted to make it clear that he and his staff would drop whatever they were doing just to chat with a new face.
The following week, he had altered from those tactics to the more friendly, laid-back tactics that are common in FLGSes. But in the time I was in that store, he immediately swapped to the "GW" methodology to greet new customers who noticed the "GRAND OPENING!" sign from the week before. And what do you know?
Those people, who actually had never heard of Warhammer, or Flames of War?
They were intrigued enough to purchase starter sets of each game that caught their attention! Gasp. It's almost as if approaching the customer, explaining to them the ideas behind the games, the cost v. reward( because let's face it. there IS a series of cost v. reward, in that your start-up costs CAN be a one time thing...but in most cases, reward can continue for years unabated, or picked up whenever you have free time.)

3) And again, back to the "clueless redshirt" conundrum. If he doesn't know you, doesn't know your armies, your playstyles, or is one of the more overly pushy redshirts?
He's going to try to sell you something. Much like his job(salesperson) describes him as.

lol @ Luna; this the female perspective, is it?

Manchu wrote:lol @ Luna; this the female perspective, is it?

Ok , then switch the scenario with this:

Hi neighbor! nice to see you move to this new house of yours , why dont i treat your family to a nice dinner this weekend?
*2 hours of pleasant dinner + some chat .

So , i sell Life Insurance , how about you head over my house and we see what we can hook you up with?

I guarantee you that there will be an awkward silence for abit, + no more dinner again in the future.

In other words , when the so called "chat" are so awfully transparent , its easier to call it " motives "

Manchu wrote:It's hard to believe that these corporate executives are either disinterested in or unaware of what goes on at the retail location. It's also hard to believe that there would be no mechanism in place to judge whether or not the sales training is or is not effective.

I don't know about GW in particular, but in my long and decidedly non-glorious career in customer service and retail (over 20 years now, sigh), no retail business I've worked with has such a mechanism in place that actually works.

I've worked in places that give a phone number for a customer computer survey. These are almost always compromised by corporate insisting that it is pass-fail, either you score 100% or it counts as a 0%. Scorea 99% on a survey? Tough, it still gets averaged as a 0% because it wasn't perfect.

I've worked in places with a posted comment line phone number. This line never leads to anyone in the company, it always leads to some sort of call center. The executives just get summaries.

I worked in one place with a computer survey that went to the voice-mail of the store manager. Which was great, because it kept the corporate executives off our back, but... still, no effective feedback to the execs.

Secret shoppers can work. But it's worth noting that the typical secret shopper does not work retail. They have another job, and secret shop for a little extra cash on the side. And since they have no retail experience, they really have no clue what is actually going on. They don't get that if the employee looks a little frazzled or stressed, it was likely because they just had to deal with a jerk customer trying to get something (usually something expensive) for nothing, and they are... well, frazzled or stressed out. All the unskilled secret shopper sees is 'employee looked dishelveled, acted distracted.'

Random inspections are right out. Because ineveitably, sooner or later, the inspector (who is always a corporate executive, not an experienced retail worker) comes in at exactly the wrong time - right after a HUGE sales rush, with the place in shambles because you just did 200% of expected sales (which means you were grossly understaffed), everyone is on a short fuse, and here this suit comes in and starts complaining about how the place is a mess and no one is smiling! F'ing clueless jerk, if you'd been her 20 minutes ago you'd understand why! Or maybe if you'd go look at the sales figures for the past hour or two before you start in on us...

Sorry, guys, I just pushed my own button there.

Long and short: No. Corps don't know what works and what doesn't. Because they don't do retail, they do paperwork.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:Which particular redshirt?

The one who is supposed to have pushed a Space Marine Drop Pod at an Eldar player no less than 5 separate times!

Manchu wrote:It's hard to believe that these corporate executives are either disinterested in or unaware of what goes on at the retail location. It's also hard to believe that there would be no mechanism in place to judge whether or not the sales training is or is not effective.

There is a certain amount of political nonsense that goes on behind the scenes in any big business. Business decisions can very easily be made because someone in favour came up with it and nobody pointed out the obvious flaws because to do so would make them unpopular.

Back on the Kmart example, we had a system in place for the department managers to organise their rosters whereby some genius at head office had calculated the length of time it should take on average for a staff member to perform a given task. Laying a shelf edge price label, for example, should take on average 30 seconds (conveniently ignoring of course the time taken to actually walk to the appropriate aisle and find the item in question, which was generally longer than it should be due to most of the work being done by casual Uni students with no real knowledge of the store's product range).

In theory, managers were supposed to take their budgeted staff hours and break them down according to this schedule, alloting a specific amount of time to each task as appropriate.

In practice, managers filled out the schedule to use up their alloted hours in a way that looked like the important things were being covered as well as possible and filed it as required, and then completely ignored it for the useless waste of time that it was. But nobody ever said a bad word about the system to anyone from head office despite its very obvious flaws, because to do so would have been career suicide.

Of course, the other side of that is that often companies' higher-ups make decisions that seem ludicrous to the general staff, that actually make a great deal more sense when you understand the wider picture at the company level...

Kanluwen wrote:Since apparently Vulcan is taking the time to quote, point by point, a series that was done to death:

....

2) Obviously you didn't bother reading the entire thread.

Interesting. I'm responding to things point by point, but I haven't bothered to read the whole thread. Which is it, Kanluwen?

Vulcan wrote:They don't get that if the employee looks a little frazzled or stressed, it was likely because they just had to deal with a jerk customer trying to get something (usually something expensive) for nothing, and they are... well, frazzled or stressed out. All the unskilled secret shopper sees is 'employee looked dishelveled, acted distracted.'

To be fair, it's not the secret shopper's job to 'get that'... What they see is what they are supposed to report. If an employee is looking frazzled and stressed out on the sales floor due to dealing with a problem customer, they need more training in dealing with problem customers.

By all means go out back and have a cry, or a scream, or throw some boxes around... whatever lets off some steam. But if it's affecting your service face, then that's something that needs to be fixed.

Random inspections are right out.

I had actually almost forgotten that little bt of foolishness... Always getting prior warning of 'surprise' inspections by area managers, so that the store could be made more presentable.