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To all GW employees out there, current and former: How many of you took the tests? Did any of you pass or know someone who passed the orange on the first try? My theory is they fail everyone at least once, usually on the orange. I know of one person who passed the orange on the first go, but he was GW's poster boy for how a redshirt should be and failed the rage the first time.

Why I think the tests are sketchy: I'm really good at test taking, especially if I study the material. Back in the day I scored 1520 out of 1600 on the SAT, scored 5's on Bio and Calculus AP, and went to UC Berkeley Engineering. I scored really high on every single GW test until the orange. Suddenly I scored 70% on a GW multiple choice test and was told I failed. When I demanded to see proof that I had done so poorly, I was denied.

Although this was a while ago, I wanted to see if others had a similar experience.

Is this like a fraternity hazing thing...passing things with your buttcheeks?

Not quite, in our region, all employees are required to take tests. After your first three months, you take a multiple choice exam and a roleplay practical called the RAG (Red, Amber Green) The colors are used to denote certain sections that are taught. Passing the test gives you a guranteed pay raise and training on the next section.

After 6 months, you take the Blue, then after a year you take the Orange. After you pass the orange you are considered for (but don't necessarily get) manager training.

So GW employees everywhere ask each other,

"You get your Rag yet?"

malfred wrote:So GW employees everywhere ask each other,

"You get your Rag yet?"

PMT issues obviously

(Pre Manager Training)

If it's one of those "personality tests", then it's slowed. You know, one of the ones designed to see if you're really going to narc on a coworker for stealing a paperclip or something like that.

I also have to ask, if you got a 1520 on your SATs, and went to Berkeley for Engineering, why are you working retail?

(Disclaimer: I got a lower score on my SATs and didn't finish my engineering degree at the University of Florida, so I gotta ask.)

Haha you have to level up to make more by doing quests lol

I waited till the manager was walking to his car and just bashed him over the head with my +2 crowbar of bludgeoning BAM 1200 XP and I leveled to assistant manager instantly I spent my skillpoints in embezzlement and unfortunately though the regional manager had a higher detect theft skill and I was fired.

Noob everyone knows you cant beat the regional manager, unless your at least a manager lol

Any chance you remember some of the questions?

Long story short I was sick of what I was doing and wanted a job that would be more "fun".

However, eventually my friends intervened...I was paid so little I couldn't make cost of living.

Anyways, I felt it was okay to be paid less than I'm worth if the job was worth doing and they were willing to promote. Oh well, shows what I know...

I do in fact remember most of the material. The vast majority of stuff tested on was about either planning or sales technique.

Here's the first thing you learn: This is entirely what the red is about:

Ten Commandments of Customer Service

1. Acknowledge All People Who Enter the Store. Don’t allow anyone to enter the store without being acknowledged. You must let them know that you are aware of their presence in the store and you will be with them as soon as possible. All customers should be spoken to. If you are too busy to talk to them straight away a cheery “hello” within 30 seconds is always possible.

2. Be Aware of Customers and their Behavior in the Store. Make sure you are always aware of what customers are doing or any non-verbal messages customers are sending out. You need to recognize signals like impatience (e.g. how long someone has been waiting) or, on occasions, suspicious behavior.

3. Show Enthusiasm and Be Cheerful. Our success as a retail chain is based upon high levels of enthusiasm displayed by our staff. None of us feel enthusiastic and cheerful all the time, but we must not allow our customers to think we are anything else but.

4. Be Attentive and Listen Carefully to Customer Needs. Listen attentively, and show the customer that you have listened to whatever they are saying. Listening is the best way of establishing what the customer needs - don’t waste your opportunity. Find and act upon their needs.

5. Promote the Hobby. This is what it’s all about: Your ability to promote the unique benefits of the hobby, to gain new recruits to the hobby, and then keep them involved as committed hobbyists.

6. Establish a Rapport with the Customer. What does this mean? To hold conversations and from a common bond with the customers you speak to. The art is to always convey a friendly impression. To do this ask and use their name, talk enthusiastically about their army, relating their army to your own personal hobby experience. For potential and non-hobbyists, try to find something else you have in common.

7. Display an In-Depth Knowledge of Company Products. You are expected to display expert knowledge of Games Workshop products. You are the font of all hobby knowledge in your local area. You must be able to tailor your descriptions to suit the customer’s own level of knowledge of our games.

8. Maintain High Standards of Personal Appearance and Hygiene. Games Workshop provides company clothing; Make sure it is kept clean and presentable. The important about your appearance is that you do not offend any of the wide range of people who visit your store. The same goes for personal hygiene - keep clean and make sure you smell fresh.

9. Ask Questions which obtain the Best Information Concerning Customer Needs. Use questions that obtain relevant information from customers so that you are able to give them what they need. The use of open-ended questions will help you achieve this aim. Open-ended questions are those which cannot be answers with either a “yes” or “no”.

10. Show Courtesy. All customers deserve to be treated with the utmost courtesy and politeness at all times. Only the highest standards are acceptable.

That was word for word right out of their textbook.
A question might be:

You have already greeted a customer as he enters the store. He looks at you and asks about land raiders. Which of the ten commandments do you use next?

8. Maintain High Standards of Personal Appearance and Hygiene. Games Workshop provides company clothing; Make sure it is kept clean and presentable. The important about your appearance is that you do not offend any of the wide range of people who visit your store. The same goes for personal hygiene - keep clean and make sure you smell fresh.

Why do most employees fail this one? Been in GeeDub stores in over 8 countries....it's the same everywhere. Talk about Global Concious.

The amber and green included things like:
1. Health and safety
2. What to do in emergencies
3. Closing and opening the shop.
4. The hobby cone (long story short, not all products are created equal. Most key products are at one of the hobby cone and everybody needs them regardless of skill value. Like superglue. As a player becomes more veteran, different parts of the hobby cone are more interesting to him. The final part of the cone is bitz and conversions. Do not pitch the wrong part of the hobby cone to the wrong individual.)
5. Running intro demos
6. Job descriptions
7. Who key people in the company are. Head of HR. Head of retail. Head of sales.
8. How to do a bitz order/direct order
9. The coaching model
10. How to give a paint lesson
11. How to teach academy
12. HCH, honesty, courage, humility (which was the worst, since no one in the company is honest or humble)

The Blue included:
1. Painting techniques.
2. How to run/plan an event.
3. Overcoming objections.
4. Basic understanding of rules for all 3 main games.
Edit: Oh how could I forget? 5. Making the sale.

The practicals were roleplays that you actually do with an official trainer grading.
The orange one is more difficult, but the rag one is a straight intro game.

You started with 25 points and you were deducted a point for each thing you did wrong.
There is a general checklist.

Man am I glad I never got into retail.

All that crap could be replaced with. Don't be a prick and use common sense.

These tests were just "Amber" "Blue" "Green" and "Red?" Man, GW missed a wonderful opportunity to tie in their existing lines. Can you imagine taking an "Ultramarine Blue" test? How about the "Goblin Green" or dreaded, unpassable "Scar Red."

scuddman wrote:That was word for word right out of their textbook.
A question might be:

You have already greeted a customer as he enters the store. He looks at you and asks about land raiders. Which of the ten commandments do you use next?

One would assume #9. But I'm sure there is some kind of gotcha. Do you still work there?

Your answer is correct.

I do not still work there.

"9. Ask Questions which obtain the Best Information Concerning Customer Needs. Use questions that obtain relevant information from customers so that you are able to give them what they need. The use of open-ended questions will help you achieve this aim. Open-ended questions are those which cannot be answers with either a “yes” or “no”."

In GW stores this translates to:

Me: Hi I'd like to get some Scouts.
Them: The new Stompa is awesome!
Me: Yeah, great, how many boxes of scouts do you have in storage? I need all of them.
Them: Have you seen the new Stagadon! The new Lizardmen book is great.
Me: Yes. That's great. I'm sure it is. Scouts?
Them: OMG! War Of The Ring is like more important than oxygen! I just came in my pants! AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
Me: BYE

*NB: The above dialogue may or may not have actually happened... although I did once buy 7 boxes of Scouts in one go!

Only if they are doing it wrong matey.

When I worked for them (going back about 6 years now!) the Mumak was the latest big thing. Even employing Number 9, we still sold shed loads. I was always pretty good at that one, even managed to dazzle the two managers interviewing me at the time with my knowledge (it was during the trial hour they found me, of all people, lacking in enthusiasm. Off day, or GW being bonkers is your call! I'd say a mix of both).

But yeah, had a couple of roleplays during the interview to demonstrate my skills. First one was a Mumsie in to procure her son some models. Managed to get from 'green robots' to flogging her a Devastator and Assaults squad. Guessed she was meaning Dark Angels, showed the box and asked if it looked familiar, did the usual probing questions to find out what her son already had, including checking his name to see if he was known to us as a gamer (he wasn't). Steered clear of explaining they weren't actually robots but genetically enhanced super soldiers in powered armour, figuring she probably doesn't give an arse, explained although the picture was of blue robots, the green robots could use them as well, and 'sale' was made. Mentioned to keep hold of the receipt to exchange if they weren't right, and gave her an invite to bring her son down on a Sunday to get some lessons etc.

2nd one was a 'lapsed' gamer in on his lunchbreak looking at Fantasy. Leading questions told me he stilled had an Orc army knocking about, and that he fancied giving the painting side a go. Discussed the changes in the range (mentioning the 'drastic plastic' era) and wound up 'selling' him a Batallion, as I bigged up not so much the saving, but the variety, which of course is always of interest to someone just wanting to dip their toe in. £50 sale right there. Though now I think about it, I did forget to sell him brushes. He might have his old paints (which by my reckoning would have been the original ones!) but chances would be brushes went walkees or were knackered.

Ah well. Not to worry! Making exceedingly good money in the Taxi, so sod GW! I no need their steenking employment!

You are meant to promote the latest releases, but experience quickly teaches you to spot when someone just isn't that interested. I usually chose to do this *after* showing them to to what they wanted. Not terribly likely to get a sale of new item out of it (but you'd be surprised how often it did work) but it makes them aware. They might not be interested, but by doing a gently enthusiastic promotion, it's entirely possible they'll know someone who has played said army before, and mention it to them.

Oh you can't talk Grotsnik. You're not enthusiastic enough to be a GW employee, remember?

Quiet you!

And I would like to point out that my recent less than glowing reviews and opinions on GW stuff (Greatswords....HOW MUCH?) are genuinely coincidental! I'd still have freaked out about the Greatsword price with the discount (which someone mentioned might be going down to 30%?)

Yeah I remember the day they announced the end of metal bits by weight for staff.. I made a 2.5 kg bitz order that week

In that was most of the metal for my chaos dwarf dwarf army (I dont use that broken POS CD list, I use dwarf list counts-as), an entire metal high elf army, and a bunch of othercrap I still have in abox somewhere..

Oh yeah and all my metal tyranid and ork stuff i got in that order too.. good times.

We never had to take a color coded test, but I remember the ten commandments.. Our Store had the 11th commandment, no wiggers allowed

While a lot of their customer service "commandments" make sense, I think a big problem with GW employees (at least a lot of the ones at the stores that I went into) treated these as a sort of schematic to follow too literally, and in poor taste.

Basically they seemed to follow the "letter" of the commandments, but not the spirit. This is why I think a lot of people have had sour experiences with most GW employees. It's a rare find when you actually meet one that seems genuine, as opposed to robotic. I've had better customer experiences dealing with a script-reader in an Indian call center than I've had with GW employees.

That's the problem with trying to define and mechanize customer service...you lose the human touch and flexibility needed to come across as a normal human being.

Excellent customer service is one of those skills that is really hard to train properly...you need to get people with the right mindset and the right people skills. Without those two, you're just going to be spinning your wheels trying to get good customer service.

So although these "commandments" are a noble goal, clearly they are not being taught or transmitted down to the actual employees in most cases, and thus we get the weirdos that we often see in GWs. Why does this happen?

GW, in my observations, generally seems to have poor hiring managers, who exhibit poor judgment in both hiring, training, and promotions...it seems like the higher up the managerial chain the person was, the more out of touch with reality he was. And it all comes from the top. Poor upper management begets poor middle management, which begets poor employees (the ones that stick around...the good ones quickly realize the poor structure and leave for greener pastures.)

Scuddman, I wouldn't take it personal or get hung up on the fact that they didn't want to "pass" you on their test. I would say it's for the best, as in most cases, the company structure doesn't seem able to recognize good talent when it's staring them in the face.

Wow, Acheron, when was the last time you posted? Glad to see you're updating your blog again.

You're that close to convincing me that I should switch back to warmachine/hordes.

Well, as the thing for the hiring, now you know why their game designers are terrible...

The wearing of company uniform is a must if people like me are going to be able to tell the staff from the customers. The last couple of times I've been into a GW store I've felt uncomfortable and distinctly out of place surrounded by so many noisy little bu...kids.

As I've said in other threads, Australian staff do not wear uniforms. They wear whatever they want, and have tags around their necks with their names and positions.

Court wrote:8. Maintain High Standards of Personal Appearance and Hygiene. Games Workshop provides company clothing; Make sure it is kept clean and presentable. The important about your appearance is that you do not offend any of the wide range of people who visit your store. The same goes for personal hygiene - keep clean and make sure you smell fresh.

Wash, please. Here in the 21st Century there's a thing called Deodorant. Please, for the love of God, GW, provide this free for Redshirts. All hope is lost otherwise.

sA

H.B.M.C. wrote:As I've said in other threads, Australian staff do not wear uniforms. They wear whatever they want, and have tags around their necks with their names and positions.

They also have explosive collars, their ankles are manacled to metal balls, and they aren't allowed to smile. If they do, boom goes the collar.