A letter to corporate from a grumpy former customer

Dear Vice-President in Charge of Making Sure You Earn Your Christmas Bonus at Generic Chain Store Corporation:

Customers don’t care if you meet your sales goals.

Minimum-wage employees don’t exist so you can win that company trip to Hawaii.

The Economic Meltdown of 2007-2008 and the ensuing Recession did not cause the guy who was CEO of your corporation eight years ago to plunge the company into massive debt so he could empire-build, so stop blaming all the desperate ways you’ve come up with to gouge customers on “hard times.”

If your company’s current business model is to shake down customers for every single extra penny, cut services, hard-sell more of an inferior product or, worse, hard-sell one your customers really have no use for, reduce inventory to the point that products customers do have a use for and want now aren’t on the shelves, understaff shifts, cut jobs, cut wages, cut benefits, with the result of putting a demoralized and resentful sales staff on your floors, and otherwise scrimp, scrounge, and scramble not to increase profits as much as to raise stock prices and mollify creditors, start sending out your resume now, because that’s the Circuit City business model and look how it saved them.

But, please, above all, don’t try to make me part of your bonus and job rescue plan by having your clerks and cashiers keep me at the counter longer than I need to be while they pretty much beg me to spend money I can’t really afford to spend on something I don’t want, don’t need, won’t be glad I bought, and won’t make me want to come back to your store any time soon.

So, anyway, yeah, I bought the snack bundle, I picked up the extra batteries, I took the Grande instead of the Vente or the other way round, I can’t keep them straight, I super-sized, and I joined the Rewards program.  But only because I felt sorry for the pleading and desperate teenager behind the register.

You made your extra buck and a half off me today.  But I felt like an idiot and a sucker and a cheapskate and a heartless bum all at the same time, so you did not make the five, ten, fifteen, or hundred bucks you’d have made off me next week or month if I wasn’t so annoyed, guilt-ridden, and self-loathing that I’m going to avoid your store for at least the next year.

Sincerely,

One grumpy ex-customer

Comments

[Rana]

I will say, that's one advantage to living in a small, struggling city; everyone - even the folks working in the chain stores - knows that keeping customers happy over the long term is essential to success, and that short-term profits at their expense won't be large enough to make gouging worthwhile. So while we may not have the best range of products in our stores, the customer service is pretty darn good across the board.

[MaryRC]

I don't know, maybe it's worse now but this "Do you want fries with that" approach to retailing was in vogue long before the recession.

Office Depot, for example: it's been years since I've been able to make a simple purchase and escape without a virtual grilling by the cashier. Did you find everything you want? Do you have enough paper? Do you have enough toner? We have glue sticks on special today, do you need to stock up? Did you see our special offer on Sharpies? Do you have our credit card? No? Would you like to apply for one? Do you have our rewards card? No? Would you like to apply for one?

I know the cashier is forced to say these things -- over and over, in fact whereas I only have to hear them once -- and I sympathize but I hate it.

[Falstaff]

I hate my job.

I'm a cashier for one of Australia's two giant grocery-store chains. I got this job because all my references were in another country, and after seven hundred plus job applications, this was the first one that got me a callback. I'm the guy behind the counter who tries his best to give friendly service while following the management's demands that I, first of all, scan sixteen items per minute and, second of all, spew out those annoying questions about the rewards program.

Trust me, we all find them every bit as irritating as you do. It gets a bit frustrating: I know people don't want the Everyday Rewards Card. Yes, I saw the feature on the TV news too -- it lets the company track the stuff you're buying, and it means your contact details get sold to spammers. I know this. I wouldn't have one myself if it didn't come with the company's 5%-off-discount for employees. And yes, I have to ask every single customer I have for theirs, and try to get them to get one if they don't, because if fifty percent of my customers *don't* have one on a week-to-week basis, then there will be "consequences."

It's a hell of a way for a grown man to make a living. For that matter, it's not much better for the teenagers.

[actor212]

Must be Rite-Aid, because they're closing stores left and right.

[Falstaff]

As an addendum to my last comment, Lance -- wherein I let my temper get the better of me a bit, but still stand behind -- let me just say that I do, in fact, see what you were getting at and who you were blaming for all of this nonsense. It's a bit of a cliche to say that the higher you rise in the organization the bigger a jerk you become, but that's been my experience with this company, anyway, so I can only imagine what a big jerk our Vice-President in Charge of Making Sure He Earns His Christmas Bonus must be.