I'm boycotting Toys R Us, Sick of this <censor>

[GoktimusPrime]

Yeah, my friend's shifts severely dropped after she turned 18.

[kup]

Not sure about other stores, but the Penrith store policy is only to employ 16-17 year olds, once they get over 18, and need to be paid more, they cut their shifts to no hours so they quit to get a job that will give them shifts.

Cannot be fun working at a store where you know you will only be employed for a year or two. Besides why would teenagers care about helping other people, they have too much other stuff on their minds!

I don't think anyone is blaming the poor TrU costumer service directly on the teenagers. It's more to do with the company policy that focuses on employing low wage teenagers with the purpose of maximizing revenue at the cost of employee morale and the costumer experience.

TrU management and policy makers create the circumstances for their employees to be detached and provide poor costumer services. I am sure that if there were proper shifts and reward benefits the attitude would change dramatically. It's bad because the employees are treated like peons and they themselves see it as job which they are doing only because they have no where else to go or until they can find something better.

Many other retailers mostly have students as their staff but you don't see this low morale or detachment as often outside of TrU.

[RagingBull]

2 or 3 weeks ago when i bought my ice cream truck twins from parra target, i got back to my gf place and realised mudflap didnt have a head, so i called the shop and told them the situtation, they said yeh we'll hold one for you but youll need to speak to someone in toys so they know exactly wat you want.

so i get transfered to toys and get answered by a guy who would make the announcer at the train station sound sound like shakespearean actor.

and i described to him, im looking for a pink ice cream truck the box is labled, autobot skids mudflap and a stick that says robots combined (or what ever it is) and its on a shelf at about eye level priced at $28 or so.

i was in the shop 30mins earlier and there were a dozen of them. u think this guy could find it. no. he was looking in ben 10 section, and the tf:animated section. it was litteraly right in front of him at eye level. but no i was a persistant bugger and made him keep looking. about 20mins of searching he found it. how hard is it to miss a pink product that is surrounded by black, red, and yellow products.....wtf seriously. and looking in the ben 10 section. wtf transformers and ben 10 dont even have common letters for god sake, you cant get more far apart in labelling.

what a total dick. and i wish these places employed people with some brains.

rant over

[G1Optimal]

Well they're inter-related. You need product knowledge in order to better service your customers. If TRU actually gave a poop about customer service they would actually _equip_ their staff with the required knowledge to help them serve customers! (like Bunnings, Daimaru, Itoyokado etc.)

I have asked my sisters opinion about this thread...
( Felt, she was more informed about this "than" i was as she took a retail course...
something along the lines of management 2 or something , as i do not have much of a understanding of this scrap )

In Her opinion....She felt (based on my poor memory and understanding ),

this is more of a "Customer Service Issue" than a "Product Knowledge Issue", As there is not much Product Knowledge needed on Kids toys
(" age groups suitability, brands and popularity being the main ones ")

and if they did want "Product Knowledge" they can check the Internet "or if unable, other forms of media"

But, Hardware on the other hand is "completely" different due to... "different jobs needing different tools" and also "what would be better suited for the job" as different jobs have different requirements.... etc

and thinking about it, I tend to agree with this..


And In my opinion on the service you described in Japan.
This is Australia Unfortunately...
and I do not think, i would be that surprised "as" this is the place where they have "by the looks of it" more respect for the Transformers fans.

[MV75]

Not necessarily. The person I know who works at TRU is like 19 or 20 years old and she's been working at TRU since she was 17 or 18. Her boyfriend is about the same age and works at Bunnings, yet his knowledge of paints is impeccable. I've spoken to her about this issue and she says that she wishes she had the same level of expertise about toys that her boyfriend has about paints, but the fact is that TRU won't train her.

Tell her to take the inititive and walk around the store and figure stuff out for herself.

It's not hard to look at toys. Anyone with any slight of interest in what they sell do this. It's called gaining product knowledge.

Forget about the paint thing, it's different and much more cerebral as you do need to be taught/learn about different types of paint, etc, but when it's like toys, whitegoods, etc, you need to have a look at the actual products and read the boxes.

[GoktimusPrime]

Tell her to take the inititive and walk around the store and figure stuff out for herself.

Management would need to specifically allocate time for her to do this during her shift.
(re: industrial relations, workers' rights)

[hotaru_oz]

The funny thing is I applied to work at the Toys R Us in the Adelaide CBD, and in my application letter I explained I had product Knowledge and years of experience in retail.
I never got an interview or even a generic rejection letter, I'm not sure why but I have a feeling it's because I was 24 at the time.

[MV75]

Management would need to specifically allocate time for her to do this during her shift.
(re: industrial relations, workers' rights)

Ah, bull.

It's called laziness then if you just couldn't be stuffed looking at the product you are selling while you are selling it, putting more of it on the shelf, assisting customers, etc.

Plenty of opportunity for a real retailer. She is aware she's in a toy store right?