Every day that we open before we start we have to have a team talk, in this we are told about the strategies that have to be used for that day. For example if there are lots of customers, in the stock room one person is to give out the tickets and all the other people are to line up and collect the tickets, get the goods and then return back into the line. This helps them to get through the tickets as quick as possible. We have a policy where the staff try and get the customers in and out the shop within five minutes of them cuing up to pay for their goods. As soon as they have paid the stock room team receives to order then the staffs has to locate the product and send it down to the collection point where the alternated calling machine will call the ticket number to the collection point to pick up their goods.
It isn’t that simple though, when staffs works in the stock room he/she would have to know the room quite good because the way the stock room is set out is by having the products next to each other, in big rows e.g. when a ticket comes through it says the location of the product so the stock room staff would have to know the room very well because the rows start from 1 to 44 each row goes from A to U. This is a system that will only work smoothly if the stock room staff work in a team and do their job to the highest level of their ability.
The cashiers must make sure that the customers are not cuing too long, if there are more then four customers waiting to get the till, Argos will arrange for a staff member to work on another till, the stock room staff must make sure that the product id is quickly located and sent down on the conveyor belt where there is staff that puts the products on a shelf and the collection staff would give it to their rightful owner, this method should be done within five minutes. In the stock room staff have a digital clock that tells us how long we took with the last customer, but this is not very efficient because the time comes up after the collection staff has given the product to its owner and cleared the order in the system.
For example if the staff send the product down in one minute and the product is given to the customer four minutes later it will come up on our clock as if the one of the staff in the stock room took five minutes. There is another implication; if the collection staffs don’t press the clear button (this will be saying that the customer has got their product) the clock would still go on until someone presses the clear button. Sometimes errors do occur in the stock room, if someone sends down the wrong product this is called a miss pick and this give a bad impression to customer because it is only detected at the collection point and they have to call up to the stock room and tell them it is a miss pick and someone has to go and get the right product.
Staff discuss out each day the average time of serving the customer every morning, if there are any problems with staff and communication, this is the time where it is discussed and how to solve it. If it doesn’t get solved with that time it will become a bigger problem in the future and will give a bad impression of the store. All of this comes down to staff training. At Argos all the staffs goes through rigorous training. A lot of time and money is spent on training, Argos has a belief that if the staff isn’t trained to the full extent it will effect the whole store, efficiency and staff moral will be low because staff will feel that they haven’t been trained properly and cannot carryout their duties to the best of their ability due to bad training.
The company stated that every staff on the shop floor should acknowledge each customer, by saying “Hi” or even a smile would do. Being trained by Argos is very different compared to another retail outlet like J.D Sports plc, because they don’t merely teach you about how you would have to treat a customer, for example when you go in to a shop as a customer and how would u want a member of staff to approach you would it be for example “Hi”, “How are you” or not even being noticed and just make you feel alike an average person coming in to the store.
This type of method is very good for a member of staff to think from a customer’s point of view so they could make decisions effectively. Staffs are rewarded greatly. One way of this is a bonus, if the store has done well for that day. In the staff room there is a notice board and every week they have an employee of the week. This year their has been a reward put in place, the store with the least out of stock refunds will receive a party for new years eve at a selected venue at the west ends. To get the prize Argos would have to make sure that everything is in stock and when something is running low Argos have to do a stock count and make sure that there is the right amount of that product, so when a customer requests the product it should be in the customers hands within five minutes.
When there is a customer complaint the store manger has to take the statement by the customer and at this point the manager would of got to the bottom of the problem, for example if a customer says “an employee has been rude to me” the manager will approach the employee in question and ask then what happened and if their was a problem the manager will advise the employee how to deal with that type of problem in the future. I feel that customer service in Argos is very effective because it leaves room for the staff to greet each other customer in their own way, this gives the customer the feeling that the staff really cares and don’t just say what they say because hey have to, its because they want to.
First impressions are very important because it leaves a lasting impression on the customer and can make the company increase customer loyalty to the store or it can also make the company look very bad if the impression is bad. Argos has signed another company that dose their cleaning everyday; the cleaners come in early everyday and make sure that the store looks presentable. The stores have recently gone through major changes because it was only known as Argos but now has changed to an Argos superstore, this gives them the ability to hold more products in their store and offer more reductions on products that they have a lot of due to large storages space. Argos has a large number of internal customers due to the fact that they have a large number of employees; they offer a 25% discount on what ever they wish to purchase.
