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Grrrrrr..... Advance Auto Parts

daveSanborn

daveSanborn

Active Member
I about jumped over the counter at the guy today. I patiently waited my turn in line as the only counter assist employee who had a clue slowly worked through the 2 people in front of me. 15 minutes I waited! The phone would not stop ringing and he was the only person answering it. He'd stop what he was doing with the customer in front of him and jump into his sales pitch with the every caller.... sure I can look that up for you... what year car? V6 or V8?....

I was getting more and more pissed off and he wasn't even waiting on me yet. He finally worked through the short line of people in front of me and when I stepped up to the counter I told him that if he answered that phone while he was helping me I'd do everything in my power to see that he was fired. He looked at me like I was the a$$hole after I explained to him that anyone actually in the store with money in their hand had to be far more important that someone calling for a price check. As it turns out he was the store manager. Freakin' loser.
 
That has happened to me as well. It's the same as if your standing in a line and when it's your turn for assistance, somebody cuts in line and get directly in front of you. Makes you want to reach over the counter and strangle the guy. That is poor management when the person helping people on the floor is also responsible for helping people calling on the phone. If that really was the manager, somebody didn't show up for work that day or they have laid off so many that he must do it all. Either way, poor management = poor service. :-\
 
Some time back. in Az., I was in that same store with the same phone and jerk..... As I was standing in line, I called the store. The idiot answered and I jumped his crap for not helping the people in front of him by always answering the phone. I very politely gave him a piece of my mind. He never realized it was me, three people back in the line. The others in line had a good laugh as the guy hung up from me and had this dumb look on his face. He did leave the phone ring a couple of times after that. I try to have the phone numbers of those I use regularly now.
 
Thats classic Pete! The good news is though, with the piss poor economy, we are very likely to have a large number of over qualified people doing these jobs in the near future.....
 
Being the guy behind the counter (I work at Napa), you have to find a balance. Phone calls bring people in and make sales. My store has a policy that no phone goes unanswered for more than 2 rings. Granted, we have a much, much higher wholesale customer base than places like Autozone/CSK/Advance/etc (I'd guess maybe 75% of my sales are the result of phone calls), so we NEED to answer the phone or we lose sales, but we try harder to allocate enough people to cover the counter so we don't screw the customers in the store. We have 3-5 counter people plus a dedicated wholesale guy in the back during most of the day.

If the phone rings while I'm helping a customer, I check to see if everyone else is on the phone, then answer only if nobody else can (or if one of my idiot coworkers is ignoring it). I ask the customer if he can hold on for a second while I handle the phone call. If it's a retail call and sounds like it may take longer than a minute, I'll take a name and phone number. If it's a wholesale call and can't wait, I'll see if I can get another counterperson to help the guy in the store while I take it. I've had to keep a couple customers waiting for a couple minutes, but we almost never have any more than 2 people in line, and worst case we can call the owners up to help the customers if they're available. The name of the game is 'help the customer.' We do give a lot of attention to high dollar commercial accounts, but walk-in customers are very important too, and we try our best to help everyone in a timely manner. I had a guy walk in today and buy a $450 battery charger without blinking. I'm sure he would've walked out and bought one elsewhere had we treated him like you were treated.

The problem with the cheapo parts stores (aside from generally crappy parts) is their lack of adequate and competent staffing. They hire high school kids that think they know a lot about cars, give them halfassed training, halfass resources, bind them with corporate policy, and only hire half as much as they need to run the store effectively. That was about how it worked when I worked at Sears Auto (overworked, understaffed, underappreciated), although I snubbed my nose at a lot of the corporate policy:)

Morale of the story: shop at a private store. They'll usually work harder for your business to get you what you need, and aren't usually mired in corporate policy rules/restrictions.
 
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