Hah, he gets points for sheer cheek:) My fave Boots guy is at my local Boots - he's your standard late teen, cheeky smile and slightly spaced out look and last time they launched a mascara, they'd clearly asked him to promote it. Convo at till went sthg like this: Him: Have you heard about our newest mascara? [I let him talk, just cos it amused me] Me: Thank you Him: So you gonna get one then? Me: Not right now, thanks Him: If I'm honest, your lashes already look sexy Me: *raises amused eyebrow* Him, getting redder: I mean, ah like.. well you're kinda hot and erm ah, well like this mascara is cool and all but you look great!
I tell you, I haven't been called hot in years, it cheered me right up for the rest of the day:) No points to hubby who shrieked with laughter when I told him though grrrr.
Haha, I did have a giggle at this, I work in retail, and in fairness we sometimes have huge queues because there are not enough staff on, and we take the brunt of it. I love that the Boots guy gave you instructions, I too have to hand out feedback forms, its all very cringe worthy but we cant move up pay levels unless we hand them out! I am DEFINATELY stealing his tactic, average service but force the customer to say it was amazing, excellent.
lady in boots today tried to get me to buy the new £20odd no7 primer after i told her i had just bought one and wanted some other serum from the range.. she took it to the till with her and all and i was in absolute horror when she put it through!
luckily after her misunderstanding i did get the serum.. luckily i was paying attention! the boots people always seem to circle absolutely everything on these receipts.. but the prizes dont seem very similar, pretty sure id rather win the £200 advantage points!
I do one of these about once a month but only because I collect medication from the pharmacy in boots once a week so have got to know the pharmacy well and they always make me feel welcome, then again they have never circled bits or told me what to write, if they did maybe I wouldnt do it x x Samantha Fox
@PeachBellini That's really cute and funny at the same time! Haha. ;)
At the time, I didn't understand why the lady at the till wrote her name down on the back of my receipt but when I went to fill out the survey it all made sense. Personally, I think the Superdrug survey is better in terms of what a customer can gain from filling it out as you get a discount for your next shop. :)
I got served by an extremely nervous looking and out-of-place manager at the tills in Boots today. With all his fumbling and trembling, he short changed me by £3! I wish he'd given me a feedback receipt.
I actually work in Boots and have to hand these out all the time. The reason they asked for you to write strongly agree was because if you say 'agree' or anything less it doesn't count towards our stores happy customer feedback rating, and having the name on the receipt lets our manager know we are doing well with the customers, and are providing 'legendary' customer service!
Someone wins in those competitions everyday so its not actually that hard to win haha, and i'm sure this guy was just doing what he was told :) xx
Don't mention Boots to me! Apart from their fact that their entire website was down for the whole first week of Jan they completely messed up a new glasses order for me. When I went to collect my new specs, ones with nice pale grey frames, they were actually dark brown. I am still waiting for them to get back to me and sort it out. Last response was "oh, maybe the ones you bought (ie the ones they were displaying as something you could actually buy) are discontinued! Argh! i know this is a dull story but thankyou for allowing me to vent BBB!
In actual fact, the staff get in massive amounts of trouble if their customers don't fill in the surveys, and even get official warnings if they don't meet their ridiciulous targets. Whether or not the customer fills in the survey is completely out of their hands, and again if the customer ticks anything less than "strongly agree" it doesn't count. Just thought I'd share that..
Haha the woman who served me in boots the other day did the exact same thing! I replied "But what if I don't strongly agree?" and she just looked at me blank-faced. Hilarious.
Oh I'm really surprised you were disappointed in Superdrug, I've had nothing but good service in the ones I go to, in fact I'm even going off Boots for their service. Never anyone about to ask for help and surly service at the tills!
@the anonymous Boots employees - I did one of these the other month, and I think I put "agree", I feel awful now cos it wouldn't have killed me to put "strongly agree" but it never occurred to me! Boots be crazy I think, after all, who is so enthused by their goods being put in a plastic bag that they would strongly agree that it was exceptional? I only did the survey for the points, which of course I didn't win, and that survey is HUGE!!! Boots are getting an awful lot of feedback from us, then for it not to count for the poor employee after all that... ugh.
I also work in boots and we get no reward for the customer feedback surveys, no incentive.. Nothing!! It's just part of our job that we have to do to keep managers happy!
The same happened to me a couple of times. I wasn't too surprised because I work in market research (not as a researcher but in the domain). Guess I'm too used to surveys by now!
Hi Anon.. totally don't hate the Boots staff on this one! It's kind of more I think that Boots staff probably shouldn't have to do this - and no wonder they are resorting to 'writing down' the status we should choose if we go on line. It is crazy - as if there isn't enough to do on a shop floor. I hate to think that Boots staff come under pressure to get customers to comply..that doesn't seem fair really. It's just that it was a surprise to be asked when I was in store..it's never happened to me before.
Here in the US, Sephora does this. The circles, the name of who helped you, plus the name of the cashier. Having worked in marketing in the past, this is their way of getting free marketing from the public rather than having to pay out for panels! XXX Suzanne
Hiya, these comments are just a great way for Boots to get feedback on customers thoughts about the store and service in general. The reports come off randomly and it's a chance for customers to write about what they think could be improved and if they received service from an employee around the store not just at the tills. The information is then used to help improve customers shopping experience in boots. I do think it's funny the way the guy talked about it, never heard that one before,
To be fair, any incentive for good service would be welcome at my local Boots. Even if you've said you don't want a bal they should still give you your products (it was a kitkat and some hand sanitiser) - I had to reach over the counter thing behind the screen to grab my products. Was not at all impressed.
It seems almost every store here is US does that. OK not every but probably 2 in 5. Restaurant chains as well. They have never gotten so exact with me as your Boots SA but it does get annoying to be told " there's a survey for you to take" every time you go in. I know it by rote by now.
As someone mentioned it's tied in to our targets. Which if you don't make the effort will harm our chances of a bonus as well as their opinion on our performance. Under perform no annual pay increase. Not to mention we have store managers, area managers and regional managers breathing down our necks. Boots staff truly do want to give the best service possible but we also have to work extremely hard to keep our jobs and recieve the little extra we can. We don't have the greatest support from up above and in these trying times, who are we to argue back. :(
That's so weird, I was in Boots today... The girl behind the counter took approximately 10 minutes with one customer who she obviously knew. Every drawn out prolonged action getting items from basket to bag just seemed to raise my blood pressure another notch. She then advised her of a few special offers that she could take advantage of and ambled over to the aisles to fetch said offers. Throw in a lengthy and protracted Boots card exchange and an even longer debit card transaction and she shaved another hour off my life. When I finally reached her at the counter the attitude switched from friendly to a raised eyebrow and a gruff "yes?" Customer Service indeed.
So what happens if you fill in the survey and put 'don't agree very much' then you don't get the chance to enter the survey? My boss used to do that before. He asked me to prepare/give out some evaluation sheets to students (no prize involved though) but on the day of the presentation, and when the sheets were given out to them, he would say 'if you want to put 'very good to perfect' that would be very nice of you.
Hang on a minute. If you don't want to hear the music and the real opinion of people, don't ask them and certainly don't ask them to put certain answers. bugs me this. I told him about this aspect and he agreed not to encourage students not to answer specific stuff.
I also got the survey request with areas circled & a name written on it. Thing is, that day someone in the Cambridge Grafton Centre store had gone out of her way to help me out & saved me money. I did do the survey & actually gave'strongly agrees' on almost everything. The main store in Cambridge city centre is an excellent store, I always get great assistance from all staff in there..beauty counter (especially on Dior, the lady there has an excellent eye for colour matching), electrical etc.... one problem is that it gets so crowded at weekends, that you cannot comfortably browse....they need to seriously expand.
I also work at Boots and we have to hand in these surveys. 90% of the time we have elderly customers who are not interested at all in going online and do the survey. There is nothing we can do about it really.
Hi, I used to work at Boots so I can tell you this properly. It actually was lucky of you to get this receipt. They don't come out very often, its random. It was quite funny of him to put strongly agree on it, as thats up to you. But we were always told to tell you about it, and put our names on. I think if you do put our name as a referral, we just get a WOW report (which is a little peice of paper saying what we did well) That's all. Its more for the customer, I swear, Boots are very heavy on their customer service.
I also used to work for Boots and it might have looked odd of him to have put 'strongly agree' on the top but when you fill in these surveys and the stats come off the only info that the Boots stats people take notice of is 'strongly disagree' and 'strongly agree'. If you put anything in between these then basically it doesn't count.
But, yes, I agree with Kaya Lawson's comment above. Boots are very customer orientated and always strive to have 'legendary customer care'.
Thanks for all your comments on this hot topic: I've spoken with someone at Boots I know and trust and it might be helpful for you to know that the situation is being looked at closely at the highest level to see if there is another way to approach customer feedback within the stores. It's difficult for me to publish all the comments - particularly a couple of very vehement ones - because there are libel laws that I have to take into consideration and as moderator of the comments I am held responsible for all the words on BBB. However, I do know that 'over-enthusiasm' when it comes to hitting targets from some managers is being properly looked at by Boots at senior level. Thank you to everyone who commented, and I hope it is reassuring to know your words have had an impact and they are taking what you and I have to say seriously. BBB xx
Haha I have been getting these feedback forms too! I have been going to my local Boots for years (as expected) and honestly prefered their service before the receipts came into place! I probably would have bothered if it was an extra piece of paper telling me to go online but IMO it's all a bit pushy when staff are told to put their names down etc.
I don't agree that anyone should be asked to strongly agree on any cusomer survey. Surely the whole point of these surveys is to give an honest opinion on the service they received that day. Boots this is not good practice
I work at boots and believe me if you were to ask most of the staff they do not like the way we have to hand out the surveys we are told to ask you to strongly agree any thing less is not good enough it counts for nothing if the staff could change things i am sure they would i agree with the last comment i also don't think any one should be asked to strongly agree
Readind old posts and I found this! Reminded me of my days working at Boots when I first started uni. At our store, if a customer had 'strongly agreed' that you gave great customer service etc, you would be entered in the draw of the month and the winner selects an old tester perfume they no longer put out on the shelf (normally discontinued/seasonal ranges).
34 comments:
Hah, he gets points for sheer cheek:) My fave Boots guy is at my local Boots - he's your standard late teen, cheeky smile and slightly spaced out look and last time they launched a mascara, they'd clearly asked him to promote it. Convo at till went sthg like this:
Him: Have you heard about our newest mascara? [I let him talk, just cos it amused me]
Me: Thank you
Him: So you gonna get one then?
Me: Not right now, thanks
Him: If I'm honest, your lashes already look sexy
Me: *raises amused eyebrow*
Him, getting redder: I mean, ah like.. well you're kinda hot and erm ah, well like this mascara is cool and all but you look great!
I tell you, I haven't been called hot in years, it cheered me right up for the rest of the day:) No points to hubby who shrieked with laughter when I told him though grrrr.
Haha, I did have a giggle at this, I work in retail, and in fairness we sometimes have huge queues because there are not enough staff on, and we take the brunt of it. I love that the Boots guy gave you instructions, I too have to hand out feedback forms, its all very cringe worthy but we cant move up pay levels unless we hand them out! I am DEFINATELY stealing his tactic, average service but force the customer to say it was amazing, excellent.
lady in boots today tried to get me to buy the new £20odd no7 primer after i told her i had just bought one and wanted some other serum from the range.. she took it to the till with her and all and i was in absolute horror when she put it through!
luckily after her misunderstanding i did get the serum.. luckily i was paying attention! the boots people always seem to circle absolutely everything on these receipts.. but the prizes dont seem very similar, pretty sure id rather win the £200 advantage points!
I do one of these about once a month but only because I collect medication from the pharmacy in boots once a week so have got to know the pharmacy well and they always make me feel welcome, then again they have never circled bits or told me what to write, if they did maybe I wouldnt do it x x
Samantha Fox
@PeachBellini That's really cute and funny at the same time! Haha. ;)
At the time, I didn't understand why the lady at the till wrote her name down on the back of my receipt but when I went to fill out the survey it all made sense. Personally, I think the Superdrug survey is better in terms of what a customer can gain from filling it out as you get a discount for your next shop. :)
I got served by an extremely nervous looking and out-of-place manager at the tills in Boots today. With all his fumbling and trembling, he short changed me by £3! I wish he'd given me a feedback receipt.
I actually work in Boots and have to hand these out all the time. The reason they asked for you to write strongly agree was because if you say 'agree' or anything less it doesn't count towards our stores happy customer feedback rating, and having the name on the receipt lets our manager know we are doing well with the customers, and are providing 'legendary' customer service!
Someone wins in those competitions everyday so its not actually that hard to win haha, and i'm sure this guy was just doing what he was told :) xx
Don't mention Boots to me! Apart from their fact that their entire website was down for the whole first week of Jan they completely messed up a new glasses order for me.
When I went to collect my new specs, ones with nice pale grey frames, they were actually dark brown. I am still waiting for them to get back to me and sort it out. Last response was "oh, maybe the ones you bought (ie the ones they were displaying as something you could actually buy) are discontinued! Argh!
i know this is a dull story but thankyou for allowing me to vent BBB!
In actual fact, the staff get in massive amounts of trouble if their customers don't fill in the surveys, and even get official warnings if they don't meet their ridiciulous targets. Whether or not the customer fills in the survey is completely out of their hands, and again if the customer ticks anything less than "strongly agree" it doesn't count. Just thought I'd share that..
Haha the woman who served me in boots the other day did the exact same thing! I replied "But what if I don't strongly agree?" and she just looked at me blank-faced. Hilarious.
Oh I'm really surprised you were disappointed in Superdrug, I've had nothing but good service in the ones I go to, in fact I'm even going off Boots for their service. Never anyone about to ask for help and surly service at the tills!
@the anonymous Boots employees -
I did one of these the other month, and I think I put "agree", I feel awful now cos it wouldn't have killed me to put "strongly agree" but it never occurred to me! Boots be crazy I think, after all, who is so enthused by their goods being put in a plastic bag that they would strongly agree that it was exceptional? I only did the survey for the points, which of course I didn't win, and that survey is HUGE!!! Boots are getting an awful lot of feedback from us, then for it not to count for the poor employee after all that... ugh.
I also work in boots and we get no reward for the customer feedback surveys, no incentive.. Nothing!! It's just part of our job that we have to do to keep managers happy!
The same happened to me a couple of times. I wasn't too surprised because I work in market research (not as a researcher but in the domain). Guess I'm too used to surveys by now!
Targets, targets, targets. If we don't get enough surveys, we don't get our bonus. Cheeky of him to write his name on it though!
Please don't hate the Boots staff for this. We get a right ticking off from management if we don't push these.
Hi Anon.. totally don't hate the Boots staff on this one! It's kind of more I think that Boots staff probably shouldn't have to do this - and no wonder they are resorting to 'writing down' the status we should choose if we go on line. It is crazy - as if there isn't enough to do on a shop floor. I hate to think that Boots staff come under pressure to get customers to comply..that doesn't seem fair really. It's just that it was a surprise to be asked when I was in store..it's never happened to me before.
PeachBellini that was a great story!
Here in the US, Sephora does this. The circles, the name of who helped you, plus the name of the cashier. Having worked in marketing in the past, this is their way of getting free marketing from the public rather than having to pay out for panels!
XXX
Suzanne
Hiya, these comments are just a great way for Boots to get feedback on customers thoughts about the store and service in general. The reports come off randomly and it's a chance for customers to write about what they think could be improved and if they received service from an employee around the store not just at the tills. The information is then used to help improve customers shopping experience in boots. I do think it's funny the way the guy talked about it, never heard that one before,
To be fair, any incentive for good service would be welcome at my local Boots. Even if you've said you don't want a bal they should still give you your products (it was a kitkat and some hand sanitiser) - I had to reach over the counter thing behind the screen to grab my products. Was not at all impressed.
It seems almost every store here is US does that. OK not every but probably 2 in 5. Restaurant chains as well. They have never gotten so exact with me as your Boots SA but it does get annoying to be told " there's a survey for you to take" every time you go in. I know it by rote by now.
As someone mentioned it's tied in to our targets. Which if you don't make the effort will harm our chances of a bonus as well as their opinion on our performance. Under perform no annual pay increase. Not to mention we have store managers, area managers and regional managers breathing down our necks. Boots staff truly do want to give the best service possible but we also have to work extremely hard to keep our jobs and recieve the little extra we can. We don't have the greatest support from up above and in these trying times, who are we to argue back. :(
That's so weird, I was in Boots today... The girl behind the counter took approximately 10 minutes with one customer who she obviously knew. Every drawn out prolonged action getting items from basket to bag just seemed to raise my blood pressure another notch. She then advised her of a few special offers that she could take advantage of and ambled over to the aisles to fetch said offers. Throw in a lengthy and protracted Boots card exchange and an even longer debit card transaction and she shaved another hour off my life. When I finally reached her at the counter the attitude switched from friendly to a raised eyebrow and a gruff "yes?" Customer Service indeed.
So what happens if you fill in the survey and put 'don't agree very much' then you don't get the chance to enter the survey? My boss used to do that before. He asked me to prepare/give out some evaluation sheets to students (no prize involved though) but on the day of the presentation, and when the sheets were given out to them, he would say 'if you want to put 'very good to perfect' that would be very nice of you.
Hang on a minute. If you don't want to hear the music and the real opinion of people, don't ask them and certainly don't ask them to put certain answers. bugs me this. I told him about this aspect and he agreed not to encourage students not to answer specific stuff.
liloo /@tsunimee xx
I also got the survey request with areas circled & a name written on it. Thing is, that day someone in the Cambridge Grafton Centre store had gone out of her way to help me out & saved me money. I did do the survey & actually gave'strongly agrees' on almost everything. The main store in Cambridge city centre is an excellent store, I always get great assistance from all staff in there..beauty counter (especially on Dior, the lady there has an excellent eye for colour matching), electrical etc.... one problem is that it gets so crowded at weekends, that you cannot comfortably browse....they need to seriously expand.
I also work at Boots and we have to hand in these surveys. 90% of the time we have elderly customers who are not interested at all in going online and do the survey. There is nothing we can do about it really.
Hi, I used to work at Boots so I can tell you this properly. It actually was lucky of you to get this receipt. They don't come out very often, its random. It was quite funny of him to put strongly agree on it, as thats up to you. But we were always told to tell you about it, and put our names on. I think if you do put our name as a referral, we just get a WOW report (which is a little peice of paper saying what we did well) That's all. Its more for the customer, I swear, Boots are very heavy on their customer service.
I also used to work for Boots and it might have looked odd of him to have put 'strongly agree' on the top but when you fill in these surveys and the stats come off the only info that the Boots stats people take notice of is 'strongly disagree' and 'strongly agree'. If you put anything in between these then basically it doesn't count.
But, yes, I agree with Kaya Lawson's comment above. Boots are very customer orientated and always strive to have 'legendary customer care'.
Thanks for all your comments on this hot topic: I've spoken with someone at Boots I know and trust and it might be helpful for you to know that the situation is being looked at closely at the highest level to see if there is another way to approach customer feedback within the stores. It's difficult for me to publish all the comments - particularly a couple of very vehement ones - because there are libel laws that I have to take into consideration and as moderator of the comments I am held responsible for all the words on BBB. However, I do know that 'over-enthusiasm' when it comes to hitting targets from some managers is being properly looked at by Boots at senior level. Thank you to everyone who commented, and I hope it is reassuring to know your words have had an impact and they are taking what you and I have to say seriously. BBB xx
Haha I have been getting these feedback forms too! I have been going to my local Boots for years (as expected) and honestly prefered their service before the receipts came into place! I probably would have bothered if it was an extra piece of paper telling me to go online but IMO it's all a bit pushy when staff are told to put their names down etc.
I don't agree that anyone should be asked to strongly agree on any cusomer survey. Surely the whole point of these surveys is to give an honest opinion on the service they received that day. Boots this is not good practice
I work at boots and believe me if you were to ask most of the staff they do not like the way we have to hand out the surveys we are told to ask you to strongly agree any thing less is not good enough it counts for nothing if the staff could change things i am sure they would i agree with the last comment i also don't think any one should be asked to strongly agree
surely this is a corrupt way of obtaining customer feedback, by suggesting that they write strongly agree for every question in the survey
Readind old posts and I found this! Reminded me of my days working at Boots when I first started uni. At our store, if a customer had 'strongly agreed' that you gave great customer service etc, you would be entered in the draw of the month and the winner selects an old tester perfume they no longer put out on the shelf (normally discontinued/seasonal ranges).
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