Know it all staff
Discussion
NRS said:
CB2152 said:
However, there are obviously people who don't trust us as the number of times we're asked whether this cable will fit that phone, given the correct answer (micro USB into a Samsung Galaxy S4 for example) then have the customer say "hmm, doesn't look like it'll fit, I'll go and ask my son/grandson/cat/neighbour to make sure" is quite amusing...
This is exactly why people do that:droopsnoot said:
My most annoying time is standing in PC World Hanley near the PDA display, as I was involved in software for PDAs at the time. Someone was asking the assistant which was better, the Palm or the Pocket PC version, and he pointed them to Pocket PC. As a bit of a Palm fan that was a bit frustrating, but the most annoying thing was when she asked what the advantages were, the assistant said "oh, you can connect a Pocket PC to your PC and backup and share files, you can't do that with the Palm." I don't normally get involved, but I just had to point out that was rubbish, and if you can't link to a PC, precisely what is the included cradle and ActiveSync software for, if not for linking to a PC?
People making stuff up instead of saying "I'm sorry, I don't know, I'll go and find out" is one of my pet hates.
People making stuff up instead of saying "I'm sorry, I don't know, I'll go and find out" is one of my pet hates.
droopsnoot said:
I have a Sharp 28" CRT, not replacing that until it fails. Strangely enough I had the "hard sell" on the warranty when I bought the TV, and when it failed about three months from the end of the warranty period, the retailer had already gone bust and I thought that was the end of it and I'd just "have" to buy an LCD or Plasma set. Phoned up anyway, to find it was run by someone else and they'd send someone around to fix it. Turned up, left me a terrible loan set and took it away muttering about it being hard to get parts. Oh well, I thought, the policy pays out original purchase price if it can't be fixed, so a free LCD or Plasma TV. But no, the guy fixed it and it's been fine ever since. So although I am annoyed at the hard sell on this kind of thing, it actually worked out well for me.
I hadn't realised then that there's pretty much an automatic right to a refund on an extended warranty, something I think was championed by Martin Lewis and MSE, though it might have been someone similar, and it goes back a few years. If you negotiate on a TV+warranty deal, the discount is always applied to the price of the TV, and the warranty put through at full price to protect the commission. So if you then decide to cancel the extended warranty, you get a refund of the full price and end up with all the discount on your TV.
My most annoying time is standing in PC World Hanley near the PDA display, as I was involved in software for PDAs at the time. Someone was asking the assistant which was better, the Palm or the Pocket PC version, and he pointed them to Pocket PC. As a bit of a Palm fan that was a bit frustrating, but the most annoying thing was when she asked what the advantages were, the assistant said "oh, you can connect a Pocket PC to your PC and backup and share files, you can't do that with the Palm." I don't normally get involved, but I just had to point out that was rubbish, and if you can't link to a PC, precisely what is the included cradle and ActiveSync software for, if not for linking to a PC?
People making stuff up instead of saying "I'm sorry, I don't know, I'll go and find out" is one of my pet hates.
I've had a good experience with the extended warranty from Curry's. My missus has a knack for destroying laptops. We bought a £400 Dell pink thing for her a few years back, got something spilled over it, replaced. The replacement then died a year or so later, replaced with a newer Asus which is still going strong. I can't complain as we pay about £3 a month and they are pretty good with it. The bullsh*t reasons for selling it on the other hand really grind my gears.I hadn't realised then that there's pretty much an automatic right to a refund on an extended warranty, something I think was championed by Martin Lewis and MSE, though it might have been someone similar, and it goes back a few years. If you negotiate on a TV+warranty deal, the discount is always applied to the price of the TV, and the warranty put through at full price to protect the commission. So if you then decide to cancel the extended warranty, you get a refund of the full price and end up with all the discount on your TV.
My most annoying time is standing in PC World Hanley near the PDA display, as I was involved in software for PDAs at the time. Someone was asking the assistant which was better, the Palm or the Pocket PC version, and he pointed them to Pocket PC. As a bit of a Palm fan that was a bit frustrating, but the most annoying thing was when she asked what the advantages were, the assistant said "oh, you can connect a Pocket PC to your PC and backup and share files, you can't do that with the Palm." I don't normally get involved, but I just had to point out that was rubbish, and if you can't link to a PC, precisely what is the included cradle and ActiveSync software for, if not for linking to a PC?
People making stuff up instead of saying "I'm sorry, I don't know, I'll go and find out" is one of my pet hates.
CB2152 said:
Unfortunately so. We do have a few people tell us that they didn't buy from X or Y because "the young man didn't seem very confident in what he was talking about" or some such.
It is a bit annoying, as you say you often wouldn't get the sale if you go and check, which is actually in the customers best interest. Yet someone who doesn't care about lying and making it sound like they know what they're doing will just be after their bonus and be looking after the customer far less, but sound better.Google "the reliability bathtub curve"
With electronics, you might get lots of failures in the first few months, and then the failure rate should sink quite low, and are fairly random from that point on. If there's anything mechanical, like a switch, or a lap top hinge, or a disc drive, then eventually you see wear out so at some point the failure rate starts to rise again.
If you were to calculate the number of failures from 12 months use to say 5 years use, you'd find it was fairly small for most consumer products, hence the cost of providing the warranty is pretty low, compared to the price charged.
I was once offered a extended warranty on a not smart payg mobile phone, costing £40. Warranty ONLY £12 a year.
I wonder if the phone would actually cost £12 to make ? Most of the cost being in the development and tooling I suspect.
Now I just say "I self insure"
With electronics, you might get lots of failures in the first few months, and then the failure rate should sink quite low, and are fairly random from that point on. If there's anything mechanical, like a switch, or a lap top hinge, or a disc drive, then eventually you see wear out so at some point the failure rate starts to rise again.
If you were to calculate the number of failures from 12 months use to say 5 years use, you'd find it was fairly small for most consumer products, hence the cost of providing the warranty is pretty low, compared to the price charged.
I was once offered a extended warranty on a not smart payg mobile phone, costing £40. Warranty ONLY £12 a year.
I wonder if the phone would actually cost £12 to make ? Most of the cost being in the development and tooling I suspect.
Now I just say "I self insure"
Quhet said:
Marvib said:
At this point I pulled out a copy of the SOGA and was walking out with a replacement 2 minutes later 
Did you actually pull out a copy of the SOGA? Do you have one casually lying around at home?wibble cb said:
had need of one of these for a remote:
cost about $4, and yes I was offered a warranty......
Here you are, I will do you a deal. 2 for £1:01.cost about $4, and yes I was offered a warranty......
Link to Amazon:-
http://tinyurl.com/ktwkyfp
Chebble said:
shielsy said:
Currys/PC World folks are quite funny when it comes to this sort of thing. I went with a friend to help him choose a cheap laptop that he wanted then and there. At the til this little scrote insisted that my chum pay £40 odd for them to set it up... I insisted that we'd get on just fine thanks. The young fellow then went on to explain that the laptop could not be set up without 6 Blueray discs to burn a recovery to. Having set up a few Windows 8 laptops for work just that week I naturally asked him for further details all the way up until the point he ended up confusing himself.
In the end we told him to get f
ked, took the laptop home and it was up and running within 20 minutes.
In all honesty, this just marks you out as a massive tIn the end we told him to get f
ked, took the laptop home and it was up and running within 20 minutes.t. When I see people acting like that towards someone just doing their job, I just wonder how empty and pointless their lives are. He was no doubt under pressure by his manager to sell the set up to as many customers as possible. I don't agree with it either, and, had I been in the same situation, would have politely declined, regardless of how persistent the 'little scrote' was.
It baffles me why some people aspire to work in retail. There's just too many arrogant and ungracious a
holes to contend with, who treat them as sub-human because they are wearing a uniform. Manners and common courtesy cost nothing. Unfortunately this country has too many people who don't have any manners at all, with an attitude problem to boot.
Dejay1788 said:
I've had a good experience with the extended warranty from Curry's. My missus has a knack for destroying laptops. We bought a £400 Dell pink thing for her a few years back, got something spilled over it, replaced. The replacement then died a year or so later, replaced with a newer Asus which is still going strong. I can't complain as we pay about £3 a month and they are pretty good with it. The bullsh*t reasons for selling it on the other hand really grind my gears.
I had a poor experience which led to something good. We bought a washing machine about 7 years ago but then moved house where there was a washing machine already in place. So ours lived in the garage until we moved again about 6 months ago. So our washing machine was cleaned up and used again. After 5-6 years of storage it should be expected that it might not work very well, and soon enough it broke. Fortunately my money conscious wife had forgotten to cancel the warranty and had been paying about a fiver each month (for 7 years!!). So we called them out to fix it. Idiot 1 diagnosed a faulty motor and left. A week later another guy turned up to fit new motor but then noticed the control board was blown (something idiot 1 should have checked). Conveniently this item was out of stock, taking them beyond the promised repair time. So we managed to get a brand new (and far better) washing machine from them. I had to pay an extra 40 quid for this, but then the delivery guys (idiots 2 and 3) smashed one of my kitchen cupboard doors off ("was it already like that mate?", "no, you and I both heard the massive crack as the wood snapped"). So I received 50 quid to repair it (instead of relying on further idiots visiting my house). A bit of chipboard and 10 minutes of my time solved it. Free washing machine!! (Sort of).I'll never buy another warranty though. 7 x (5 x 12) = 420. Previous machine cost 250.....
STW2010 said:
I'll never buy another warranty though. 7 x (5 x 12) = 420. Previous machine cost 250.....
This and the bathtub thing above is why I never go for the extra warrantee as a rule. IME White goods and the like tend to last for less than 6 months or will go on for 5 years+. Based on this I just make sure that I have a little pot of money in my bills account to cover off any such expenses should they crop up.
I was one of those who took out the mobile phone insurance and it did work out well for me as I had a couple of new phones out of that when the originals started to have issues. These days though I don't bother much as have enough 'old' phones sitting in a draw to use if anything happened to the main one that I'll just live with it until contract renewal time.
Years ago, I worked in a Manweb (yes, it was that long ago) superstore. The junior, part-time sales types were me, and two other guys of a similar age who were a bit more 'wide-boy' in their manner. Good guys, with whom I got on very well, but justy a different background and manner to me.
Anyway - their sales/info technique was largely BS - if you don't know the answer, just make it up.
Mine, the realisation that I couldn't possibly know all the features and specs of all the items we sold, so just came clean with customers: 'Does this TV do such-and-such?', 'Which TV is the best for...?' etc, me: 'No idea, but if you've got 5 minutes I'll go and get the manuals from the storeroom and we'll find out.'
Guess whose sales figures were the best?
(Yes, yes, I know, Cool story bro....)
Anyway - their sales/info technique was largely BS - if you don't know the answer, just make it up.
Mine, the realisation that I couldn't possibly know all the features and specs of all the items we sold, so just came clean with customers: 'Does this TV do such-and-such?', 'Which TV is the best for...?' etc, me: 'No idea, but if you've got 5 minutes I'll go and get the manuals from the storeroom and we'll find out.'
Guess whose sales figures were the best?
(Yes, yes, I know, Cool story bro....)
Chebble said:
shielsy said:
Currys/PC World folks are quite funny when it comes to this sort of thing. I went with a friend to help him choose a cheap laptop that he wanted then and there. At the til this little scrote insisted that my chum pay £40 odd for them to set it up... I insisted that we'd get on just fine thanks. The young fellow then went on to explain that the laptop could not be set up without 6 Blueray discs to burn a recovery to. Having set up a few Windows 8 laptops for work just that week I naturally asked him for further details all the way up until the point he ended up confusing himself.
In the end we told him to get fked, took the laptop home and it was up and running within 20 minutes.
In all honesty, this just marks you out as a massive tIn the end we told him to get f
ked, took the laptop home and it was up and running within 20 minutes.t. When I see people acting like that towards someone just doing their job, I just wonder how empty and pointless their lives are. He was no doubt under pressure by his manager to sell the set up to as many customers as possible. I don't agree with it either, and, had I been in the same situation, would have politely declined, regardless of how persistent the 'little scrote' was.
It baffles me why some people aspire to work in retail. There's just too many arrogant and ungracious a
holes to contend with, who treat them as sub-human because they are wearing a uniform. Manners and common courtesy cost nothing. Unfortunately this country has too many people who don't have any manners at all, with an attitude problem to boot.
If no to all 3 I used to get a roasting from the managers. They couldn't understand the concept of that some people do not want them.
So he was reading from a list, RE the discs he had a point. When Windows 8 came out a lot of people wanted to go back to Win7 (fair enough) the only thing I used to say is that if you're going to do it and in the future want to reinstall the original OS, you'll need those discs.
BUT, it was normal DVD's. took an hour to do and if keeping on Win8 wasn't needed at all as of the Recovery partition.
I once got abuse because I wouldn't knock £100 of a £300 laptop. I told him straight that we won't make that if we sold 20 of them he still wanted £100 off. That was the only time I walked away from a customer.
Once was in a shoe shop which contains "huh" and I heard a staff member telling a customer that he shouldn't buy a specific type of shoe (vans I think) because it would seem like he was wearing clown shoes and weren't made especially well
I don't think he appreciated me asking him what the bloody hell he was on about (I had vans on at the time which had lasted 2 years of daily wear) and told the customer to ignore everything he just said. I didn't see him in the store after that.
I don't think he appreciated me asking him what the bloody hell he was on about (I had vans on at the time which had lasted 2 years of daily wear) and told the customer to ignore everything he just said. I didn't see him in the store after that.
TheJelley said:
I think lots of retailers will be in trouble when extended warranties are the next "PPI"
If they have dodgy tactics, sure.A few years ago I bought a TV and BR player (both Panasonic) from Richer Sounds. Shop assistant brought up the subject of extended warranties, and following my overall disinterest recommended it's a good idea on the player (given moving parts, chance of foreign matter ending up inside, etc.) - seemed logical so I took it on that but not the TV.
Fast forward a couple of years, the player stops working (and had been intermittent before that) - take it back to the shop, they test it, quickly see it's not working and give me the option of the closest available model (I paid a bit more for a Sony model) - they also gave me a rebate on the period of unused warranty.
I was more than satisfied with the product and service, and happily took a further warranty on the new BR player.
thismonkeyhere said:
Years ago, I worked in a Manweb (yes, it was that long ago) superstore. The junior, part-time sales types were me, and two other guys of a similar age who were a bit more 'wide-boy' in their manner. Good guys, with whom I got on very well, but justy a different background and manner to me.
Anyway - their sales/info technique was largely BS - if you don't know the answer, just make it up.
Mine, the realisation that I couldn't possibly know all the features and specs of all the items we sold, so just came clean with customers: 'Does this TV do such-and-such?', 'Which TV is the best for...?' etc, me: 'No idea, but if you've got 5 minutes I'll go and get the manuals from the storeroom and we'll find out.'
Guess whose sales figures were the best?
(Yes, yes, I know, Cool story bro....)
Not yours, cause whilst you were reading the manual, the wide boys had altered all the sales history will tipex, and it turns out you didn't sell anything at all, and they did. (Once the tipex had dried) Anyway - their sales/info technique was largely BS - if you don't know the answer, just make it up.
Mine, the realisation that I couldn't possibly know all the features and specs of all the items we sold, so just came clean with customers: 'Does this TV do such-and-such?', 'Which TV is the best for...?' etc, me: 'No idea, but if you've got 5 minutes I'll go and get the manuals from the storeroom and we'll find out.'
Guess whose sales figures were the best?
(Yes, yes, I know, Cool story bro....)
Pit Pony said:
thismonkeyhere said:
Years ago, I worked in a Manweb (yes, it was that long ago) superstore. The junior, part-time sales types were me, and two other guys of a similar age who were a bit more 'wide-boy' in their manner. Good guys, with whom I got on very well, but justy a different background and manner to me.
Anyway - their sales/info technique was largely BS - if you don't know the answer, just make it up.
Mine, the realisation that I couldn't possibly know all the features and specs of all the items we sold, so just came clean with customers: 'Does this TV do such-and-such?', 'Which TV is the best for...?' etc, me: 'No idea, but if you've got 5 minutes I'll go and get the manuals from the storeroom and we'll find out.'
Guess whose sales figures were the best?
(Yes, yes, I know, Cool story bro....)
Not yours, cause whilst you were reading the manual, the wide boys had altered all the sales history will tipex, and it turns out you didn't sell anything at all, and they did. (Once the tipex had dried) Anyway - their sales/info technique was largely BS - if you don't know the answer, just make it up.
Mine, the realisation that I couldn't possibly know all the features and specs of all the items we sold, so just came clean with customers: 'Does this TV do such-and-such?', 'Which TV is the best for...?' etc, me: 'No idea, but if you've got 5 minutes I'll go and get the manuals from the storeroom and we'll find out.'
Guess whose sales figures were the best?
(Yes, yes, I know, Cool story bro....)
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