Wasn't the weather miserable at lunchtime today?
Rather than walk around the town centre in the cold and damp I decided to take an amble around some of the town centre shops.
When it comes to Christmas decorations it seems that a good many of the shops have only done the bare minimum which doesn’t really spread the joys of the festive season to the customers.
In one retail establishment the Christmas music playing quietly in the background at an almost imperceptible volume actually became quite annoying after a few minutes.
Personally I would rather have a real band playing live in the store than some pre-recorded rubbish.
In one shop yours truly made a few purchases and duly went to the cash desk to pay. To my horror there was a long queue and every assistant was busy.
After waiting for several minutes some of the other customers happened to start getting impatient, of course I kept as cool as a cucumber and watched as the anger and frustration happened to spread through the queue.
Some customers got so fed up with the slow levels of service they put their goods down and walked away.
Being a commercially minded person it shocked me seeing customers walking away especially as they would have spent a good amount of time selecting their goods from the shelves.
It was quite obvious the store had a problem with how long it was taking to make a sale.
The wrapping of goods and time required to complete a payment was far too long hence the queues. Why weren't the managers spotting this too?
Eventually the queue moved and my turn came at the till.
After the assistant had run my items through the checkout I was bombarded with questions asking if I had a store card, would I like some cash back and was I interested in any of the other products they had on display at the counter.
No wonder the checkout process was taking so long as there was so much unrelated banter from the assistant not related with the actual sale.
I find it so tedious having other products sold to me at the till. Paying should be a quick, easy and efficient experience however these days all too many shops have turned it into a long winded nightmare.
The cash desks should be designed for speedy sales with a high throughput of customers. Next we will be hearing that the retailers profits are down.
It's not fair on the customers when a shop decides to spin things out at the cash desk with a myriad of irrelevant questions. We customers just want to be served quickly and efficiently.
What do you think?
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