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August 23, 2003
SMILES in the aisles
so we have these new service behaviors we are supposed to do at work and the acronym for it is smiles
S - suggestive sell
M - mention price and value
I - in rack follow up
L - look in top stock and back room
E - explain promotion
S - size kids feet
And they want us to do this in the aisles, so that the customers get the help when they need it, rather than at the register. Anyway, I go up to these two chicks and ask if they need help. They ask if we have anything else army colored and I said "no, as far as dress shoes, those are the only olive colored things we have. But if you need help with anything else, please let me know, ok?" and I walked away. when they went to check out, they said "this store is just asking for a discrimination lawsuit." for anyone that reads my blog that doesn't know me, I am white and these two chicks were black. I don't know what I did to offend them, I was only trying to practice my SMILES in the aisles. I did nothing different with them than I did anyone else today. oh well. It just makes me feel bad because I want everyone to leave my store happy.
Posted by at August 23, 2003 11:09 PM
Comments
yick - nothing makes one feel worse than being wrongly accused of something.
Posted by: arifa at August 24, 2003 03:55 AM
especially cause if I had done something outright racist, I wouldn't mind being called on it. like, if I thought they were stealing and I followed them around the store, I wouldn't have minded if they said something. but I didn't! so then I got flustered for the rest of the sale.
Posted by: becky at August 24, 2003 09:39 AM
So you're sure you threw in the word "olive" in the sentence?
Or ... were you wearing your pointy white linen hat again, Becky? The one that always falls into your face so you just went ahead and cut eye holes in it? I could see how that could have been disconcerting for them.
I mean, you being so tall and all.
Posted by: Deb at August 27, 2003 12:53 AM
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