daugen
Epic Contributor
I went in yesterday to buy a rubber o ring for my Echo chain saw after all the chain oil leaked out all over a helper, due to someone unnamed, not me..., losing the rubber o-ring on the oem oil cap. I think Echo wanted seven dollars a piece or something utterly silly.
It took me asking for the manager, who was someone I had never seen before, almost like all the staff has changed in there, and he went back to hydraulics vs hardware where I was and came back with a bag of o rings 4 for 2.49. Bingo.
Just what I needed at just what I wanted to pay.
TSC remains one of my favorite stores, I just wish my local store had more staffers and more than one person who knew where
things were. It takes a while for new employees to know where things are in a store with tens of thousands of different sku's.
I used to own a Radio Shack and my five employees knew when times weren't busy, they were to straighten up, and study, study where everything was so they could lead a customer right to where they needed to be. And give them the chance to mention some specials on batteries or whatever on the way. A customer touch point where the customer was treated to good old fashioned
customer service and whose appreciation for which might guide them to an add on sale. My local Ace hardware was run exactly like
that too, and the guy just retired and no one would buy his business, no one wanted to compete with Lowes and Amazon.
The hardware store owner and I used to talk about this, we were dinosaurs.
And here I walk into my TSC store and am always greeted with a hello. They are sure trained on that.
Four years ago the staff was mostly women and they were good. Smart, knew where things were, and there usually was someone
standing at the customer service desk in the middle of the store. Now there is never anyone at that desk. Never.
So maybe this is just a local staffing issue. In a strong economy it is genuinely hard to get good help. And if that good help has gone elsewhere for higher pay due to labor demands, what is left for the retail segment aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Would be interesting to hear from anyone if the staffing in your current TSC has changed a lot recently.
Do they have a lot of new employees?
That by itself could explain a lot of service issues.
It took me asking for the manager, who was someone I had never seen before, almost like all the staff has changed in there, and he went back to hydraulics vs hardware where I was and came back with a bag of o rings 4 for 2.49. Bingo.
Just what I needed at just what I wanted to pay.
TSC remains one of my favorite stores, I just wish my local store had more staffers and more than one person who knew where
things were. It takes a while for new employees to know where things are in a store with tens of thousands of different sku's.
I used to own a Radio Shack and my five employees knew when times weren't busy, they were to straighten up, and study, study where everything was so they could lead a customer right to where they needed to be. And give them the chance to mention some specials on batteries or whatever on the way. A customer touch point where the customer was treated to good old fashioned
customer service and whose appreciation for which might guide them to an add on sale. My local Ace hardware was run exactly like
that too, and the guy just retired and no one would buy his business, no one wanted to compete with Lowes and Amazon.
The hardware store owner and I used to talk about this, we were dinosaurs.
And here I walk into my TSC store and am always greeted with a hello. They are sure trained on that.
Four years ago the staff was mostly women and they were good. Smart, knew where things were, and there usually was someone
standing at the customer service desk in the middle of the store. Now there is never anyone at that desk. Never.
So maybe this is just a local staffing issue. In a strong economy it is genuinely hard to get good help. And if that good help has gone elsewhere for higher pay due to labor demands, what is left for the retail segment aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Would be interesting to hear from anyone if the staffing in your current TSC has changed a lot recently.
Do they have a lot of new employees?
That by itself could explain a lot of service issues.