Thread: Masters no more

You think I should wait a bit !!

36 days!

Science has a formula for when you can tell jokes about tragedy

Going to miss Master their products far superior in the sanding department than big green shed I had forgotten how bad they were till the need arose last week to go buy some sanding blocks grrrrrrrr.

Originally Posted by bueller

Social media is the best bet for complaints, a lot of companies are very proactive about responding to FB and Twitter complaints due to the public nature of the platforms. On the other hand there are some companies that don't give a toss and will delete posts that don't give glowing reviews.

They respond and deal with individual complaints but rarely do I think complaints lead to any real company wide change such as workplace culture, staffing levels, stock selection etc.

What really impressed me about Masters is that you could get someone to come to you and assist you.

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Originally Posted by DaveVman

What really impressed me about Masters is that you could get someone to come to you and assist you.

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My experience was totally the opposite.

On the very few times that I was in the local Masters, it was the rule that I would not be approached, asked or even acknowledged as existing. Several times I was within meters of a couple of 'helpers' (and obviously looking for help) who were too busy talking about personal stuff and ignored me.

I suppose that it was an individual store thing.

Yeah could be. Every asile had a button you could press. Then an automated PA announcement would request help for you and someone would come to help you. Great system for such a large store.
At some point they took this system down. That was the first signal that they had given up.

Plus sometimes someone would offer to help. You know like it was a retail store or something!
The only time I recall that happening to me in Bunnings was in a store in New Zealand. That guy ran around for me trying to be helpful. He had no idea about hardware but I would give him 12 out of 10 for effort.

A friend of mine is the top manager of a local Bunnings and I still have a long wait to get assistance.
One girl at the trade section was so arrogant and lazy I was sorely tempted to tell the manger to get rid of her. However I don't want to mix our friendship with their work. No doubt they already know who is useless.

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Originally Posted by DaveVman

One girl at the trade section was so arrogant and lazy I was sorely tempted to tell the manger to get rid of her. However I don't want to mix our friendship with their work. No doubt they already know who is useless.

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If so - why was she still there? Tell your friend, I bet she is not arrogant to him and moves quick if he is around. Getting rid of people like her can only have good outcomes.

I actually think it is a good thing that the staff at Bunnies don't go out of their way to offer assistance. It may raise a few eyebrows but I shall explain why. If a team member walks up to me and asks something along the lines of "can I help you with anything today?" and I reply "just here looking for some screws", that team member will now waste time helping me find some screws. But I already know exactly what I want, where it is, roughly how much it is going to cost etc etc. So instead of that team member being available to help someone which actually requires help, he is wasting his time and probably more of my time helping me just because I was a little vague with my answer to his question of "can I help you today?".

That sort of thing would happen quite a lot when help is offered. People will accept the help even though they don't actually need it. Of course in a perfect environment, each customer will have there very own special helper assigned to them for the duration of their shopping experience. But I for one do not want to spend enough cash at bunnies to support a persons yearly salary.

But, it is very important that the staff at bunnies/masters/anywhere greet people as they walk by as it opens the channels of communication between team member and the guy that actually needs and wants assistance.

please remove.

Originally Posted by Kuffy

I actually think it is a good thing that the staff at Bunnies don't go out of their way to offer assistance. It may raise a few eyebrows but I shall explain why. If a team member walks up to me and asks something along the lines of "can I help you with anything today?" and I reply "just here looking for some screws", that team member will now waste time helping me find some screws. But I already know exactly what I want, where it is, roughly how much it is going to cost etc etc. So instead of that team member being available to help someone which actually requires help, he is wasting his time and probably more of my time helping me just because I was a little vague with my answer to his question of "can I help you today?".

That sort of thing would happen quite a lot when help is offered. People will accept the help even though they don't actually need it. Of course in a perfect environment, each customer will have there very own special helper assigned to them for the duration of their shopping experience. But I for one do not want to spend enough cash at bunnies to support a persons yearly salary.

But, it is very important that the staff at bunnies/masters/anywhere greet people as they walk by as it opens the channels of communication between team member and the guy that actually needs and wants assistance.

On the other hand Kuffy, it is very frustrating when you cannot find something, look around for a staff member and there does not appear to be one anywhere. Happens quite regularly here on the Gold Coast.
Cheers, Fred

I think some bad service is pretty much a universal thing, but the thing I hate most as others have pointed out is being "helped" by staff when you don't need or want it. I hate shopping possibly more than I hate gardening and painting, so unless it's a dedicated tool store like Just Tools, etc, where I'm happy to bask in the warm glow of power tools, when I go to Bunnings I know exactly what i'm after and I don't want to be held up further by being "helped" by anyone!

I particularly hate when the missus is with me and she's always saying "why don't you ask a staff member" to get advice on something. It always ends up bad with the staff member proffering some useless info that is meaningless, and me telling the wife yet again, "this is why I DON'T ask the staff anything"!

Although I must admit I came across a helpful AND quite knowledgeable guy in the plumbing section on one occasion some years back, but maybe he was a customer! ;-)

cheers, Ian

Originally Posted by Bohdan

If so - why was she still there? Tell your friend, I bet she is not arrogant to him and moves quick if he is around. Getting rid of people like her can only have good outcomes.

Mmmm.
I wouldn't want a mate coming into my work site unannounced and then interrupting my work to give me "pointers" on how he thinks I should be doing my job. When you employ a lot of people on low wages, some of them are going to be below standard some of the time. The manager of a Bunnings store doesn't own the store and has a lot of restrictions placed on them. My mate has been doing this for many years in different stores and knows what they are doing.

If the employee actually stopped me from working or told me lies or somehow completely messed up then, yeah if I had to, I'd pull some strings. However even then I wouldn't need to call them myself, I'd just ask for the manager, without mentioning I know who they are. Once they rocked up and saw it was me, then I wouldn't need to say very much.

In fact this has sort of happened a couple of times (in a nice way) because I didn't have a receipt for something I was returning more than 3 months after buying it. The manager is always called to sort that out.

I did have a young girl tell me at B that drainage as in sink connection, wasn't plumbing..(.not the aggi stuff.too) and worst of all her young male sidekick agreed..

My wife was there and even she looked at me aghast!