The Woolworths Thread (18 Viewers)

[SpongeHead]

having managers that dont giv a shit is nothing new....if i was u (i'm not, we hav no S/S thank GOD) i'd keep a few complaint forms handy in the S/S area, i've found most customers happy to complain if u encourage them!

Yep most of my managers don't give a crap either.... if only they did then they could help change things by voicing their concerns with other managers further up the food chain to try and get things done.


That's a great idea danberg. Tomorrow before we open I'm going to put a whole bunch in the brochure holders where the Everyday Rewards cards are as well as a few pens nearby. Hopefully I can get a few ppl to write their complaints down haha

 

[ekul444]

Hey ekul, sorry for the late reply - haven't logged onto BoS for ages haha

It's pretty much exactly as SS-Champ already stated. The "Go-Live" day at our store was the actual day the software was loaded (this happened really early in the morning, before trading), ready for the customers to use. As I understand it, you have another day and a bit before the WoWPos-SCO experience hits your store?? If so, good luck hehe

Thats alright, i also finally got to talk to someone at work about it so its all good =]
Yep. we go live on Tuesday :S - I have the training with Area Champ tomorow morning, but I dont have an actual shift till Saturday, so hopefully its all working by then

AN UPDATE ON MY EXPERIENCE --->>

Ok after a week or so of using the updated SCO's, things seem to getting better but there are still obvious flaws with this new system compared to the NCR software:

1) Weight mismatches are not as common as they were before but they still do happen for no apparent reason. For me, it is also really difficult to check wat has gone wrong without a PDA, especially when the customer has a bag overfilling with crap in the bagging area. Most of the time when I can't see anything obviously wrong I just approve the error to get the queue moving. What else can I do when there are scores of angry customers waiting to use the machines - go through the whole bag bit by bit to find an unscanned item? lol At least with the PDA I was able to watch exactly wat the customer scans scanned while watching them put that same item in the bag, and pick up any errors immediately.

Our PDA has been gone for a long time, so we have had to adjust anyway - if its unexpected i do the obvious thing of taking the last 'scanned' item out if that doesnt work i check as many items as i can easily see, usually the last 5 or 6 items. Past that its fairly random for the machine to suddenly have a weight problem 6 items later...

3) Has anyone else found the fact that there are no "OK" or "Try Again" buttons for customers to press after signinging annoying? Or the fact that it takes ridiculously long for the "Store Log-in" button to pop up so u can approve the transaction? Or that once u press "Yes" nothing happens on the screen and the receipt prints out 5 seconds later? Most of the customers I've seen get confused after signing their signatures because there is no prompt on the screen telling them to press "OK" after signing their signature. Instead most people think the machine didnt accept their sigature, so they keep signing the pad until I go up to them and tell them the signatures gone through and they just have to wait until that stupid button pops up for me to approve it.

Yeah, kinda agree that it would be annoying, but most people dont push OK anyway, either they are looking for it on the pinpad, lol, or just wait for me to press it...

Also I;ve given up trying to sell our new SCOs to the public. Now if someone complains to me that they are crap I tell them that I agree and don't know why things had to change. I also tell them it would be good if you could voice your concerns with our manager as it will look good coming from a customer" haha

Thats one thing im gonna quiz the Area champ about tomorow (as well as those things youve asked me to check ) What are the advantages of this system? - why do we tell customers weve changed? What do we tell them when they say how crap it is? Lol shes gonna get a grilling from me tomorrow. Anything else you want me to ask/complain??

 

[bdude]

And, I believe, with customer feedback forms they have to respond in some way to the customer. Hopefully if enough customers complain, they'll pass it on to their superiors.

 

[SpongeHead]

Thats alright, i also finally got to talk to someone at work about it so its all good =]
Yep. we go live on Tuesday :S - I have the training with Area Champ tomorow morning, but I dont have an actual shift till Saturday, so hopefully its all working by then


Our PDA has been gone for a long time, so we have had to adjust anyway - if its unexpected i do the obvious thing of taking the last 'scanned' item out if that doesnt work i check as many items as i can easily see, usually the last 5 or 6 items. Past that its fairly random for the machine to suddenly have a weight problem 6 items later...

Yeah, kinda agree that it would be annoying, but most people dont push OK anyway, either they are looking for it on the pinpad, lol, or just wait for me to press it...

Thats one thing im gonna quiz the Area champ about tomorow (as well as those things youve asked me to check ) What are the advantages of this system? - why do we tell customers weve changed? What do we tell them when they say how crap it is? Lol shes gonna get a grilling from me tomorrow. Anything else you want me to ask/complain??

Yeah I was pretty much the only one who used the PDA at work... maybe becasue I was too lazy to walk up to each machine lol

Hmm if you could ask her all those things and post what she says here, it would be great!! It will be interesting to hear her responses. Ah and if I think of anything else I'll post it here hehe

 

[SpongeHead]

And, I believe, with customer feedback forms they have to respond in some way to the customer. Hopefully if enough customers complain, they'll pass it on to their superiors.

Oh I didn't know that they had to reply... I jsut thought that if the customer put it in writing, it would add more weight behind their complaint. But now that u told me that, I am definately going to push for a few people to fill them in tomorrow haha

 

[ekul444]

Yeah I was pretty much the only one who used the PDA at work... maybe becasue I was too lazy to walk up to each machine lol

Hmm if you could ask her all those things and post what she says here, it would be great!! It will be interesting to hear her responses. Ah and if I think of anything else I'll post it here hehe

I LOVED using the PDAs, they were the best things, i was devastated when ours got broken, and never returned :S
Will do, I will post them here tomorow arvo.

 

[SpongeHead]

I LOVED using the PDAs, they were the best things, i was devastated when ours got broken, and never returned :S
Will do, I will post them here tomorow arvo.

Thanks man, looking forward to it.

Yeah ours got broken once but luckily they replaced it. Afterwards they said don't break it again because we are not replacing it and they were right - about a week later someone smashed the glass panel on the barcode scanner at the top of the PDA so that made it somewhat useless. It was still good though. Ah well, all good things come to an end eventually :S

 

[SpongeHead]

Ah ekul just remembered something - can you ask her if she knows whether there is any, ANY chance that the company would consider bringing back the NCR software? Or customsiing the NCR software? What if enough customers and staff complain, will they consider a roll-back? loll You can see I am developing an unhealthy obsession with this haha

 

[SpongeHead]

This shows how sad my life really is... while surfing YouTube the other day I found these Woolies ads from the dark ages. They don't look familiar (visually) but I definately remember the jingle haha

YouTube - woolworths the fresh food people

YouTube - Woolworths The Fresh Food People 1994 Ad

 

[ekul444]

Thanks man, looking forward to it.

Yeah ours got broken once but luckily they replaced it. Afterwards they said don't break it again because we are not replacing it and they were right - about a week later someone smashed the glass panel on the barcode scanner at the top of the PDA so that made it somewhat useless. It was still good though. Ah well, all good things come to an end eventually :S

Ours didn't actually 'break' it just wasn't connecting to the SCOs so IT took them to fix, but we never got them back haha.

Ah ekul just remembered something - can you ask her if she knows whether there is any, ANY chance that the company would consider bringing back the NCR software? Or customsiing the NCR software? What if enough customers and staff complain, will they consider a roll-back? loll You can see I am developing an unhealthy obsession with this haha

Yeah sure, those were the two things you asked for before - they were already on my mental list hahaha...

 

[SpongeHead]

Ours didn't actually 'break' it just wasn't connecting to the SCOs so IT took them to fix, but we never got them back haha.

Yeah sure, those were the two things you asked for before - they were already on my mental list hahaha...

Oh yeah - as you can see my memory isn't that great haha

 

[Craven]

3) Has anyone else found the fact that there are no "OK" or "Try Again" buttons for customers to press after signinging annoying? Or the fact that it takes ridiculously long for the "Store Log-in" button to pop up so u can approve the transaction? Or that once u press "Yes" nothing happens on the screen and the receipt prints out 5 seconds later? Most of the customers I've seen get confused after signing their signatures because there is no prompt on the screen telling them to press "OK" after signing their signature. Instead most people think the machine didnt accept their sigature, so they keep signing the pad until I go up to them and tell them the signatures gone through and they just have to wait until that stupid button pops up for me to approve it.haha

Ok, that was happening on one of ours today... and then it would timeout, and you would have to push either no to decline the transaction or clear to try again... but pushing either causes it to freeze/lag for about 2 minutes. So we just saved the transaction and put the card through on the s/shop. :S

Also, it would have been good of the NCR guy to tell us in training that the coins in the dispenser have to actually touch the contacts on the side or else it won't dispense! It had money in it but not enough to touch the contacts so it kept not giving change to people.... We only got the machines on Wednesday so we've been having teething problems mostly the fact that we haven't got the routines down properly and also the fact they might have trained us how to use the machines but absolutely nothing to do with the cash office side of things. Consequently, no one has done a pickup OR filled the coin dispensers on the machines since Wednesday, lol. We did a pickup today.

Smokes: I'm from Queensland. Operators just put their light on and tell us what cigarettes the customer wants, the supervisor goes and gets them and brings them down for the operator to scan onto their bill. I can't imagine telling customers they can only get smokes from the smokeshop register.. the smokeshop attendant wouldn't get a chance to do anything else but serve otherwise!

Our phoenix progress isn't very far along, I don't think. It's all a bit of a shamozzle. They want us to do more work (now with self serve...) but don't give any more time to do it (in fact, less time). :S Oh well, I'm not going to stress out if I don't get everything done (I didn't do ANY eDGMS paperwork this weekend, oops, or the trader or record dump stock/markdowns... and I didn't even do a change order today, LOL, I just cancelled them all because by the time I had a chance to do them, it was 3 hours to close). What a long week it's been.

 

[BSammy]

Half the time they order too much change anyway, I am constantly adjusting the amount they get.

Especially on monday mornings when our order for change hasn't even arrived yet.

 

[babikakez]

I'm scared of losing cash office hours and have no idea if that will happen.

You probably will. Our two weekend office cashiers have just been sent to do RSA Training and both have hours in liquor now to compensate.

 

[groovygirl]

thanks for your advice, i did have a book where i write my shifts in its just i was too lazy, but it wont happen again cos ill record my shifts in a new book cos i think i lost my other one

im sorry if u think i dont care about work. its just one mistake that i made. it wont happen again cos i finished school and i learn from my mistakes, tomorrow when i go to work ill bring a book and record my shifts in there ok, r u statisfied that im motivated to recheck my shifts and record them in a book

 

[groovygirl]

yes im casual cos i N/A ed my two weeks that my hsc exams are on and gave proof of the times and days and yeah im casual cos i didnt have to fill in annual leave form

 

[groovygirl]

yeah im from NSW with strict laws on selling smokes, i do do shifts in at my woolies smoke shop, its less stressful, but i dont do refunds

 

[SpongeHead]

thanks for your advice, i did have a book where i write my shifts in its just i was too lazy, but it wont happen again cos ill record my shifts in a new book cos i think i lost my other one

im sorry if u think i dont care about work. its just one mistake that i made. it wont happen again cos i finished school and i learn from my mistakes, tomorrow when i go to work ill bring a book and record my shifts in there ok, r u statisfied that im motivated to recheck my shifts and record them in a book

Groovygirl, I don't really think it's your fault. They should really give us a copy of our shifts every week - all they need to do is print off an extra copy of the roster, cut it up and give it to each person. As other people have suggested, it would be cool if there was some sort of online system where u could check ur shifts and such :S Btw u should take off more time to study for ur HSC - dw so much about them, theyve got heaps of staff that can fill in the void.

 

[babikakez]

Groovygirl, I don't really think it's your fault. They should really give us a copy of our shifts every week - all they need to do is print off an extra copy of the roster, cut it up and give it to each person.

Why? Rosters are perfectly easy to read. My store leaves spare paper next to the wall, you write your shifts down. If you have trouble, ask a supervisor. Not hard at all.

 

[groovygirl]

SpongeHead, thanks for your advice, i am focusing on studying for the HSC, im staying up all night to study and revise and i have n/ a ed the hsc exams yesterday at work. Im really scared about failure in the hsc because im also working during the HSC and school holidays. Yeah but my department manager wont want to waste paper but an email would be much much easier send us the shifts for the upcoming week. there is like 8 service girls doing there hsc too at my woolies, so they can ask the yr 10, yr 11 employees or older employees in our service staff that work during school time. after the 30th of October i can work whenever but not my yr 12 formal and the day before it. HSC does come first, but i need a balance of work family, rest and study