Circuit City asks ex-workers to return
 

Circuit City asks ex-workers to return

All Reuters newsATLANTA (Reuters) - Circuit City Stores Inc has asked former employees, including some staffers replaced by lower-paid workers earlier this year, to apply for new jobs as the electronics retailer tries to turn its business around.

The company's shares sank as much as 7 percent to four-year lows on Wednesday after J.P. Morgan downgraded the stock to "neutral" from "overweight," saying a rebound at the company would likely require the involvement of a strategic partner or a takeover.

Spokesman Bill Cimino said on Wednesday that Circuit City invited former U.S. workers to apply for jobs, a practice he said was not uncommon in retail, given the typically high turnover.

Cimino said the retailer had reached out to many former workers, including some who were let go earlier this year. He added that Circuit City would likely invite more ex-staffers to return next year.

"In a lot of cases, we've completely changed how our stores operate; the roles of our associates within the stores," Cimino told Reuters. "We've got a better career path now for associates."

Circuit City, based in Richmond, Virginia, has cut costs this year as it struggled with weak sales amid heated competition from chief rival Best Buy Co Inc and mass retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc . It reported a wider-than-expected second-quarter loss in September and forecast a loss for the current year.

In March, Circuit City let go more than 3,000 workers and replaced them with lower-paid staff, a move criticized by analysts who said the loss of the more-experienced employees hurt sales of items such as extended warranties.

Circuit City's "execution remains a significant concern," Sanford Bernstein analyst said in a research note on Wednesday.

Cimino said Circuit City's changes include the creation of a supervisor position for stores and the elimination of shelf- stocking duties for sales associates to give them more time with customers.

The moves have "improved the associate morale in the stores," Cimino said. "We're getting feedback from our customers that they are having a better experience in the stores."

In the note downgrading Circuit City, J.P. Morgan analyst Stephen Chick cited "going-concern value with many of its issues leftover from legacy management decisions." He added that a recovery likely "requires deep pockets."

Circuit City shares were off 36 cents, or 6.2 percent, at $5.41 in midday trading on the New York Stock Exchange, a 52- week low and four-year low. The stock last closed at those levels in March-April 2003.

(Reporting by Karen Jacobs; editing by Andre Grenon)

-popcorn-

Now all they need to do is apologize to Speedy and start paying him for his postings!

I hope many of them tell CC to take that job and shove it.

A-Men!

They just don't know when to quit, do they!? They keep adding insult to injury...if I'd been one of the displaced workers....i wouldn't hesitate a nano-second to tell them to fuck off.

What he said!

They've realized their mistake, are changing their business model, and are trying to make amends. I respect that. Obviously I would be of a different opinion had I been excised, but this is still a nice first step.

Ahhh, the classic Ike Turner method of running a company.

Are they being offered their old jobs back or jobs with an entry level wage?

It's a step that should never have needed to be taken.

They lost my business a couple years ago by being a shitty store (yes, I used to shop there and over-looked how they organized their store but it was just too much). How they treated their employees were just icing on the cake. The speedy thing was the sprinkles on said icing on said cake.

"We're getting feedback from our customers that they are having a better experience in the stores."

The last few years that I've bothered to go into CC lead me to believe the opposite of this. My experience was passable to mediocre before the employee cut and mediocre to terrible since.

More like they're looking for part-time Christmas help.

My feelings also. The CC by me has a Best Buy about a minute down the road from it. The quality of the stores is night and day. I stopped shopping at CC since it was near impossible to find someone to checkout my purchase. The workers were either nowhere to be found, or all huddled together in another department not doing anything.

The time I went in there to buy a memory stick for my girlfriends parents was the last time I tried to buy anything outside of a DVD or clearance video game.

Her and I waited *15* minutes in the camera department and not a single person greeted us or asked us if we needed help. We got fed up and walked down to Target and got service within two minutes of stepping into the electronics department.

She refuses to shop at CC because of that and I just got fed up trying to find any movie or CD in that place and quit going there.

Ever since they let their higher paid employees go, I have refused to patronize their store. Period. Not one cent.

They deserve what they get. Sadly, those who made the decision won't pay nearly as much as the unfortunate hard working employees who were victimized.

http://immagini.p2pforum.it/out.php/i138383_burns.gif


Yes yes. My price-matching scheme is working perfectly.

This is about 2 days of incredibly bad customer service from Circuit City employees. On Tuesday, I bought a printer, a printer cable and a remote control online using CC's 'pick up' option. I did online pickup because of previous experiences where I would have to wander aimlessly around the store looking for something and getting little to no help from employees when asked (I could segue into how it took 30 minutes for an employee to find an HD DVD player). So instead of going through that, I figured that if I bought it online I'll be able to just walk in and pick it up. But when I arrived at the store (#817 in Virginia Beach, VA), my items weren’t around. Not a big deal. But after 20 more minutes of waiting, they still hadn’t shown up. The clerk behind the counter asked another employee walking by 'Did you get the printer and stuff yet?' and the reply he got from his coworker was 'I don’t have time to look for that stuff'. 'Well, the guy is waiting right here', and the clerk motioned to me. This seemed to speed up the process, because another 15 minutes later, my items finally arrived. I wasn’t happy but the manager gave me a $24 gift card.

I should've quit while I was ahead but instead, I decided to give Circuit City another chance. The very next day, I decided to use my $24 gift card to buy an Xbox game from Circuit City. I didn’t go to the same store because honestly, I thought it was filled with incompetent employees. Instead, I went to the new store(#4202) at Janaf Shopping center, 'The City'. I walked directly to the videogame area and looked for the game 'Mass Effect' for the Xbox 360. I didn’t see it. But I did see a Circuit City employee leaning on a table playing a game. I went to him and asked 'Do you have Mass Effect for the 360?' and his response was 'I don’t know' and continued playing the game. I want to be clear on this part. I'm not exaggerating or adding or subtracting anything. The exchange went exactly how I described. I asked 'Do you have Mass Effect for the 360' and he said 'I don’t know' without ever looking up from the game. I was dumbfounded. I went back to looking for the game myself on the racks but my mind was reeling that an employee in the game section had such an answer without even attempting to help. I began to think that he wasn’t an actual employee. Maybe he was just a guy in clothes that looked like a CC uniform. I thought I just jumped to a conclusion that he worked there. But no. He really was an employee because after a couple of minutes he looked up from his game and said 'What game were you looking for?' I repeated the title and he said 'Ask that guy over there', and he pointed to a man in the car stereo section. Now a CC employee in the game section was telling me to ask a CC employee in the car audio section about a game. On top of that, he went right back to playing his game. God forbid he be bothered to get the guy or walk over there with me.

So now I walk to the other employee, who is quickly moving away from me as I approach. (This seems to happen a lot. If an employee senses you're going to ask them something, they begin moving away. The same thing happened when I bought an HD-DVD player from CC which I alluded to earlier). I finally caught up to the guy and asked him about Mass Effect. He said they have it 'in the back'. After a few seconds of giving me a blank stare I guess he realized I wanted to buy it. Although I did actually have to say 'I want to buy it'. But then he started walking to the FRONT of the store. I follow him and I’m a little confused because where he's walking doesn’t have any games or a door to a back room. He headed directly for the home stereo area. And once he got there, he proceeded to turn UP the sound on a stereo. Only then did he walk to the other side of the store where the game 'Mass Effect' was being kept behind the counter. I bought the game and left.

This was easily the worst, most bizarre example of 'customer service' I have ever experienced. And from past bad experiences at Circuit City, I wasn’t even expecting much. But this was on a whole new level of poor service. Employees that are to busy talking to each other to do their jobs. Being so enthralled in a game to be bothered to help a customer. Turning up the music takes priority over making a sale.


D

You should have pulled the plug on his game. That would've got his attention.

I used to work at Circuit, hell they still owe me $750 from an employee rebate on my Mitsibishi 52' from over a year ago. Needless to say I have boycotted shopping there due to personal experience and the Speedy thing and don't look at their ads. (I always hated when customers used this line when mad at customer service but- I used to spend alot of money there)
I closed my Circuit City rewards card, and cashed in my 'rewards' $35. So for the first time in awhile I went in the store to redeem my cert and get out. I was picking up Drakes fortune for PS3 which had just come out and had a $10 Gift Card with purchase. From the time I worked there (with competent people, and I will say I was good at what I did and was very helpful as were most of those I worked with) They have now pretty much all left or have been replaced- let go in that massive debacle before summer.

Anyhow- I go back to the videogames, and after waiting to find an associate he simply says- oh they have that game at the customer service desk. Ok....so I go wait in the customer service line for 15 mins...get to the front, ask for the game. Associate goes back to look and comes back to tell me they are sold out. I mention that the game guy said they still had some upfront. She says they have none....so I'm either going to get Assassins Creed from the game rack or just leave. Then I decided to check for myself, why the hell not? So I quickly find an infamous empty register and lookup the inventory for Drake and they have 9 in the computer. So I find another associate (unable to find the original one) who finds a manager, who promptly goes behind the customer service desk and pulls the game out saying this one? Yep, that one.
1/2 hour and 5 associates and I get my game. I won't go into the fact that the Gift Card promo wasn't in the system and i had to pull the sign from the game area (They just gave me $10 off the game which was better) or that the associate didn't know how to process reward certs. FUNTIMES! :)

rotfl

:clap:

Yeah, seriously. What could his complaint possibly be, "This stupid customer kept interrupting me, and then just yanked the chord out...I was about to get to level 7!!"

-p

I still refuse to shop there because of this. The Bond deal on Black Friday. Passed on it. I'm rather spend more somewhere else then shop there.

From the postings it sounds like they need to spend less money on lawyers and more money on hiring cashiers.

Here is some feedback for you CC. Suck it.

I support Speedy, but CC was on my shit list before they did anything to him.

So basically they're going to rehire those that they laid off... but what quality of employee are they going to get? Really, what good worker wouldn't have found a better job in the months and months that they had off? Wouldn't they just get the bottom of the barrel? Also, are they going to give them their old wages back? It was my understanding that they laid these people off and then offered them their jobs back immediately at a lower salary anyway.

FIXED

What did Circuit City do to Speedy?

E