As a associate at K-Mart for the past 3 years, I've endured my share of rants from customers who complain about everything under the sun. Some of them have the right to be upset, (because we know big corporations are evil) but some are just plain rude. There seems to be a lot of negativity on this board, so for just once, the optimist in me would like to hear from you guys some of your stories about associates who were either super friendly, went above and beyond for their line of work, or simply treated you with some decent respect (which is becoming rarer and rarer in today's retail outlets) Just got off a hellacious 9 hour shift at the K, and would like to hear some positive stuff for once.

Peace

I got nothin'.

people always remember the bad experiences and forget the good. meh thats just human nature.

in any case, i like that whole karma thing. so if youre doing a good job (at whatever is may be), i like to think that things will work out well

agreed. i'd like to think i've had a good experience at a big box store, but nothing comes to mind

I can't recall specific experiences that were extraordinary. I think everyone will have trouble thinking of them. Our expectations are that we'll be treated with respect, that folks will be friendly. If so, they don't stand out but rather fall in line with the way you think things should be. It stands out, however, when a store associate doesn't meet those expectations.

I've got one!
Last year my son and I went to a Macy's while we were in Utah. I bought him a few shirts and a hoodie. When we got back to the hotel we couldn't find one of the shirts anywhere. I thought that possibly they took the electronic monitor off of it and forgot to put it in the bag. We went back the next day and spoke with the cashier to see if they had found the shirt. She got the manager, and though they never found the shirt...gave us another one. They were quite nice about it (and being from New York I was super jaded and assumed they would think we were pulling a fast one and was prepared to argue about it)

Well, in the bad experience at Target thread going on, I just posted some kudos to K-mart. The quick version: The extremely friendly cashier that rang up my purchase (back around Thanksgiving) forgot to remove a couple of security tags from the clothing (we discovered as we were wrapping presents on Christmas eve). Yesterday, I called the store and explained what happened along with the fact that I couldn't find my receipt (I had it a few days ago). I asked if they could look up the transaction using my credit card. When I went into the store, they removed the tags and apologized, without ever questioning it or looking up the transaction.

Here area couple of my favorites experiences from an employee perspective ... a few years back I took a seasonal part-time job at TRU for some extra cash (and had a BLAST by the way). You can guess what that place is like during the holidays ...

One day I took a phone call from a guy who was looking for a certain Disney DVD (that had gone out of print, but we happened to have two in stock). He asked if I could hold it, that it would be about 2 hours before he could get here since he was coming from Peoria. I casually mentioned that I'm originally from that area & that the movie he was looking for was one of my favorites (the reason I happened to know that we had it). It was getting close to Christmas and we weren't supposed to hold things, but I explained that sometimes items get "misplaced" until somebody finds them *wink*wink*. The guy was very appreciative and asked what I missed most from back home. Thinking it was more casual conversation, I told him the name of a restaurant that I make sure to visit anytime we go back. Two hours later I was paged to the service desk where the guy was waiting with enough food from the restaurant to feed several people!

Another example was a lady who was looking for the superhero figures for kids (I think it was Spider-man and Friends) that were popular that year. Of course, the manufacturer short-packed the cases, so we had tons of the one figure that everybody already had, and could not keep the others in stock. Anyway, this lady stops me in the aisle and asks if there is a manager on duty. I asked if I could help. She explained that one of our employees wrote her a raincheck for SPECIFIC characters and she was just told that we weren't supposed to do that (Duh!). This poor lady was frantic (who isn't, right?). I apologized profusely and explained the problem with how the manufacturer was packing them (for example, a case of 12 figures would have 9 Spider-mans and 1 each of 3 other characters). She showed me the rainchecks and I advised her that I couldn't promise her the figures, but I wasn't going to make it worse. For the next few days I watched our trucks and finally a case came in (two days before Christmas!). I pulled the figures and called her right away. She didn't bring me any food, but it was rewarding enough when she broke down in tears when I actually brought the figures out to her ... and the hug from the hottie was a good bonus.

I'm glad it apparently went to kids, but there are too many times where I see store employees saving stock for the scalpers... which is why I thought there was a policy against it.

Anyway, didn't mean to derail the thread. Went to Home Depot the other day, of all places, because we were set to paint the interior of our place for the first time... the guy was extremely helpful, going around the store and picking out supplies that we needed, and taking time to answer all of our questions.

There is a local guitar tech guy in my area, that alot of my friends have gone through when their equipment needs work. About 2 years ago I had just bought a used Ampeg bass amp (worth about $1200) and about 60 days after buying it, it blew- big time. Fuses, tubes, alot of work was going to have to be done to fix it. So hating life at that moment, and knowing I was about to be broke, I called him up and started talking to him. He told me that Ampeg equipment has a 5 year, full warranty, and that I could call them up and they'd set me up with a refurbished exchange program at no cost (not even shipping). So I did that and a couple weeks later my perfect condition, and in full working order replacement came straight from the company, I sent my broken one back to them to get fixed.

The local tech definatly saved me about $400 in work that would have gone straight into his pocket by just being honest and helping out a struggling band member

I just at all the complaint threads. People in this forum show up at bargain-priced stores and expect to be treated like they're in a five-star hotel.

At Bojangles I ordered what I thought were chicken nuggets, turns out they were actually grilled non-breaded chicken pieces in hot sauce. My boy would not/did not eat them. I took them back in, explained what happened, and the person at the counter replaced them with the breaded chicken strip things and was very friendly about it.

I don't ask to be treated like I'm at the Waldorf, especially if I'm getting a great deal; just acknowledge I'm there, help me find something if I ask, and ring me up efficiently while not talking to your coworker about the game that night or whatever.

I personally always give them person at the store the benefit of the doubt, as long as they're decent to me. I might get mad at a store policy, but I wont' get mad at the person telling me that policy--unless they start throwing attitude at me.

Cardsfan is right, I don't expect to be waited upon hand and foot (unless I'm getting a manicure and pedicure), and I don't expect to be made to feel like they're doing me a favor ringing me up. 80% of customer service interactions are perfectly adequate; I will complain about the bottom 10% percent and praise the top 10%.

I'm glad to hear that. We have been really pushing customer service to all the HD stores. I can't go a day without getting emails from home office about ideas to improve customer service. It's nice to hear a good shopping experience.
Currently we are pushing "power hours" It's from 10am-2pm. All associates are to be at the end of the aisles and a greeter stationed at the main entrance. They all have radios and are supposed to communicate amongst themselves to help out with customer questions. If you don't see that happening at your Home Depot then there's a big problem. I can honestly say that during my 5 years with HD they actually do care what the customer has to say and do try to execute great customer service.

After I asked a sales associate for a "DVD Rewinder" (yes, it was a joke) and he replied they had to send their stock back due to defects, I didn't wait around long enough to get help with the actual product I went in for. He must have been a new inexperienced employee or else a sharp, witty one that can lie with a straight tongue-in-cheek face.

I have a bad experience followed by a good one. When I bought my first receiver (I was 14 at the time with paper route money in hand), the salesman wasn't treating me like a real customer. He would talk to me for 15 seconds, then go help some other people that just walked in, etc. He even asked me if I knew how much the receiver cost and if I have money for it or if I'm just wasting his time! Anyways, he goes to help another couple and another sales associate comes and gives me 20% off for the other guy being a jerk and we make the sale.