December 10, 2016 - RedCardMan
Expected to use own mobile phone for guest’s Cartwheel!
Just incredible, today.
This afternoon I had the misfortune of being put on the spot by the attending middle manager to provide a guest with a CARTWHEEL app mobile phone discount for their purchase using my own mobile phone since they had no phone.
The guest arrived at my register demanding their 30% off outerwear discount but conflated that with another text coupon which precipitated my manager getting involved. She already had her mobile out when she explained to the guest that it was no problem, and I could “go ahead and scan the app”.
I told her “Scan my phone? No.”
“Why not?”
“Do I have to draw you a road-map? I may want to use that discount myself today, and IT’S MY PHONE.”
“I don’t understand what the problem is,” she said.
“It’s MY phone – do I need to use my own property for stranger’s discounts now?”
“Ah, interesting,” she said, somewhat snotty.
“What’s interesting?”
“Well, the return line has been backed up with guests demanding their discount after the cashier sent them on.”
I told her “You know me – I am happy to assist any guest install CARTWHEEL on their own phone and describe every benefit, but I’m not using my own phone to aid every guest who demands it! This is not my problem – it’s Target’s problem.”
My manager stormed off and aggressively queried every cashier at their registers in front of guests if they had a problem using their own phone.
Now, this is a form of shaming, because I should never have been put in the position of telling a guest “no” about a discount I couldn’t provide any other way. Her behavior was completely unprofessional (and not the first time). It was never demanded of me that I provide my phone but her intention to embarrass me in front of the guest was clear, even though afterwards the guest expressed that she didn’t think it was right either. What was clear when she talked to the other cashiers was there was a problem for her and the returns desk if we didn’t.
When later in the day I spoke to the store manager it was clear she already knew some version of the story. She said she’d look into it with the front-end executive but also that ANYONE WHO WANTED TO USE THEIR OWN PHONE TO OFFER DISCOUNTS WAS WELCOME TO.
This means to me that she completely missed the point of not providing an atmosphere of shaming any cashier who didn’t provide the discount on their own mobile!
Some kind of change needs to occur to prevent cashiers from being put on the spot like this. It’s embarrassing having to explain this to store guests and overall unprofessional on the company’s part.
What kind of multi-billion dollar company needs its minimum wage worker to provide discounts for its customers?
Can’t wait for the reprisals.
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This sounds like a lawsuit waiting to happen. I'm sure their request isn't legal on multiple levels. Are they paying your cellphone bill? Did they pay for your phone? Do they pay for the data usage on your phone? Do they understand that your phone is your private property, and asking you to display the contents of said private property can be seen as a breach on your basic human rights? Public shaming and harassment? If you get written up for it, try and get them to detail the situation and reference your personal cellphone so you can use that against them.
It sounds to me like that she the GSTL person was like oh we must help our guests. Well sure that's what we do. But give your own phone? Hell no. No business of any kind should ever ask you for your own property for another person. I'm fired from them but I remember my GSTLs just went ok just hover over item, reduce by 30%, than this one 30% reduce, it's easy and we did it all the time and I'm sure where I worked still does for the whining complaining customers. I'm glad I got fired, I was sick of poor people who used millions of coupons, the red card, cart wheel, discount codes on phone also and than tons of $5 dollar gift cards. Like oh yeah you got $200 dollars worth of stuff but only had to pay $10 bucks for it. Screw that, target is letting people save on over 80% of there purchases, that horrible for business and it means target will go very low one day where they have to fire a lot of people to afford there stores and items and employees.
You are not allowed to use your phone to offer cartwheel discount to guests because of the perks or points that will be added to claim free prizes. Your store should know this. If a guest is experiencing connection problems or a problem installing the cartwheel app you must honor the discount by selecting the "change price" key and "missed cartwheel" key on the register. The "Missed Cartwheel" key is still fairly new and is to be used in situations as mentioned to take care of the guest.
At my store they flip flop on what they want us to do lol sometimes we have to use our phones other times they tell us not to. Our management is highly inconsistent and sometimes they make themselves look stupid being walking contradictions.
At my target we have the choice of using our cartwheel. Most of the time I don't say anything and if they want it I tell them it is a cartwheel deal and they need it. If they don't have it I will tell them to download it and if they don't want to I have a supervisor come by and have them put in the offer.
What I don't like is when there is only four times you can use it for some coupons and they want you to use yours.
Honstly if the customer does not have it they should not be getting the deal.
I see cartwheel is similar to the pc plus program that loblaws has. Why didn't target push it and advertise it though out the store when they opened up here as well? They knew Loblaws had introduced PC PLUS which is a digital program as well. Send up cartwheel as well to compete with pc plus. With special computer kiosks to sign people up for red cards, those booths could be stretched to let people use them to print out their cartwheel offers. Silly Target.
As usual target has to make complicated crap more complicated. With pc plus, my loblaws pc mastercard or pc debit card also doubles as the pc plus card. Simpler. No mess no fuss. Why does target have to make their loyalty program as complicated as fuck.