Top 3 Things That I Hate Hearing from GameStop Customers...

[The Fake Shemp]

3. "WHY DON'T YOU KNOW WHEN THE Nintendo Wii® AND/OR Nintendo DS Lite® IS IN ARRIVING IN STORES?!"

Answer: Because, bitch, I don't work for Nintendo!

2. "WHY WON'T THE HIGH DEFINITION WORK ON MY REGULAR TELEVISION?!

Answer: Because you're a dirty poor and it's a regular television - idiot.  No joke, some guy even asked for a HDMI to composite adapter today.  Real talk.

1. "DO YOU HAVE GRAND THEFT AUTO EYE-VEE?"

Answer: It's four, you fucking primitives!

[drozmight]

 :'(

People are aweosme.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

I went to Gamestop today and they didn't ask me to trade anything in once. I wanted to ask them if they were feeling okay.

[Ichirou]

When I worked at GameStop I got some really weird requests.

"Do you know that game where you play with the sand?" "What?" "You know, that game...with the sand..."

It was Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.  The thing is, sand in Spanish is "arena" which has a double meaning, so I didn't know wtf they meant.

"I'm looking for the PlayCube."  Other variations: XStation, GameStation, GameBox, XCube.

"Do you have any Mario games for the PlayStation?"

"Do you have the Plantation 2?"

"Do you take strategy guides in trade-in?"

"Do you have Grande Fausto By the City?"

[demi]

Top 3 things I hate hearing from GameStop Employees:

1. Do you want to reserve it?

No, taco

2. Do you want a strategy guide?

No, taco

3. this is too easy i'll stop here

[Howard Alan Treesong]

3. are you sure you don't want to trade in games now we'll give you 5% extra trade in credit if you apply it to used games plus use your card for 10% credit plus an extra 20% credit if you trade in on select titles

I have to stack so many items to make a trade-in worthwhile I feel like I'm minimaxing magic find

[The Fake Shemp]

 

[Ichirou]

Why do you like your job, Willco?  I worked at GameStop for like a month and it made me hate retail.  Like, seriously loathe it.  I worked insane hours and when I finally got my first paycheck it was for a paltry $300.  Sooooo not worth it.

Customers were abusive and ignorant, my feet hurt from standing around for hours on end...it was awful.

[bagofeyes]

I worked retail at a comic book store for a couple of years. My God, the people that are walking around on the streets out there... 
:santocry

[Eel O'Brian]

"Hey, slackass, think you can you stop bullshitting with your buddies for five seconds and help me out here?"

"Don't roll your eyes at me for asking questions, taco, I don't know anything about video games because I'm a normal human being.  You can make a blog complaint about how stupid and mean customers are later, shithead."

"Boo hoo hoo, you've got it soooo hard ringing up video games and answering questions all day, cry me a fucking river, try working construction for a couple weeks and this job will look like a day spa.  taco."

[Ichirou]

hahahaha, yup, that's exactly how I act towards GameStop employees nowadays too.

[MrAngryFace]

"Hey, slackass, think you can you stop bullshitting with your buddies for five seconds and help me out here?"

"Don't roll your eyes at me for asking questions, taco, I don't know anything about video games because I'm a normal human being.  You can make a blog complaint about how stupid and mean customers are later, shithead."

"Boo hoo hoo, you've got it soooo hard ringing up video games and answering questions all day, cry me a fucking river, try working construction for a couple weeks and this job will look like a day spa.  taco."

[The Fake Shemp]

Why do you like your job, Willco?  I worked at GameStop for like a month and it made me hate retail.  Like, seriously loathe it.  I worked insane hours and when I finally got my first paycheck it was for a paltry $300.  Sooooo not worth it.

Customers were abusive and ignorant, my feet hurt from standing around for hours on end...it was awful.

It's changed a lot - it really has become more a customer, employee focused operation.  Within the past year, they've created an actual human resources department.  I'm not talking like a handful of folks that used run through write-ups (which don't even exist anymore - no shit), but a real HR department focused on retaining employees.  Employee retention has become such a hot topic that it is actually a quarter of our bonus in regards to SMs and DMs.  They even took reservations and subscriptions off the bonus scorecard.  The drive is for performance, but not necessarily at the sake of employees or customers anymore.

I work for a great District Manager and a great Area Manager.  They're good people.  I invited my DM to my birthday party and he came and he footed the vast majority of our bill (we had a party of like twelve folks).  The staff that I've built is a lot of fun to be around.  It's the best part-time staff I've ever been around.

I enjoy talking about games and selling games.  If you're competent at your job and you're have social skills, the job is a lot of fun.  If folks leave your store feeling that they've been victim to the "shotgun" approach ("DO YOU WANT A GAME INFORMER? DO YOU WANT TO PRE-ORDER? DO YOU WANT TO BUY SOMETHING ELSE? DO YOU WANT TO TRADE IN YOUR GAMES?"), you'll scare folks away.  I coach my employees on how to properly sell those items, so that if they succeed, the customer feels that they were given a deal and not swindled.  I get folks to pre-order stuff that I'm excited about.  Like, I can tell you I probably lead the district in Lost Odyssey reservations.  Because I talk to people about games and they pull the trigger.  A lot of managers get caught up in the numbers and lose sight of all of that.  That approach leaves you with customers that don't really like you, but come to your store out of convenience and that means they'll leave as soon as they have an alternative.  I want a store folks come out of their way to buy stuff at.

I tell my staff I want the atmosphere of an old record store - a sociable staff that likes the stuff they sell, can build a relationship with a customer base and see success with superior customer service.  That's my approach to it.  That's why I've built a staff around likeable, competent folks that are helpful - not ambitious, sales-minded sharks.  I know this differs from a lot of locations, but it's yielded great results - I closed in top three of the district for the third time in the past four months.  I ranked fourth in dollars sold for December and had one of the most unprecedent success stories in the district by having one hundred percent positive customer feedback during the holiday season.  That's typically when you see the most complaints.  My Regional Director visited the weekend before Christmas and actually remarked that my store has never looked better since he has taken over the San Francisco Bay Area.  I get a lot of pride from that stuff.

But most of all, it's just fun.  Even with the awful customers.

[CajoleJuice]

"Hey, slackass, think you can you stop bullshitting with your buddies for five seconds and help me out here?"

"Don't roll your eyes at me for asking questions, taco, I don't know anything about video games because I'm a normal human being.  You can make a blog complaint about how stupid and mean customers are later, shithead."

"Boo hoo hoo, you've got it soooo hard ringing up video games and answering questions all day, cry me a fucking river, try working construction for a couple weeks and this job will look like a day spa.  taco."

[The Fake Shemp]

"Hey, slackass, think you can you stop bullshitting with your buddies for five seconds and help me out here?"

"Don't roll your eyes at me for asking questions, taco, I don't know anything about video games because I'm a normal human being.  You can make a blog complaint about how stupid and mean customers are later, shithead."

"Boo hoo hoo, you've got it soooo hard ringing up video games and answering questions all day, cry me a fucking river, try working construction for a couple weeks and this job will look like a day spa.  taco."

 

[The Fake Shemp]

Oh my God, I wish I could find a way to upload this training video with what not to do as a GameStop employee when dealing with certain customer service situations.

We had a store manager training workshop led by my DM where he would showcase all the BAD CUSTOMER SERVICE REACTIONS on video, pause them and ask us what the associate did wrong.  I got in real trouble when one scenario had a GameStop employee playing Guitar Hero on a Xbox 360, and a customer asks a question.  The guy keeps playing Guitar Hero and tells the customer to wait one minute.  The customer tries to ask for help again and the guy just waves at him or something.

Our DM pauses the video and was like, "So what was wrong with this?"  And I go, like a jackass, "I SEE A GAMESTOP EMPLOYEE ON BREAK BEING HARASSED BY A CUSTOMER!"  Laughs from peers, but glares from DMs.

[Ichirou]

lolllllllllllll

And then you got fired.

[The Fake Shemp]

I was really lucky I closed second in the rankings that month.

[Ichirou]

The district manager fired my cousin from her assistant manager position at gamestop 'cuz she let the 10-year-old son of one of the mall cleaning staff stay in the store after hours.

[The Fake Shemp]

It's pretty hard to fire folks nowadays.  They did away with the write-up sheets too.  There are performance coaching sheets, where if someone fucks up, you write what they fucked up on and then you have to create an action plan to correct the behavior.  Then you both must agree on it and meet a certain deadline to decide whether or not the action plan has been executed properly.  You have to do this like three times before you can even start the termination process and that doesn't necessarily end there - the employee can then get the DM involved and Regional Director, and then go through no less than three arbitrations.

[hyp]

willco

i'd work for a cool dood like you.

[abrader]

My gamestop loves me.

I am high volume - and I load them up with pre-orders

In exchange they get me what I need when I want it - will call me to tell me they got rare items they know I want etc...

I think if they replaced the manager and a few key employees id quit shopping there.

I see a new manager in the mix so I suspect this comming....

In time they always fukk it up heheh

[abrader]

Wow I have actually been on good with my local gamestop since the XBOXEN days...they won me over from EB by being man enough to get a copy of Steel Battalion in store for me to buy.

I went to EB and they said - "We wont carry it due to the size so goto ebgames.com"

I told the story to the guy in gamestop and like 2 Saturdays later he surprise calls me and tells me he has one in the store for me.

That one move made me ditch EB forever.....

[cloudwalking]

Top 3 things I hate hearing from GameStop Employees:

1. Do you want to reserve it?

No, taco

2. Do you want a strategy guide?

No, taco

3. this is too easy i'll stop here

i never get asked this kind of shit. however the employees usually try to make futile small talk.

[Eric P]

i never get asked this kind of shit. however the employees usually try to make futile small talk.

i get the inverse of that when i go to my local gamestop.  the female clerk will inevitably try to talk to me about my purchase.  i don't want to be rude, but i don't want to discuss the finer intricacies of the witcher vs jrpgs.

[Mandark]

Top 3 things I hate hearing from GameStop Employees:

1. Do you want to reserve it?

No, taco

2. Do you want a strategy guide?

No, taco

3. this is too easy i'll stop here

i never get asked this kind of shit. however the employees usually try to make futile small talk.

[Crass and obvious explanation of why that is here]

[Tauntaun]

i never get asked this kind of shit. however the employees usually try to make futile small talk.

You should get a flamethrower installed in your vag so when you start to unzip your pants, the pasty white fat dude who thinks he's gonna get some actually gets fried to a crisp!  Plus that'd be totally awesome I'd get one installed in my penis.  HOLY CRAP WE COULD BE A CRIME FIGHTING DUO!  We should get this procedure done then go help Africa or something, I'm a humanitarian.   

[Eric P]

i never get asked this kind of shit. however the employees usually try to make futile small talk.

You should get a flamethrower installed in your vag so when you start to unzip your pants, the pasty white fat dude who thinks he's gonna get some actually gets fried to a crisp!  Plus that'd be totally awesome I'd get one installed in my penis.  HOLY CRAP WE COULD BE A CRIME FIGHTING DUO!  We should get this procedure done then go help Africa or something, I'm a humanitarian.   

insert fire crotch joke

spoiler (click to show/hide)

apparently fire crotch shows up as blackACID

[close]

[cloudwalking]

i never get asked this kind of shit. however the employees usually try to make futile small talk.

You should get a flamethrower installed in your vag so when you start to unzip your pants, the pasty white fat dude who thinks he's gonna get some actually gets fried to a crisp!  Plus that'd be totally awesome I'd get one installed in my penis.  HOLY CRAP WE COULD BE A CRIME FIGHTING DUO!  We should get this procedure done then go help Africa or something, I'm a humanitarian.   

insert fire crotch joke

spoiler (click to show/hide)

apparently fire crotch shows up as blackACID

[close]

haha, that's because G used to call her that and she fucking hated it... so willco added a word filter.

[Tauntaun]

So are you in or not?  We can get the procedure for Jarosh and my wife too, if they don't want to we'll do it while they're sleeping.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Ichirou]

I need to try this out

blackACID

blackACID

blackACID

lol

[The Fake Shemp]

i'd work for a cool dood like you.

Everyone wants to work for me - we spent most of last night trolling this Sony fanboy to near tears, then called another rival store and harassed their keyholder.

[Smooth Groove]

i'd work for a cool dood like you.

Everyone wants to work for me - we spent most of last night trolling this Sony fanboy to near tears, then called another rival store and harassed their keyholder.

Can I volunteer for a couple of hours after school?

[Howard Alan Treesong]

actually despite having a lowkey Gamestop experience last night, I was totally weirded out by the way I was greeted by the sales clerk

he said "yeah." without making eye contact

and I kind of stood there because I wasn't sure what was going on.

then he looked at me and said "yeah."

and I said "...can you help me?"

and he looked away again and said "yeah."

after a greeting like that I shouldn't have been surprised I wasn't getting upsold

[The Fake Shemp]

I think he was coming on to you.

Greeting is the only standard I want to improve at my store.  Despite getting a 91 and an 86 on my last store audits, and 100% positive customer service feedback the last three months, I really think my employees could do a better job of IMMEDIATELY greeting customers when they enter the door.  Sometimes they'll get to a wall before an employee gets to them.

Join aboard, Smooth Groove.  Oh my God, this Sony fanboy was so great.  He was hovering around the counter, telling this casual middle-aged gamer guy who was asking about the Xbox 360 to not get a 360, because the PS3 is the superior console.

We started to bag on this fanboy, and most of my folks even have a PS3, about how multi-platform games look better on the 360.  And he was like, "Nobody buys a system for multi-platform games!"  Then he went on about Metal Gear Solid 4 and one of the employees was like, "Yeah, I'll get it on my 360 next year."

That started a chain reaction...

"It's not coming on the 360."

"Yeah, it is."

"No, it's not!  It'll never come out on the Xbox!  Never!"

"Want to bet?  As soon as you can pre-order it for the 360, you have to pay for my pre-order."

"No, that's dumb, because Metal Gear Solid 4 can only be done on the PS3."

"Well, according to these rumo-"

"I'M NOT LISTENING! I'M NOT LISTENING! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I'M NOT LISTENING!"

"Dude, all you got to do is go to this webs-"

[covers ears] "I'M NOT LISTENING! I'M NOT LISTENING!"

... Afterwards, this poor guy who wanted a 360 and had to endure the PS3 fanboy made up his mind.

"Yeah, well, I'll get a Xbox 360."

"All we've got is the Halo model."

"I don't care what model is, I want it.  I just don't want whatever he's playing."

[abrader]

I think if I saw a scene like that go down in front of me at a Gamestop I wouldn't go back.

Im glad no fanboi's work at the store I frequent.

I also dont talk to the other customers about what they are buying so that guy should STFU or buy something.

[Tauntaun]

actually despite having a lowkey Gamestop experience last night, I was totally weirded out by the way I was greeted by the sales clerk

he said "yeah." without making eye contact

and I kind of stood there because I wasn't sure what was going on.

then he looked at me and said "yeah."

and I said "...can you help me?"

and he looked away again and said "yeah."

after a greeting like that I shouldn't have been surprised I wasn't getting upsold

  awesome

... Afterwards, this poor guy who wanted a 360 and had to endure the PS3 fanboy made up his mind.

"Yeah, well, I'll get a Xbox 360."

"All we've got is the Halo model."

"I don't care what model is, I want it.  I just don't want whatever he's playing."

[demi]

I think he was coming on to you.

Greeting is the only standard I want to improve at my store.  Despite getting a 91 and an 86 on my last store audits, and 100% positive customer service feedback the last three months, I really think my employees could do a better job of IMMEDIATELY greeting customers when they enter the door.  Sometimes they'll get to a wall before an employee gets to them.

Join aboard, Smooth Groove.  Oh my God, this Sony fanboy was so great.  He was hovering around the counter, telling this casual middle-aged gamer guy who was asking about the Xbox 360 to not get a 360, because the PS3 is the superior console.

We started to bag on this fanboy, and most of my folks even have a PS3, about how multi-platform games look better on the 360.  And he was like, "Nobody buys a system for multi-platform games!"  Then he went on about Metal Gear Solid 4 and one of the employees was like, "Yeah, I'll get it on my 360 next year."

That started a chain reaction...

"It's not coming on the 360."

"Yeah, it is."

"No, it's not!  It'll never come out on the Xbox!  Never!"

"Want to bet?  As soon as you can pre-order it for the 360, you have to pay for my pre-order."

"No, that's dumb, because Metal Gear Solid 4 can only be done on the PS3."

"Well, according to these rumo-"

"I'M NOT LISTENING! I'M NOT LISTENING! NOT GOING TO HAPPEN! I'M NOT LISTENING!"

"Dude, all you got to do is go to this webs-"

[covers ears] "I'M NOT LISTENING! I'M NOT LISTENING!"

... Afterwards, this poor guy who wanted a 360 and had to endure the PS3 fanboy made up his mind.

"Yeah, well, I'll get a Xbox 360."

"All we've got is the Halo model."

"I don't care what model is, I want it.  I just don't want whatever he's playing."

Fake

[Howard Alan Treesong]

yeah, whether it's "can I help you?" or "welcome, I'll be with you in a moment, sir" I think that letting me know where the staff stands as soon as I enter is pretty important

[cloudwalking]

even if the staff just says hi, i think it's nice. i always tried to focus on making people feel welcome rather than jumping on them with "can i help you?" as soon as they walked in the door.

[Tauntaun]

Can someone make me a smiley with flame coming out of it's crotch region?    Pwetty pwease?

[Mr. Gundam]

yeah, whether it's "can I help you?" or "welcome, I'll be with you in a moment, sir" I think that letting me know where the staff stands as soon as I enter is pretty important

Agreed, however there is a line which seemed to be crossed every single time i went into a store in the UK.

Where it would be "Can i help you?"

"no thanks, just browsing...."

2 mins later

"oh i see you are looking at the <item> .... <sales pitch>"

:/

Yep.

I know exactly what I want. If I don't see it, I'll ask. There is nothing wrong with greeting me when I come into the store, but the more you talk to me, the less likely I'll buy something.