Waldenhell, and now Borders

[valis2]

So Borders employees are being told that if they don't sell the value club, they might lose their jobs or get hours cut, even though Borders might go out of business any minute, leaving the customer holding a valueless card that they paid money for.

I swear, this makes me insane. So Waldenhell infected Borders with their Preferred Reader program and their methods. Ugh. I've already covered my history with Waldenhell, and suffice it to say, no sir, I don't like it.

Reading the article made me just about break out in hives, seriously. I still have nightmares about being forced to sell the Preferred Reader program.

Comments

[gmth.livejournal.com]

Holy cheese, that Waldenbooks story is really something. Man. I had no idea they treated employees like that. That used to be my favorite bookstore, too.

[lady-branwyn.livejournal.com]

I was at the local Borders today because I had a gift card that I want to use before the chain goes bankrupt. And yes, the poor clerk was babbling on about some membership card, and no, I wasn't interested.

[pandora-nervosa.livejournal.com]

ETA: See that you did Walden's when it was KMart owned. When I was there, Borders owned the Walden's stores. I wonder if Border's purchase of a failing Walden's was the cause of this bankruptcy? Who knows...economics makes my stomach hurt.


Oh, girl, this is nothing new. At least not to employees.

When I left Conn in um...2005? I moved down here with my family and got a job at the Walden's in the mall. I loved my co-workers, the job, everything.

I was told to "offer" the card to every customer. I tried to but most already had theirs out if they were regulars and if they were not regs, they were those "book report" sorts that didn't normally read.

A few weeks later, was reprimanded for not pushing the card. I explained and I also mentioned that I will not interrupt a person on their cell to do it (although unless a dire emergency, I personally do not call someone during a transaction).

Was told I needed to push more cards or lose my job.

Way to stay classy, Borders.

That Walden's closed down two years ago.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

They were a very good chain for a very long time. They actually started during the Great Depression. There's a lot of good history, but then it just kind of fell apart. :(

[valis2.livejournal.com]

It's awful because it makes the transaction more of a robot transaction--you just don't have enough time to actually talk to the customer. Instead, it's BUY THE CARD GRAH.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I started when they were K-Mart owned,and then they merged with Borders and I worked there for another year or so, I think.

I couldn't stand that I was supposed to offer it to every single customer as this sort of impassioned entreaty, even if they were just buying a magazine. UGH. And it cuts down on talking to the customer and actually having a little bit of a conversation. That made me mental!

And yep, it was all about pushing cards or getting fired. That's why I kept getting written up. It sucked, big-time.

omg, the book report people!! YES. They never wanted a card.

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I stopped going to the local Borders several years ago because a) the clerks were pushy, b) the music selection sucked, and c) they had NONE of the books I wanted, and no, I am not exaggerating. They NEVER had a single book that I wanted to purchase. EVER. It's sad that they're in such bad straits, and I don't like the idea of Barnes & Noble being the only chain bookstore left, but Borders is so bad these days that I have no reason to shop there.

To be honest, I've gotten most of my reading material either at used stores or in e-format for the last year anyway...

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I always liked Borders; their Southfield store was wonderful, and their staff was great, and they were such an amazing place to shop. I think their Southfield location was #2, maybe. Ann Arbor, MI, was their first location, and they were a great place for a while. Then they started competing with B&N and actively expanding, and they changed from having a literature test to work there to, "Can you sell this card?" Sad!

I've stopped buying books almost entirely (yep, too much fanfic available), so I don't even shop at either place much, honestly. *nodnod*

[ellid.livejournal.com]

I still read enough non-fiction that I need and use bookstores pretty frequently. And I do have a Barnes & Noble rewards card, which has pretty much paid for itself this year with all the e-books I've purchased for my Nook. I also go to the library at my alma mater pretty often, since it's ten minutes away and has over 1.5 million volumes (including a dedicated art library, woo-hoo!).

So I don't think I'll ever stop going to bookstores...but e-books are so much more convenient....

[lampblack.livejournal.com]

Sigh, great memories of what a fantastic book store Borders was when it was one independently owned store in Ann Arbor...
I stopped shopping there when I attempted to special order a book and was told that it was out of print. Amazon had it delivered to me in a week.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I remember shopping at the Southfield location when I was a kid--wait, maybe it wasn't Southfield, but still, I think it was their second location, and it was a magical place. The employees knew so much about books, and they just had this...bookish aura about them. Loved that place so much, and I'd never seen such a big bookstore before!

And yet, a year ago a friend went into a store, trying to find a Tomie DePaola book, and the employee had no idea who he was. Sadface.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet got into e-books. I probably will do fine with them, considering that I read so much fanfic online already. :)

[jaelle-n-gilla.livejournal.com]

Both pushy stories remind me of my bankrupt ex-company. They try to get money in no matter the cost. A story like that ("we don't know if your card will be worth the money in a few months") could well break their necks. But then - disbelief in management is what really breaks the necks of companies and that's happening of how they treat their employees. Bloody hell!!!

I take it "writing people up" mens you get a negative report into your employee file? And after a few of those they are entitled to fire you? Bah! That sucks. You get points for goals that you never agreed on and tasks you were never told you had to do. Bah indeed.

There is a similar system in Germany, but a little more "official". The reason they write you up must be substantial. Like... you skipped hours, or you slacked at work, or you used the phone for private long distance calls. Something like that. You can always counter the writing up when it's not justified but after 3 of those (justified ones) they can fire you. I realize that again this is different from the US. In Germany companies can't just fire someone unless they completed the process above or if they close down a whole store or something. Even then they have to offer adequate compensation.

Didn't help me of course because as you see, behaving in a certain manner will ensure that people just leave on their own. :-)

Your bookstore background is amazing. What a story! I wish there were more small bookstores like the ones you had in the end. I'd love see them replace all the big chains these days.

[todayiamadaisy]

I remember that old entry of yours! As a customer, that just sounds like the most wrong-headed rewards card idea to me. I feel so sorry for the staff who've got to push it.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

I got other writeups, but the big ones were from not selling enough Preferred Reader cards. When I first worked there, they gave out bonuses to the manager & asst manager for making money in the year. Then, of course, they tied the bonus to the store selling enough Preferred Reader cards as well. So even if you took in a good profit, if you didn't sell enough cards, you got nothing. And they just kept raising the percentage and raising it.

Of course, at some point they realized they weren't pushing the books enough, and then that whole "handsell" thing popped up. Ugh. It was ridiculous.

The little store I ended up at had its own share of insanity, but that's a whole different story, lol. Overall, that job was heavenly while it lasted.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

The card was really a good deal when i was first working there. Amazon didn't exist yet, there weren't a ton of people selling cheap books, and the mall was still the place the shop.

Now, though, with Amazon and the internet, and warehouse clubs where you can get the most popular books at 60% off, people are not well served by getting 10% off, lol. (Though, to be honest, I have no idea what the discount is now.) ETA: Looks like it's $20 per year and still a 10% discount for most things. It's saying 40% off bestseller hardcovers (which you can get for 60% off at warehouse clubs, or probably more than 40% off at Amazon). They still give $5 coupons for each $100 spent, though it turns out that now the first $5 does not come until $150.

Anyway, it was an easier sale when we had lots of regular customers who shopped at the mall all the time. Everything has changed.

[whitemunin.livejournal.com]

Ah, the preferred reader card. I remember when they first introduced it (back in 1990, I think). The pressure for us to sell that card was relentless, and it actually hurt customer relations in my opinion. People got sick of being asked if they had the card or if they wanted one. Plus, it felt really stupid to give out this sales pitch that they could a 10% discount on everything if they gave us $10.00.

I was never written up because I somehow managed to sell the bare minimum each week (I'm no salesman, so that was a miracle). I remember resenting the hell out of it, because the time I had to spend trying to sell a $10.00 discount card to a reluctant customer would have been better used selling them additional books. It's no wonder these stores suffer financially and sit on the verge of bankruptcy. The upper management, who've never seen the sales floor of a book store, are dumber than toast and making equally stupid marketing decisions.

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Dude, I hated giving the pitch at the end. Especially considering that the store across the street was offering 40% off nearly everything. But we still had to present it to everyone! argh.

And yeah, it was such a mess. People would come up and say, "Don't try to sell me that card."

I remember so many crazy decisions, like suddenly deciding we had to carry two of every backlist title (randomly), which meant we had to effectively halve our title list for some sections.

The decision to carry sunglasses was the stupidest one, though.

[fer-de-lance.livejournal.com]

This sounds EERILY like the Big Chain Pet Store I worked in... The slide from "we all worked together pretty well" to "new manager" to "another new manager... and other replacements" to "by the way, try to sell this upgrade" to "sell x of this upgrade each week" to "sell x+1 upgrades each week" to "there will be consequences if you do not sell x+n upgrades"...

I went through all of that. Including reduced hours, stupid managerial meetings about charts and paperwork and monitoring our sales, and the ever-increasing pressure to sell the upgrades despite a complete lack of research into the market (hint: stop comparing us, a store in a small rural area with a high transient/student population, to a store in a major established city! We are not going to outsell Store-In-Major-City; most of our customers are not affluent!).

I had a manager tell me he was "surprised" I was still around, after all the store had been through. I said something bland and manager-hearing-suitable, but inwardly? I knew I was going to leave when I graduated, and took great private satisfaction, in having -- as Aral Vorkosigan says -- outlived the bastards. (And they were going to be bereft of the -- at that point -- employee who had worked there the longest, which meant that I knew how to do, and helped with, everything.)

[fer-de-lance.livejournal.com]

That's interesting -- that's actually been my experience a couple of times with B&N! I have never walked into a Borders and found nothing I wanted to read, but it's happened to me a few times at various B&Ns...

I especially appreciate the fact that Borders hasn't removed a dozen shelves of books in order to better sell me an electronic device for reading books they no longer have a shelf for (or a person to find for me: once I saw FOUR employees manning the Device area, but couldn't find a single floor-person to help me locate an actual book. I suppose I could have asked in the cafe...)

[hardboiledbaby]

Good heavens, how awful, babe. :(

[ellid.livejournal.com]

Removed shelves of books? The Barnes & Noble stores here have done nothing of the sort. The Nook display is either at the front of the store, where it replaced nothing, and has one person staffing it, or is at the existing customer service desk. Where is your store located? Mine are in Massachusetts.

Also, I can honestly say that I've read (and bought) more new books since I bought my Nook last year. It's very useful since I can carry it to the gym and use it traveling without weighing myself down with four or five paperbacks for a single trip, and I've been introduced to writers I otherwise never would have known....

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Loyalty cards are definitely a good thing for many companies, but I think there's a point where they start to saturate the market and the company needs to be careful about pushing them too hard. I mean, I understand that people paid $10 each for them and they were important for revenue, but they were also not really cost-effective for everyone, and it was kind of a pain for many customers (like people who only bought mags) to hear about them each and every time.

And yes, the charts and paperwork! The monitoring! The pressure! They spent so much money generating all of that and making it the be-all and end-all. In the end, we were a bookstore! Not a Preferred Reader card store.

Ugh for selling x+n upgrades. I hate that stuff so much. :(

[valis2.livejournal.com]

Isn't it? It just goes to show how a company can lose sight of things. *nodnod*