After a handful of visits, I still can't quite tell what's going on in this store. Either the staff are wildly incompetent, or wildly mismanaged. While most of the floor employees seem to know enough about their products, if the item isn't on the floor then it might as well not exist. Once I asked a floor employee for help finding a particular pattern of their stacking mugs. While the associate quickly directed me to the stacking mugs, they were out of the pattern I wanted. However, she looked the mugs up on the store's computer, and said they were supposed to have 14 of the pattern I wanted in stock. She went to the back room to find them for me, and after waiting around the store for 20 minutes, I still hadn't heard anything else about the mugs. I tried to get in touch with a manager on duty, but after walking around the store for another 10 minutes, I was unable to find a single other employee, so I just left the store.
On another occassion, I was at the store during the holiday season, when it was insanely busy. The line was wrapped around the inside of the store, although the cashiers must have been working hard because I got through the line in less than 10 minutes. During my wait, a woman who appeared to be a manger or general manager named Jackie was handing out ginger snaps, which was nice. But then, once I was close to the front of the line, I saw one of the cashiers ask Jackie for help on the register, so she could help another customer get some furniture unloaded from his car. Jackie then tells the cashier sorry, and that she didn't know how the register worked. She then continued to hand out cookies, which was a confusing response to one of her employees requests for help with a customer. I also find it a little ridiculous that the manager or general manager of a store has no idea how to run a register, and is unwilling to help her employees or customers.
On yet another occassion at this store, it was early on a Tuesday morning, and the store was relatively empty. There was no line at the register, so after I was done shopping I didn't have to wait at all. Once I got to the register, I informed the cashier that I needed to make a return, which she assured me wouldn't be a problem. After she rang up my handful of items, she began to try to return the hand towel I had brought back. This is when the trouble began. She told me that she would need manager approval for the return, and called for a manager over the store intercom. After a solid few moments with no sign of a manager, the cashier called over the intercom again. Still no manager after another full two minutes. Then the cashier called for assistance for a third time. Almost immediately, the cashier's phone rang, she apologized to me, and picked it up. It was the manager, and the cashier informed the manager that she needed approval for a transaction. At this point I had become fairly impatient, as I then began to wait another five full minutes for the manager on duty to arrive. Finally, after waiting for what seemed like forever, a manager named Viola appeared from the back of the store. She only said a quick "Sorry," pushed past the cashier, punched in some numbers and scanned some kind of barcode, then told the cashier that if she needed help, to call a certain extension instead. I find it unacceptable that a cashier should have to ask three distinct times for help from her manager.
This store definitely sells some relatively inexpensive and interesting products, but I have yet to have a pleasant shopping experience here, after the store having been open for at least 5 months. I would recommend taking your business where the management has some clue of what's going on. And Cost Plus should seriously reconsider the management choices it has made. read more
