Most people who read my Barbecue Master blog know that I'm in Food Lion country. Food Lion is where I get most of my meat and foods to cook out on the grill, and the guys in the meat department are very helpful.
Now, Food Lion is doing some "Welcome to your neighborhood Food Lion!" campaign and forcing the cashiers to say that. Holy cow. The first time I walked in the door and a cashier bellowed out WELCOME TO YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD FOOD LION!, I about tripped over a cart.
Clearly this is a corporate idea. Anyone on the floor would see immediately that yelling greetings at unsuspecting customers is a bad plan. It's just not "normal." Plus, it is distracting when checking out. I'm talking to the cashier, and he or she has to stop and yell at other people coming in the door.
The employees at Food Lion were doing great without corporate intervention. Feeding the employees canned greetings suggests that management does not trust those they hire to use common sense. It also suggests that Food Lion thinks customers are stupid and won't notice that interactions are now scripted.
If the greeting plan wasn't bad enough, I see that the cashiers have been told also to ask if I've noticed the lower price stickers and if I bought anything priced lower. Geez. Yes. I saw the stickers all over the store - very annoying. No. I do not know if I bought any marked "lower prices." There were so many that I tuned them out.
If Food Lion keeps this up, then I'll head on over to Harris Teeter. They do have higher prices, but they do not make the empoyees yell at people coming in the door and do not slap stickers on half the items in the store and have the cashiers ask if I've noticed the stickers.
I'm sooo glad we're not the only ones annoyed by this!!! It's horrible for EVERYONE. It's hard on the employees and extremely rude to the people who are in line! Get a clue Food Lion
ReplyDeleteI am a Food Lion Associate who is in Hell over this thing. We are expected to also sell their item of the week. Cupcakes or whatever and hawk charities along with tending our registers and trying to be polite to the person in front of us. While shouting to people coming in the door !!! We are threatened with our jobs all the time no matter how good we are at it and are expected to have perfect tills along with everything else we have to do. It's unbearable but i need a job. Thank you so much for posting this.
ReplyDeleteHope this helps. I am not connected to Food Lion. I am a loyal shopper, and I think the folks who work there do a great job. Always friendly and helpful. Corp needs to back off or come and watch at the very least. These ideas may sound good on paper, but they are strange as heck in practice.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much Cyndi.I was anonymous before i figured out how to join gmail messenger lol. I hope others will post about this subject. I HATE this. I too am a food lion associate and feel like a blithering idiot sounding like a parrot. I am by nature a very friendly person and smile and welcome people when i make eye contact and when they come to the register. Have you called corporate about this? If more people would call or write or Blog about this thing maybe it would help. The public hates it as much as we associates do. PS you have a great site with some wonderful suggestions on grilling. I love it.
ReplyDeleteBarbecue Master gets good traffic, and is indexed by Google. I feel sure that Food Corp sees the post and also knows when comments come in.
ReplyDeleteWhether you are a Food Lion employee or shopper, if you do not like the new polices, let them know. Just post up a comment (-:
I hate Food Lion 2389 Highway 196 West Hinesville GA 31313 .The manager is horrible she treats her workers awful except her favorites.she made me work off the clock and she made me change the dates on products.please dont shop there untill they remove her from managment
ReplyDeleteAny one who is miss treated at food lion please come foward I worked there and my hours were taken when I made the manager mad I dont even know what I did .I worked harder then most and had alot more experence i worked at Food Lion 2389 Highway 196 West Hinesville GA 31313 please help get united .And get ride of this manager
ReplyDelete