Review Bombed

Online reviews are an important resource for indecisive idiots that also helps cranky customers feel morally superior to low-wage workers. But what would happen if retail managers actually read those reviews and used them to improve their store's customer experience? As absurd as that sounds, one manager is doing exactly that, and has assembled his staff to let them know just how awfully they suck.

Carl Mathers, general manager for warehouse retailer Priced Less, has put together a core group of two dozen or so of his store’s full-time, customer-facing employees. Now, gathered in a training room, the workers wait to be confronted with what the customers have to say about them.

“I’m not too scared,” says Angela P, a Kitchens salesperson. “I feel like I have a great rapport with my customers.”

“I don’t know,” says cashier supervisor Daniel G. “I try to help everyone the best I can, but it’s hard to avoid having people get angry with you at the front of the house.”

“I just know I’m gonna be put on blast for some stupid shit I said,” says Craig N from Sales, “I just hope we get some good laughs out of it before I’m escorted out of the building.”

While the staff clearly have mixed beliefs regarding how they think they’ll be portrayed in these reviews, there is also a prevailing opinion that these reviews aren’t very useful or meaningful.

“Not that I want to call the utility of this training into question,” says Seth T from Sales, “but we all know the type of people who leave these reviews don’t represent the majority of our customer base.”

“Yeah, this is a weird thing to care about,” adds Mitchell M from Returns. “It’s like basing all your decisions on the opinion of that old lady down the street who calls 911 because some kids are playing near her fence.”

“If they can’t even take the time to complain to my manager’s face like everyone else,” says Craig N, “then why should I care what they have to say about me while they hide behind Google? Cowards!”

Carl Mathers stands before the group and calls the meeting to order.

“It may not seem like it,” he says to his staff, “and you may not like it, but these online reviews are very important. Most customers will leave the store and never say a word about the service they received, so we need to treat those who have left feedback as a microcosm of all of our customers. Now let’s look at some reviews….”

On a projector screen at the front of the room, Mathers begins cycling through reviews on Google.

“Ah, here is a one-star review for our Returns team,” he says. “This person here says that we refused to accept a return on a dining room chair as it was ‘mad grimy’. Any idea how this could’ve happened, Returns?”

“Yeah, because it was mad grimy,” answers Mitchell M. “We’re not supposed to take returns on stuff they’ve clearly been using for a year.”

“Yes,” says Mathers, “but this isn’t the way we handle that kind of thing.”

Mathers forces Mitchell to act out how this interaction should have gone before moving on.

“Moving on,” says Mathers, moving on. “We have one here that says they came in and the shelves were empty: ‘Store looks like it’s going out of business but there’s no clearance pricing, what gives?’. Anyone want to tell me what gives? Mark?”

“It says that’s from last month,” says stock associate Mark W, “probably from when Patty quit and Omar was out with a broken foot. Those of us who were here didn’t have time to shelve everything out.”

“Okay,” says Mathers, “but you see how that empty shelf space caused a negative customer impression, so maybe moving forward we can discuss priorities when short staffed.”

“So always then,” says Mark W, “gotcha.”

“That’s a discussion we can escalate to department leadership,” says Mathers. “For now, let’s move over to Craig.

“Craig, you are quite popular on here!” jokes Mathers to a small smattering of chuckles. “Here's one guest who had a rather lengthy report on you, but for the love of all that’s holy, did you really tell a customer with an issue that you ‘can get a ragamuffin’?”

“Oh my God, yes!” says Craig N with a large smile on his face. “I forgot about that!”

“What does that even mean?” asks Mathers over the chuckling workers.

“It’s a song,” he explains, “‘I Got a Man’ by Positive K. Everyone here’s probably too young for that one.”

“Okay, but why on Earth did you say it to a customer?”

“It was like,” says Craig N, “they were asking for a manager, but we can never get one to come down unless the store’s on fire or something, so I was saying like ‘yeah, I can call a manager, but I might as well just get a ragamuffin for all the good it’ll do’. It's not as funny when I explain it, but that's the gist.”

“Well, what–”

“A ragamuffin’s like a hood rat,” explains Craig N.

“Okay,” says Mathers, “not what I was going to ask, but maybe we’ll save all these Craig posts for a separate, more private meeting.”

Mathers scrolls a bit and stops at yet another one-star review on the projector screen. It reads:

NO CARTS! WHERE ALL THE CARTS! I HAD TO GO GET MY OWN CART FROM PARKING LOT! THERE SHOULD BE CARTS IN THE STORE !! THIS IS A RIDICULOUS STORE THAT HAS NO CARTS !!!!! WHERE IS MY EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT FOR GETTING CART???? IS THIS COMMUNISM!!!!????

“You know we only have two cart guys, right?” says Daniel G. “And they’re also required to help customers load their cars. If it gets busy and a lot of people need help, how are those carts going to get back into the store?”

“Maybe we should look into pulling people from Sales when that happens,” says Mathers, “just to make sure we’re not giving off this kind of negative impression.”

“If they’re busy, then we’re busy,” says Sales worker Angela P, “and we already get enough complaints about not having anyone available in the store.”

“Yeah, here’s a good one,” says Seth T who has apparently opened Yelp on his cell phone. “‘Looking for help for twenty minutes but apparently nobody works here, only saw two employees since I got here’.”

“Here’s another,” says Mitchell M, who has also pulled up store reviews on his phone. “‘Long ass line at return desk, the poor bastard up there by hisself getting yelled at and he called for help three times and nobody coming, the poor bastard’.”

“How about this one,” says Angela P. “‘Craig in the bedding department has a terrible attitude and needs to be fired–”

“Hey, he did me already!”

“‘--but he’s literally the only employee I could find so I guess I shouldn’t complain.”

“Well glad they didn't complain,” says Craig N, rolling his eyes.

Mathers puts up both his hands, palms forward, and tries to bring calm back to the room.

“Okay, okay,” he says, “I think we’re getting a bit off topic here….”

“You know what?” says Daniel G. “It’s almost like every one of these complaints could be fixed if we just had more people on the floor.”

“For real,” says Seth T, who is still scrolling through Yelp reviews. “Look at all of these. Long lines, couldn’t find help, Craig is an asshole, grr self-checkout bad, long lines, long lines, nobody work here, long lines, why there no staff, why lines so long, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....”

“The goal here,” says a seemingly flustered Mathers, “is to find ways we can improve on these reviews with better customer service practices, so–”

“I think it’s clear,” says Angela P, “that the best way to improve customer service is to have workers available to serve customers. Probably first and foremost I’d imagine.”

“We can find a time to circle back to that,” says Mathers, who is now visibly sweating, “as we can’t do anything about these particular complaints at the moment.”

“That’s true that we can’t,” says Daniel G, “but management probably can. Or are you more worried about your bonuses?”

“I promise you, that has nothing to do with–”

“Oh, I got a good one!” shouts Craig N over the irate workers. “Listen to this: ‘Manager Carl is a total boob who thinks a BOGO coupon for canned corn is a proper apology for how disgusting the bathrooms are and for how long the line was at the deli’.”

“Alright,” says Mathers, “that’s en–”

“‘He was clearly annoyed at even having to come down to talk to me,” Craig N continues, “‘and the second my back was turned he snapped at the only poor bastard working the deli counter to call a janitor to clean the bathrooms and then disappeared again’.”

“Okay–”

“I added the ‘poor bastard’ part” admits Craig N, “just as a call back. The part about you being a boob is real though.” He shows the phone to confirm that, yes, this customer felt Mathers was indeed a total boob.

“OKAY!” says Mathers, louder this time, clapping his hands to regain attention from the room. “I think our takeaway here today is that, um, well, that online complaints are not a very reliable indicator of our level of customer service. So, um, maybe take this as a teachable moment to look for areas we can measurably improve but disregard the ones, like those you all just read, that are clearly from serial complainers.”

“Alright,” says Craig N, “I get it. So these reviews ain’t shit now.”

“We should value all guest feedback,” says Mathers, rubbing his forehead, “but yeah, sure whatever.”

“Oh hey!” Seth T suddenly shouts out, “I just updated and there's a new review! ‘This place is devoid of employees and the store is utterly trashed. Needed help finding oven mitts but guess I'll just burn my hands now! Seriously would even settle for that smartass Craig who always seems to be here. WHERE THE HELL IS EVERYBODY!? One star, would be zero if it let me.’”

“Yeah,” says Mathers, “maybe everyone should all head back to the sales floor. Hang back a second Craig….”

Despite the litany of one-star reviews, Carl Mathers is set to receive a sizable bonus for keeping his store under budget, which corporate apparently finds a much better indicator of customer satisfaction.

Craig was not fired as he currently represents about 12.5% of the sales staff.