Thread regarding Whole Foods Market Inc. layoffs

I do work in s dept. You are the one making assumptions. If I am helping a guest, but constantly interrupted my guests wanting me to page for a tm to help them in another department saying there are never team members in that particular dept. I know from experience tms in that dept take endless bathroom breaks or talk in the warehouse so they don’t have to help guests. You better believe I page. It lets store leadership know that dept is not being covered by tms on the clock. Glad to know you always do your job, but lots of tms aren’t.

Hide in coolers and in the back? And how do you know this? In my store, the only time anyone from the front end goes anywhere in the store is to return product or pick up bags from the back. Maybe you should work in another department, so you will have a better understanding of what actually happens instead of assuming your pages are being ignored. In my department, we are actually helping customers and a phone call will always come second to the person who is in the store. Paging us three or more times doesn't help anyone and just makes the front end look petty.

The only reason tms page dept is to embarass the tms in the dept being paged. THEY DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE. They do feel pressured to answer page. Funny how all the stores have they same problems. Tms also hide out in freezers or coolers pretending to be busy so they don't have to help guests or answer the phone. HIGH PAID SLACKERS!!!!

The amount of pages over the intercom is insane. People never try the direct number top the department first. Most departments other than grocery have a direct line phone in their work area. If someone needs to order a pizza, dial the number for the pizza station instead of paging over and over. It's unlike this in every other retail market. We do 5x the amount of pages that customers don't need to hear.

This is where trader Joe's is doing something right by not using walkies and by having everyone trained to do everything. They ring a bell and everyone knows what to do, super efficient. And without a bunch of overpaid supervisors standing around chatting and snacking. Look, I get it, if they can't leave the front, but damn, they could front and face close by? The front end in my store won't even touch the displays that are RIGHT NEXT to the cash registers.

Right! LOL. Don’t forget your tinfoil hats!

To the person whining about the store support team .... maybe it’s because customer service sups and above are the only ones who can process returns, do price over rides, have to answer all calls (sometimes while being on register or processing a return which explains why we don’t go search the floor for products ourselves most of the time) do the short walk, provide flex shopping for APN, open on large registers when we get backed up, process amazon returns (this is now a thing at some stores), call guests down who didn’t get the service they needed in other departments, send help to any team when store leadership asks us to (hence “store support”), provide as many TMs as possible for inventory, bag groceries, do cart runs, clean the cafe and other areas of the store when maintenance isn’t there, all while their leadership has 30+ JDs to keep up with (and that’s at a small store), as well as ensuring our revolving door of new hires are being trained properly. Oh and provide tech support to the 55+ crowd who can’t figure out how to access their amazon app. Plus push the monthly push chocolate. I could go on and on. I get that other teams are focusing on production or throwing truck but this is mostly in the morning. How about you guys just answer your calls when we page at 9pm at night and your closers are snacking in the BOH, nowhere to be found while we try to field whole body questions as best as we can.

In order to improve customer service you would first need to do several weeks training for all team members 25 and under on multi tasking, work with a feeling of urgency, and no task or guest is beneath you. Do all tasks and for gosh sakes talk to all guests. No question or request is stupid. After this lengthy course of study you might have decent customer service team members. It is unfortunate that such a course is necessary, but seems very few hires now come equipped with just good old ....common sense.

Anybody else wondering why customer service gets to have multiple supervisors and atls while other teams have to make do with one TL and two ATL for two or even three teams? The least they could do is help out by learning the products in the store. or hey, maybe learn enough to answer customer questions on the phone instead of paging the TMS who are actually working? Or figure out that your job is more than just passing the buck and not getting upset when you are asked to handle something more than money.

While team members are facing products read the labels. There is so much info on product packaging. Learn about gluten free products and why people need them or all the terrific products you stock for diabetics. You could increase sales just by helping guests with special needs diets find those products. If you even care. If not, find a job that allows you to stand around and do nothing. Don’t waste other team members time doing your job and their job.

Please god let C.S. become facers! Face all freaking day when there's no lines. Learn about the product we sell and quit sending calls for the meat department to the bakery. At the very least learn about the product that is 2 feet from the c.s. desk. Every day I get called out of the office to locate a product the c.s. desk can literally reach without moving. I get that they aren't supposed to leave their posts but I really don't think they should be standing around with their thumbs up their butt either.

Here is an idea: instead of cutting hours for store support, which leads to long lines and frustrated customers (and btw, one form of excellent customer service? never having long lines at checkout and nevee ever having to wait for help at customer service), we should have the front end front and face grocery and help customers when it isn't busy. That way, they don't always need to cry for bagging help from already understaffed departments and, get this: the tms will learn about the products in the store.

Of course margin isn't everything. All I'm saying is salary is probably the smallest chunk of the expenses pie and good c.s. has more impact on $ brought in than any other bill we have to pay. Shrink is huge in our store. We get more liquor stolen than we sell. So it's not that big of an issue otherwise we'd actually do something about it. Just having a tm present would stop 90% of it. Theft doesn't stop specialty from comping and breaking records. We are well under shrink targets regardless. What stops sales is when there is no one on the floor who can talk about wine and cheese, the only TM that customers can find are the porter who knows nothing. The customer leaves without buying anything and never returns because he couldn't find a simple Merlot. Same with every department. I can count on one hand the TMs in our store who can find everything in every department, so if a customer actually finds a TM, the TM may not know anything in that department and if they find someone from that department they might not know either. As one of the most knowledgeable tms in the store I get frustrated because no one bothers asking anyone else for help they just go straight to me and I'm doing all the c.s. for the entire sales floor, my department or not. It's hard to accomplish anything on the admin side.

The pennies comment is spot on. There is a huge difference between product margin and the bottom line profit of a company. You have to add in salaries, rent, health care, liabilities, shrink, utilities, etc.
This is basic business economics here.

WF philosophy is ... if we tell you a product is premium and you see the price is much higher, you will believe it’s better than what other store are selling and buy it. Problem is...how do you explain the product has the exact same label in both stores. It’s a mind game. WF is king of mind games both with their customers and with team members. That’s also why team members get so frustrated and quit when they figure it out.

meant to say 44% in bulk

If by pennies on the dollar you mean 45 cents. Whole Foods margins are double every other grocer. Target margins in are 4% in bulk. At one point almond butter had a 75% margin. Go to any other grocery store and find almond butter @ $27 for 8 oz. Saying they will be lowering prices for years but every tag batch that comes down is increases. If some prices do drop, several others go up by twice the amount. Hey look our peanut butter is a $1 cheaper now (please don't notice Jelly and bread and milk went up $1.50 each). Conventional stores don't need customers service to sell cheap food. Whole Foods does because we mark sh– up hella. Local products especially get screwed.

The grocery business is ultra competitive. They make pennies for every dollar that goes through the register.

Raise labor and make more sales. 1 $15/hr TM is making less than 1200/month. A store making 80,000 a day open 14 hours /day makes $5700/hr. So in 12 minutes an entire months salary for 1 $15 TM is paid for. (I get this is oversimplified and there are other factors like rent and utilities but u get the point) The greed blinds them to the fact we'd make more $ with good c.s. and up-selling. Everyday I get people to buy things they never would have looked at. New Tms aren't even greeting customers. Many get frustrated and leave. Whole Foods is not most peoples main grocery store. The large majority of customers are 1st timers or very occasional shoppers that need help because they aren't familiar with the store. They are looking for specific niche things that other stores may not have.

We are over flooded with seniors or euopean expats in norcal with too many questions and not enough team members to keep the store full.

It was lost when WFM went self serve and most people know that they can it all somewhere else cheaper. If you really want good service go to Sac Nstural Co-op and probrably most Trader Joes / Sprouts BUT WFM still has the hottest pu–y shopping there.

I agree 100% that customer service could have/ would have/ hopefully still can be our differentiator, as it once was. $15/hr is great in many parts of the country... It's still barely sc-aping by, while having to live with roommates, in the pricier areas of the country. I have seen that customer service overall is still above and beyond in areas where the cost of living is much less than the higher priced coastal cities. It could be mid Atlantic, mid West, Southern hospitality, and I'm sure that plays a role. I think the pay in relation to cost of living really does attract better candidates in these regions. NY, CA offering $15/hr... That's going to attract people doing the bare minimum and can totally find that elsewhere to do less work.

People will gladly let customer service fall by the way side for low prices. Look how people flock to Walmart. Don’t care about customer service because they get low prices. WFM lost its edge when they let certified organic food vendors get pushed out of business. WFM has nothing that the masses want or need and Prime is no big deal. Actually it is more scam than anything.

Since the $15/hr minimum, we have bad applicants that are only applying because of the pay. It used to be that the people who applied had some interest in natural food. Now we have way more tms that don't give a sh–. It feels more and more like working at a normal big chain grocery store than ever before.

WHAT'S THAT?!?

They don't care about us, how hard they are over working us or how bad the guest service is. Just do it and do it all.

The only thing way wfm can compete with other grocery stores is by focusing on customer service. Every store sells the same products, so there has to be another reason for a person to leave the house to go inside a store. Okay, wfm does a great job with lighting and decor, but if they continue the race to the bottom by sacrificing customer service to the bottom line? Not having TMS on the floor who are knowledgeable and invested? All those pretty displays are just an empty shell signalling bs propaganda.

100. S. used to be amazing. Most old school Tms still try to c.s well. New hires are not taught that c.s is important at all and most fully ignore customers. So now C.S. at Whole Foods is very hit and miss. Customers are very frustrated. Add that to the fact that we have so little labor our Whole Body department (the department we most need good c.s. in) goes completely unstaffed for 9 hours a day. Soooo many lost sales because the labor budget is so low. High Dollar and margin too.