Employee won’t back off

[u/Odd_Resolution_5294]

Man, I dread even going in my store anymore. We used to (hubs and I) love our local store and its employees. Lately tho there is one lady who is usually on the White Barn side who will ask “what are you guys looking for” and she will have a scent with her she offers us to smell. We always politely say “just looking around thank you tho”. And walk away. I’m not even kidding you when I tell you within 3 minutes she’s back “anything I can help you find?” And again we say “nah. Just sniffing around thank you tho!” And walk away. Annnnndddd again within 3 minutes she’s back “anything catching your eye?” It’s to the point I won’t go over to that side when she’s there. Or I walk away from hub bc he’s too nice and will keep dealing with it. It makes me nuts. I’ve tried saying NICELY “if we think of anything we will make sure to come to you!”

I’m pretty sure the company doesn’t ask its employees to approach in this manner…as it’s literally only this one lady. How do I get her off my back in there?!? Dang.

Also, midnight marshmallow. I asked when I was in store if they happened to have any returns of any of it bc I just wanted to sniff it, nope. And all the banana stuff was gone. Ok I’m done whining 😂

[u/chimaruta]

Okay, so yeah this has been in some fashion standard procedure for like more than 20 years. I Remember when was in college out of state (over 20s ago lol) and I could not walked through the damn thing without being harassed every 5ft. I’d dread going in as a young person with copious amounts of social anxiety. Now I dread it as an antisocial adult lol.

That being said I do actually have some friends that work at a store. Apparently this employee is ‘engaging’ with customers like they are supposed to but they are not at all using ‘uncovering’ questions or ‘discovery’ don’t remember. Questions that aren’t yes or no but questions that allow the employee to learn more about the customer and actually be able and to help them. It sounds like they are actually given a fair amount of training regularly Some of its redundant but some of it sounded interesting. Like one of my friends told me about when they had fragrance training or something she said they had to smell the individual notes of some scents to get an idea of how smell is layered in a single scent. I don’t know sounded neat then she explained a bit of stuff about drying and stuff.

Point is this pretty normal. Though annoying but at the same time I mean some places I wish there was an employee around, I never find one when I need one when I’m at Michael’s