Have you ever played UNDERCOVER BOSS?

mask
During a trip to the opticians, BGA Andy Willcox bumped into some self-sabotage. Luckily, Andy didn’t make a spectacle of himself and is here to share how his visit made the process of customer service much more clear.
Just to be clear, I don’t mean exactly like the TV programme – donning plastic glasses with the built in plastic nose and moustache and putting on a Scottish accent, but have you ever sat in a shop or restaurant and pretended to be the owner, looking around and noting all of the things you would do differently?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t do this everywhere I go, only when I’m alerted to something a little less than satisfactory. This is exactly what happened when I accompanied Mrs W to an eye appointment at a very large chain of opticians. Her appointment was at 3.20pm and we arrived at the front desk at 3.10pm.
My Undercrover-Boss-Game-Playing senses started tingling when we were still stood there at 3.18pm without being seen by anyone, which is ironic for an opticians.
There were three members of staff in the shop; one lady, with cool glasses on, who was sat down dealing with a nice couple, as was the manager of the shop (not so cool glasses), and then there was the trainee.
His job was to follow the manager around wherever he went so the manager could pass on his wealth of optician related knowledge.
What amazed me was how the manager was showing the trainee all of the processes, like how to fill out a form and what button to press on the computer, but didn’t show him any training in customer care.
I counted 11 people walk into the shop and not one of them was greeted.
One couple were desperate to see someone – the lady even did that thing with the eyes, you know the meerkat thing? Where you extend your neck and widen your eyes towards the customer  assistant and by telekinesis they will feel you trying to get their attention? It didn’t work, they waited 5 minutes, never got eye contact and left.
Then, a guy came in to buy a glasses case only for £2.99 (yes I checked). At first I thought he was a shoplifter as he put them inside his coat pocket, however just as I was about to conduct a citizen’s arrest I realised he was trying them in his coat pocket for size. He waited six minutes to be served, whilst the trainee avoided eye contact.
Another chap walked in, the manager saw him and said “Oh, you’ve come back to pick up your glasses haven’t you? I’ve only done one lens, I’ll have to pop upstairs and do it now” and leaves the guy stood there.
Trainee didn’t know what to do, looked at the ground and went to stand next to the lady assistant.
More people come and go unnoticed. There’s a ‘help yourself’ coffee machine, I later found out. Now in my Undercover Boss mode this is what I would have done. Yes it’s important for the trainee to know the processes but there ain’t no point knowing them if you haven’t got any customers to process!
The manager should have shown him the importance of greeting people, serving people, offering customers who came in to collect glasses coffee, making eye contact with customers. It’s down to you as the business owner or manager to teach your staff about customer care. It should be one of the first things you teach them.
To top the day off, Mrs W was told by the optician that she’d been wearing the wrong contact lenses, prescribed by them last year, and has probably damaged her eye.
The wife’s a bit calmer than me and demanded a few months free lenses for the inconvenience, (I would have demanded a lawyer) to which she was told “We can’t do anything like that I’m afraid”. But the optician knew exactly what form to fill out on the computer.
To continue my game I walked over to the Apple store when we left the opticians and timed how long it took for someone to approach me.
32 seconds.