LFS Listening to customers?????

[spirals]

Something that gets under my skin equally as much is customers who refuse to believe you about some things. I mean, I understand that sometimes people offer bad advice or just plain wrong advice, but one would assume that when a lfs employee is offering advice which is resulting in not selling a fish, they had some idea of what they are doing. Mostly I'm just ranting about a customer who bought 6 sunburst platys and a snail today to put in their 10G tank which had been set up for 4 days....sigh...I tried to explain cycling, and how adding that many fish so soon would just be a horrible mess, but "my 5 year old son wants these fish so badly", unfortunately for me my stupid manager was working so the best I could do was take away the 14-day and pray for those poor fish. But yeah, I just see way too many people who will go out of their way to get information from store employees but never think to get another source, and then complain that the employee was wrong about something. The worst is with the turtles though...poor little turtles
Plus a lot of knowledge is just so dependent on time and experience that it would be hard to expect newer employees to just instantly know everything about every fish/ animal in the store. Try to keep in mind that the employee's in the bigger pet stores (petsmart, petco, etc) also have to know about the small animals and the reptiles. So we have a general knowledge of the a whole bunch of very strange animals, and not specific knowledge of one exact fish.
-kristi

 

[Firebelly__girl]

How about they have a general species test to make a requirement to work at pet stores? Sike but if all petstores invested in ACCURATE care sheets to pull out and go through with the customer it would be great. The worst thing most petstores do is selling 4inch common plecos to clueless people wanting an algea eater to clean up the tank =)

 

[chris331]

i tottally agree w/ spirals... customers always think we have an agenda to sell them stuff or that we're just mean people trying to ruin your fun... or they ask for advice and ignore you when the answer you give isn't what they wanted to hear... and all of a sudden they become the experts...

and no, you cant have a general test... it seems like everyone expects experts to just want to work for 7 or 8 at a pet store... who wants to work for that? kids... many times kids who want to learn, but aren't straight up experts... it takes time to learn, and sometimes people learn the hard way.

i know i can't say that you shouldn't ask for advise at stores, but it helps to go in knowing a little about what you're getting into... most of us try our best to help our customers out, but there is a line... most people want us to have a magic wand that will fix everything.

eh, i'm done ranting... i think we've exhausted this topic. lol.

 

[Hooked Newbie]

Chris- You're right, we should do more research before, but like alot of others I didn't. In my case I relied on the "professional" in the store and received the following advice...

That Penguin 150 should be plenty for a 29 gallon tank... just be sure to run the filter for 48 hours before adding fish... 1-2" of fish per gallon is fine... and my favorite... "I know it says up to 12", but they usually only get to be 4-5" (referring to a common pleco).

I believe there is fault on both sides, consumer and employee. I accept mine. When will the big chains take responsibility for their's?

You and Spirals are the exception, not the rule by any means. I'm not asking for in depth species knowledge, but at least know the basics of the Nitrogen cycle if you're working aquatics...

Needless to say, the only things I buy from your stores now are inanimate.