Books-A-Million reviews

If you have worked any retail job, you are aware that an associate position will come with many negative experiences with customers. That is par for the course for any customer service position. However, this company has severely restricted the capabilities of the sales associates, meaning that the likelihood of the customer becoming upset is increased. The store’s prices are higher than the prices on the Books A Million website. This means that you will often have to tell customers that, in fact, you do not match the prices of your own website. As a sales associate, you will not be able to perform a return; you will need a manager. Returns themselves are laborious processes that can take up to ten minutes to complete; and you are required to take down all the personal information of the customer, including their street address. Needless to say, many people do not wish their personal information to be taken down by every store they visit. As for the expectations of the job itself, to begin with, you are required to sell a barely-worth it $25 membership card to customers, as well as a set of three magazine subscriptions disguised as a risk-free trial offer (the intent for which is clear; the customer will forget to cancel their subscription and will be quietly billed without notification). Despite receiving minimal training for this, it became clear very early that this was the MOST important part of this position. The store operates on a week-to-week goal for membership cards/magazine subscriptions, and because of this, there is a constant threat of the store not reaching its goal — a PERPETUAL, unending crisis. The management, who all appear frightened by their overseers, are forced to reinvent their strategies for selling these magazine subscriptions (which are then translated into uninspiring pep-talks to the sales associates), as if it is their fault that customers do NOT WANT these magazines. The bulk of the magazine subscriptions our store made were when teenagers would use their parents’ credit card to buy something — and fall for the “free magazines” pitch. Many angry phone calls have been received by parents who found bank charges after letting their child use their card at Books A Million. Despite this constant pressure to perform as a salesman, this is a minimum wage position. Your “commission” for selling membership cards and magazine subscriptions are as follows: .16 cents per magazine, and .50 cents per membership card (no extra commission for convincing the customer to enroll in an automatic-renewal for their membership). If you think this sounds low, it’s because it is, and most of the time you won’t receive it, as your commission is reliant on THE ENTIRE STORE reaching its goal. Yes, that means that if you manage to reach, or even exceed, all of your sales goals for the week, you will most likely not receive any commission because the other sales associates haven’t met their goals. As a top performing salesman at my store, I sold at least 5 times as many subscription cards and magazines as my coworkers, and still rarely received any commission. Also, being a top performer, I was often expected by management to carry the entire store in order to reach its goal. And on the off chance that I had a day in which my numbers were lower, I was asked to explain why I didn’t sell as many membership cards and magazine subscriptions as usual (most often in a scolding or whiny tone). These are petty guilt trips, plain and simple.

Long hours for little pay. Just like any other retail position. Except we are also required to be salesmen constantly pushing discount cards over and over. Getting called out on the radio and having reports printed out right in front of us at the register. Giving unneeded and unnecessary stress to an already stressful job. If management begins to see your card sales are lacking they will begin to cut hours drastically. I've seen some good employees get cut from 28 to 14 hours because of this. employees who have made strong connections with customers and actually had them coming back and generating business. I had to explain to these customers the many times they came in as they looked on with confused faces that Associate 'SoAndSo' wasn't in today and they'd reply that they hadn't seen them in a while. It got to the point were we where told in groups by management that if card sales did not go up the offenders would be fired. When I left it had gotten so bad that there was peer pressure between associates and a growing resentment between staff and management. Those who where bad at selling cards would already start their shift anxious and stressed while those who are good sellers know that they will have to carry the store throughout the day to keep management off our backs. Who are then scratching their heads as to why they have 4 employees quit in 2 weeks time, some not even giving 2 weeks notice, or the good sellers end up being fired/transferred because of shady business practices to meet their sales goal. New hires are called in the same day for orientation, unaware of the long nights of anxiety and ridicule they are signing up for, and they cycle continues. Need to mention we also given a bonus at the end of the week if we meet our weekly card goal. During my near half a year there I've only seen that happen twice. It is a joke at 8 dollars and hour to see maybe 7-10 dollars added to the end of my paycheck. Not really worth the effort if my job wasn't threatened. Customer service seems to be the last thing on the list for the majority of the store, second was recovery, and first was always the card! And if it wasn't about the card directly it would be brought right back around to it. Customer service was supposed to lead to a card recommendation, instead of just being friendly and helping the customer, we were also encouraged to go on about the 10% off and 'Oh we can get you free shipping online' etc. More often then not this would lead to an irritated customer who would then get further irritated at checkout as the bookseller up there would desperately try and push the card. I've had many customers display anger at this constant badgering as it is both annoying for repeat customers who aren't interested and the usual walk-in who just wants to get in and out fast. Huge lines are made due to the sales pitches we have to make, another common complaint I get when they finally get to me at the register. Overall no-one envies those stuck with a register. Management for the most part stays in the back office, only coming out to authorize returns. Of the few rare time's I've seen them with a till they themselves go against their own warnings and teachings. I.E. not asking every customer if they have a card, not pushing it three times, not going over everything etc. Of course they're not going to get called out of the radio, or corrected, or have their hours cut. Cafe is not much better. Few associates are trained to work shifts there, and we are STILL required to sell cards as well as maintain the large cafe lounge, and open/close on our own regardless if another barista is on staff to help make things easier. You will often find yourself at the end of your ship scrambling to get everything done within the last hour of your shift. Last bit about the cards: We are still, even if we do our job as salesmen correctly, setting ourselves up for failure as corporate wants at least near half of all discount cards sold to have auto renewal effectively making our ability to score that customer when they come back as a renew(and therefore a new card) moot and hurting our weekly card sales goal. For every card with auto renewal we sell the day before, we are expected to get the same amount if not more the next day. There are only so many cards we can sell at once, let alone without the customers who are already members with auto renew being locked out from us. Give your associates a break! Members sales still count towards your card percentage, you are still expected to meet your sales goal regardless of if you have 50 customers with auto-renew and 2 who have no card but didn't sign up.