department supervisor

Future Shop

Starting off as a seasonal, the job quickly changed as I grew into the position. Not planning to take this job anymore seriously than a summer job while I was in university, I managed to maintain my position as a PT employee. 

The pros are you get good sales experience, if you are outgoing you'll meet friends, and you get a decent pay as well as an employee discount. Probably one of the more well respected jobs as a part-time employee in university or college. 

The cons however play a strong role, as depending on your person, you may get bogged down during periods of the year (boxing day, slow periods, and frequent structure changes). Starting off (and throughout) the job you will be harassed by managers, your relationship with management becomes conditional on the basis of your sale quality and quantity as well as any other new factor they throw into the equation. While it is a delightful and reasonable challenge to improve your abilities as a sales person, these demands become unrealistic (because of unreachable goals due to lack of foot volume, or demand in the store). Customer report is only as powerful as the amount of money in services and warranties that went into the sale. In order to make the company happy and keep management off your back may mean selling unsuspecting victims a monthly plan that ends of costing twice the price of the technology they purchased it for. Lastly, if you are not brainwashed easily by a repetitive managerial effort to convince you that the service plan they charge the customer twice the price on is worth it, you may be in for a rough ride. 

While the job provides a decent pay and a fun work environment with lots to learn, the pressures of the job help push you away after several months to a year working there. Although it is wonderful getting customers you can relate to or help educate, Future Shop is one of those stores where the repetition of some customers will nearly kill you ("I guess you can call me a dinosaur!", "Can I get a hand over here!?!", "Do you do deals?" , "Any discounts?"). When the money is good, and the sales are there, its very easy to get lost on the train, but when you start getting returns and the profits start to fall, you can see the exit sign flashing, urging you to get out.

Depending on the day, different tasks will be required for me to do.  If I am opening the store, I will need to do the opening procedures (count tills, print out morning reports, etc.).  Throughout the day, all kinds of things are thrown at me.  Being a member of the customer service team, the main part of my job is dealing with returns.  There are certain decisions that I have to make based on what the customer tells me, and at times I have to choose to between good customer service (siding with the customer) and making our store's number's look good (politely telling them they're wrong), the latter of which I'd rather not do, but more recently have been told to do.  I'd say the hardest part of my job is when you get the kind of customer that just cannot be pleased.  Everything is your fault specifically, and even if you give them everything they ask for, they still wanna spit in your face.  Just really gets to you, drains your energy.  I've learned in this job that being patient with both the customer and coworkers works in your favor about 97% of the time.  With the other 3% you just have to smile and try to understand their point of view.

When I first started this job, it was awesome.  Amazing team that worked so well together, pretty good management team that was supportive.  Lunch room with a tv and free coffee.  Benefits even for part timers.  Recently though,  Future Shop Inc had to do some reformatting of the way they run things from store to store, and a lot of my coworkers and a few managers got laid off.  Now, I completely understand why they needed to do this and how it could help.  Unfortunately,  my store has left the wrong people in management.  With the current management, I just feel that things in the store aren't run very well, and I am looked down upon with such scorn.  Everything I do seems to be wrong in some way, and I do not feel comfortable talking to my manager.  In my opinion, a manager is someone who should be the glue holding a team together,  not the thing that's tearing it apart.

I do believe you are refering to "Future Shop/Best Buy"? If so, I worked for Future Shop in Saskatchewan as a temporary "Product Expert" in the appliance division in the store during the Christmas Seasons. I did have another job at the time but I would have loved to stay with the team in SK as they were so friendly and fun to work for- and with!
Coming home to the Maritimes, I applied at FS here in Sydney, NS. I found their morals and values towards their employees and especially towards their customers totally unexceptable! I had a very good reference from the Sask. store, but for some reason (in which they never did tell me why, and trust me I did ask numerous times) they "dismissed" me and I had to fight right up to H.O. in BC for my EARNED WAGES!
I am not trying to cause any harm to this store what-so-ever...but I do have 15 yrs of management experience and I am now a valued employee for another major " anchor store" in the mall, but I would much rather be a Future Shop/Best Buy employee....without the current management. (actually it was just two people who just did not want to or like to deal with customer complaints and obviously a personality clash....but yet I know have 500 preffered clients in my departement's clientele list and raised sales 304% (I do have proof of this). If I was in their shoes-I would NOT have any problems dealing with any type of customer complaint, as I saw how they handled it in Sask. (and also from my own experience)....As I mentioned, I have 15 plus yrs. experience in management and with this store here, you really can tell these people are very "remote" to their location and do not feel as they should to improve the quality of their relations and customer satisfaction as they did in Saskatchewan. I wish I could've done so much more for this store as it has so much more potential than it has now...

From an untrusting, and a lost customer and valued employee)
LM

Working with Future Shop was an excellent experience and treated me very well for quite some time. It is a fast paced sales floor that really keeps you on your feet.

I held a roll as a Product Expert and a typical day included :
     - Maintaining a World Class standard in Merchandising 
     - Training and remaining current with our products
     - Training customer service and sales techniques
     - Hitting sales targets and various attachment percentages

The stores generally have a complex layering of management with each of them responsible for a direct area, although most are cross trained and able to support anyone within their role. Future Shop also has a diverse range of employees. The greatest percentage would be in the 20-25 years old range with many of them being students, however there is a group of long term career minded individuals within the sales areas. 

As with most jobs the environment had many perks as well as a few issues that always weighed on my mind. In the end I always seen the perks as the winner as it worked for my lifestyle at the time. The biggest perk in my eyes was the commission system. Having direct control over my work ethic I was able in effect my own pay cheque and this outweighed many of the side issues I had with the position. Leaving the company I have left behind a family that I will dearly miss. Arriving to work each day and bonding with my team mates of which were all like minded individuals will always be a positive memory for me.

As a sales associate, part-time or full-time, you're really able to do anything - you can make as much money as you wish (depending on how many sales you achieve in a pay period) since it is base hourly pay PLUS commission. If you do not wish to drive sales, you can sit back and enjoy a casual workplace with your base hourly pay. You have free roam of the entire store and can even make commission on items out of your department.

You are presented sales goals for the sale of additional warranties and services offered by Future Shop (Product Service Plan, Replacement Plan, Total Protection Plan, Future Shop Card, FutureGuard, Connect Pro Installation Services) but it is relatively easy to make the goals. Company provides many contests and events for their employees which can make it both a very interesting, engaging and fun place to work.

However, if you are a cashier or a customer service representative (not including customer service specialists), you are not given a 15 minute break regardless of your shift (you are given a lunch only for 8 hour shifts) "as business permits". Merchandisers and cashiers are somehow looked down upon by sales associates and must work harder to earn additional commission pay. Harrassment in this situation from sales positions to cashiers/merchandising is very common and almost always forgotten by management if brought to their attention.

- A typical day at work would start with a very positive attitude as you enter the work place. The sales cycle would typically start with approaching a customer, greeting the customer, professional self-introduction, understanding the customer by asking life style questions including questions on usage, who would be using the products, the lighting environment in the viewing area etc.., explaining the different product options and technologies involved, recommending the right product given the customer's needs and requirements, ensure complete solution and customer satisfaction and finally providing customer with excellent after sales support and service.
- The job gave great insight into time management, perseverance, honing customer negotiating skills, problem solving techniques, understanding customer trends better, sales closing techniques.
- The management and co-workers were very supportive and worked as a team to achieve department and store sales targets and company objectives. 
- The job experience has been consistently motivating, part of "have  fun while being the best" attitude which made even the hardest situation while on the sale floor fun to deal with and with full professionalism involved. The most enjoyable part of the job was achieving full satisfaction in knowing that the customer not only got the best deal possible with the right products but also well taken care of in terms of excellent after sales support consistent with "customer for life" iideology.

A typical day at work: 

Good traffic flow, not always busy but we tend to meet the target of the day. Everybody tries to work together to maintain a professional and friendly environment for our customers.

What I learned:

I learned that there will be customers who are not in a good mood and we must, no matter what, provide good customer service. By being a good listener, and being able to be empathetic when given a situation where a customer is unhappy, or not in a good mood. As well, we always have to give our 100% when helping customers find what they want. 

Management:

The management team is very well organized with scheduling, and in making sure that everyone has a fair amount of working hours. As well, there is monthly training that helps those that want to learn more. 

Co-workers:

They welcomed me with open arms. They assisted me whenever there would be a line-up. As well, they trained me very well, and still continued to help me when I had questions.

The hardest part of the job:

Personally, there is no such thing as "hardest part" in the work environment because I believe that it's only hard if you make it hard for yourself. You have to know yourself, and how to handle situations properly and professionally. There is always a solution to a problem.

The most enjoyable part of the job:

The most enjoyable part of the job is honestly meeting new people. I enjoy socializing and listening to how people's days are when I am able to. As well, making people smile, make me happy because I enjoy enlightening people's moods.

A typical day revolved around one thing; the customers.  It is a Product Expert's job to dust, face, tag, and ensure every product was available and easily accessible for any customers who walked in.  Being a commission salesperson also means you must be trained in a variety of products and be able to close sales. 

I learned many things at Futureshop, namely, how to approach difficult situations and work them out to find a solution.  I also learned the ins and outs of the accounting and marketing of the company.

The management is normally only top salespeople, and sometimes lack leadership qualities.  Nevertheless, many of them are great at what they do.

The coworkers are an integral part of the company.  It was a family atmosphere, and most people will do anything to help each other out.

The hardest part of the job for me personally was being the translator for most of the store.  Out of a staff of 80+ people, there were only 3 of us who could speak French, and with Laurentian Univeristy and College Boréal in Sudbury, there were many customers who could only speak French.  They would take me away from those I was helping, and ask me to translate for someone else.

The most enjoyable part of the job were the people.  I made many best friends there, and many of the customers I interacted with would leave you smiling.

A typical day at work was fairly simple, clock in 10 minutes early, get your equipment together by signing out a box with all your needed tools (scanner, tape, zipties, pen) and wait for our team lead and supervisor to begin our pre-shift meeting.

I learned the importance of being punctual. I learned how to better pay attention to detail as a single mistake could result in up to 6 stores not receiving the right products. It was a much more strict in comparison to my past job.

Management was.. well management. They were very helpful and understood that the job couldn't always be done perfectly so it wasn't overbearing. It made you really want to work hard while you were there.

I wasn't there very long at all so I didn't have much interaction with co-workers, they all had their groups, people they were familiar with so I didn't mingle very much. When I did however it was very enjoyable and it made me feel very welcome, it helped me look forward to going into work a bit more

The hardest part about the job was staying completely focused and not cutting any corners. The repeated scanning often got boring and not being thorough was a very easy pattern to slip into.

The most enjoyable part of the job was going home to my family knowing I did my job well and also being able to look forward to going back to work the next day

My day was always different because working in sales brings new challenges and rewards every day, you don't know what to expect and that makes the job exciting. 
I didn't learn a whole lot in the way of the sales end as I have been working in customer service and sales for over 10 years, however I learned the system and how merchandise was ordered and what the expectations were of myself as an employee. 
Management was awesome especially the floor Manager who I worked with most, he knew how to get things done, help when needed but most importantly he had a sense of humor which I think is really sad when a person lacks that. He took his job seriously but he knew when the appropriate time was to joke around, it makes work environments much more positive.
The most difficult part of the job was dealing with an irate customer that is completely rude and disrespectful as it can bring your moral down and affect the rest of your day if you allow it to. I've learned to let it roll of my back but there is still times that you can be made to feel really horrible about your ability to do your job because of what someone says to you.
The most enjoyable part of the job was interacting with as many people as possible and closing sale after sale, commission was great and it definitely drives one to go the extra mile.




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