Target — Local services in Bessemer

Note: I’ve lived in this area my whole life and have been a loyal shopper since this Target location first opened.

That said, the manager at this store has a serious attitude problem. About a week ago, I visited the Target in Bessemer/McCalla, AL, to purchase a couple of 5-tier bookshelves.

I specifically came for those shelves that day. When I got to the aisle, I noticed a yellow clearance tag on the shelf showing the price as $28 (down from the regular $40). There were only two left — which was fine with me. The store has been undergoing major renovations, and many aisles are hard to navigate, so I snapped a photo of the shelf and headed to checkout. I knew my husband would be happy we caught a small deal. I was excited.

At self-checkout, the shelves rang up at full price. No big deal — I’ve worked in retail all my adult life and understand that mistakes happen. I asked for assistance, and the cashier came over. She said she couldn’t adjust the price and that a manager would need to handle it. Fair enough. But instead of calling the manager to the register, she told me to leave the line and speak to them myself. That was inconvenient — especially with a line behind me — but I didn’t complain and did as she asked.

When I approached the manager, she already looked annoyed and clearly didn’t want to be bothered. I explained the situation, and she immediately rolled her eyes and sighed. “There’s no clearance tag on the box… it’s a new thing — there has to be a sticker on the item or it doesn’t count,” she said. I told her the clearance tag was on the shelf, advertising the price for all the items. None of the boxes had stickers — only the shelf did. She insisted that if the sticker wasn’t on the box, the clearance price wouldn’t be honored.

So I asked, “Just to clarify — the item is marked on the shelf as clearance, and you’re not going to honor that price?” Her eyes literally lit up as she replied, “Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.” I asked again, “Just so I’m hearing this correctly — you’re telling me you’re not going to honor the price that’s clearly displayed on the shelf?” She repeated, “Yes ma’am, you’ll have to pay full price.”

I showed her the photo I had taken of the shelf. She zoomed in and said, “That doesn’t belong there.” Okay — but it was there. Y’all put it there. And instead of helping me further, she walked off to remove the clearance tag from the shelf — and still didn’t give me the price it was marked at.

I had to get back in line and go through the entire checkout process again. Kind of ridiculous and really inconvenient.

I usually shop at Target at least three times a week. Since this happened, I’ve actually started going out of my way to drive an extra 20 minutes to the Hoover location. Much...

My experience with my Target's customer service was near spot on today-minus one flaw... I ran into Target today to grab a quick birthday gift. Upon entering, an immediate warm welcome from a target team member. I overheard another employee offering handicap assistance. I love my target. This is going to be a good day. Although this target doesn't seem to get as much traffic volume as the other Target's I have shopped; there is always ample staff around every corner to assist any need you might have. I quickly grabbed the birthday present and ended up grabbing a few other items not anticipated... as I exited the aisle. Sure enough, another staff member was pushing an empty cart. He knew I was going to need it before I did, handed it right to me as if I'd asked for it myself. This is an example of a textbook experience that I would imagine Target aims to provide guests with each time. And this is where it went wrong, when it came time to check out I had only two options. The same two options everyone had in a not so busy day at my store. As I mentioned before, although the customer volume doesn't appear as high as other Target's, staff team is always packed and ready to help except for finalizing my shopping experience with only 2 of the checkout lanes open. Two out of all of those unmanned cash registers- creating a bottle neck effect. Mind you, the bottle neck was not due to lack of promptness and efficiency of the cashiers, but due to the availability of cashiers to help those of us in line. It seems as though there could be a better system set up to allocate more cashiers as needed. Especially when other team members notice our frustrations of being caught in a standstill waiting to check out. All because, (I'm assuming) the apparent lower volume of customers. Again, this is an assumption. :) but, can something not be done to provide more self check out lanes or cashiers on hand? When you leave a business with a bad taste it doesn't matter how sweet the beginning and middle of your visit was. The bad taste is what's left behind. I love my target and I wanted to share constructive criticism from the customer...

It’s 2pm and there is not 1 single cashier/line open. First problem! Secondly we encounter a female black worker that is “monitoring” self checkout that isn’t paying attention nor acknowledging us. I walk up to get the ok to go to a self checkout spot. Keep in mind some take cash and some only take card and don’t give cash back. Her head is down in her phone so after about 10 seconds I had to say “excuse me” do I just go to either one and she looks up and say yeah. So I get to a register and it says it only accepts cards and does not give cash back. Hmmm. So what if I needed to use cash? There was an elderly lady that had to get her attention for more than one question and her demeanor was super dry with that. She didn’t acknowledge her when she walked up neither. The lady just looked unsure but made the Dec to come to the register next to me. It’s bad enough that we are forced to do their job with checking ourselves out and you guys expect us to just know even though the majority of us wing it. I feel the elderly should not have to do this. I feel we all should have an option of wether we want to use self checkout or get in a line to be checked up. The worker was on her phone the entire time I was there talking to some one about an Xbox gaming system when her attention should have been on making sure our checkout process was smooth. It didn’t used to be like this and it’s unfair to the consumers. We don’t want to do their job. Imagine coming to the emergency room and the medical workers stand there and you gotta take your own blood pressure or temp. She lack quality customer service skills and she shouldn’t be in the front if she is not going to speak, be welcoming and take initiative to see that we are...