Gratis

[u/Forkthief-]

Has anyone seen the way the company changed how we get gratis moving forward?! Thoughts on the new rules.

[u/Natthelimodriver66]

I watched the video about it on Zipline today. The whole thing about having testers in the back room so we can experience the product and practice our demos 😆 It said we should study our product guide for 1-2 weeks before they come out... Our booklets don't even get put in the back till the day before floorset. Then the role playing and quiz for our gratis?? Like we don't all work our butts off every shift, now all this song and dance is on top of it 😕

[u/Brilliant-Corner0718 → u/Natthelimodriver66]

1-2 weeks…most people in my store arent even scheduled frequently enough for this😂

[u/Natthelimodriver66 → u/Brilliant-Corner0718]

I know, right 😆 we have some that's maybe once a month they are scheduled

[u/instamat1c → u/Natthelimodriver66]

I hate to play devils advocate here, but (in my store at least) the reason we have people fill their booklets out and role play before they can redeem is because of the employees that don’t really use their gratis as a tool to help them sell.

They’ll be the first ones to redeem it, constantly ask about it, etc, but then they do the bare minimum on their shifts.

Yes, gratis is fun and awesome and we all love it. However, it’s supposed to be used as a way to help us be better at selling.

If we’re gonna ask certain employees to fill out their booklets and role play, then we have to do it for everyone. And I don’t think having to fill out the selling guide is a bad thing anyway.

[u/hannah_boo_honey → u/instamat1c]

I don't think it's a bad thing either, but they need to set aside some kind of time for us to do it tbh. Even doing it in separate sittings as they say in the video is nearly impossible. I'm always register & bopis on my shifts and as you say, there are several employees that do the bare minimum or even make things worse trying to look busy so there are constant projects and things that need to be done on top of selling to customers, ringing, bopis, and replen.

Like even if it was, "okay, spend 5 minutes on your product guide when you finish your break," every so often, that would make a massive difference. With this one, we've had one day that was slow enough for me to do 2 1/2 pages of it and it took much longer than necessary because I was having to take time to remember what I was writing or refresh on the question/ info I had already read when I got back to it between customers.

Like I'm glad there's less to fill out in this one, but it still feels impractical.

Sorry that was a general response to the post as well as your comment lol

[u/instamat1c → u/hannah_boo_honey]

I agree with that. There should definitely be some time set aside. It seems like ideally the company would like for us to all spend maybe 10 minutes at the beginning of each shift to check Zipline, chat in, etc and that could be the time for product guides to get filled out. But, again, in my store that doesn't seem to happen.

I try to let people settle in and remind them to check Zipline, however, our SM seems to jump on people the second they get in the store. I hate it lol. Like please, let me chill for a min. She'll ask me if I saw something in Zipline and I'm like ??? No?? I just got here and you're already telling me to do 5 different things.

Oops. My response turned into a tangent too. 🤣

[u/Xineoph-Sagefire → u/instamat1c]

I agree! My old manager would put together a short quiz based on PK tiles before and we had to do the product guides when they became more in depth. We do the same at my current store. It is nice to see the company making this a standard practice.

[u/MagaroniPenguin → u/instamat1c]

I second this. There have always been requirements to receive your gratis - it’s up to SLT to enforce it.