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Dear God I hope this isn’t how EB Games trains its staff.
I don’t even know what to say. This is unreal. Too real even.
It’s the latest video by Big Head Mode and — despite the fact their quality barometer is super high — this is their best effort yet.
Seriously, this team is world class. Someone give them a TV show or something.
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Ha! Training! That’s rich. No, you just do it right the first time or get yelled at and have your hours cut until you give up and make room for the next person.
Yeah – in the very very little time i spent at EB (4 shifts, i think) I didn’t receive ANY training… Just basically “just do it”
It’s like the place was run by shia lebouf
In some cases receiving no training is better than receiving training from my experience 😛 Saying that my manager was awesome, my mates manager fucking hell, she was bad..
Lol I was there for years and I can’t remember any “training” as it would exist for any other job.
I like the little touches… like the single frame of a… demon? at 1:33 when he’s talking about midnight launches.
Hey Mark, any follow-up to/fallout from that article a little while ago exposing EB’s terrible practices?
I’m assuming it’s mostly just the legal equivalent of sticking their fingers in their ears and yelling “NA NA NA NOT LISTENING”
Post on a post to EB’s Fb says that ZERO action was to be taken after their “internal investigation”.
It’d be nice to see Kotaku step up a little and apply some more pressure, considering how many other EB’s employees also came out and said they’d been treated poorly.
I rarely shop there anymore, but sadly there is little choice for physical retail of games. Would be good if they could clean up their act a little.
Damn I don’t remember this part of my training. I might’ve done better with this amazing educational video damn it!
Heh, its interesting seeing how games companies work now. When I worked for Games R Us in Brisbane, they were seriously fantastic to work for. the KPI’s were reasonable (make more in profit than you cost each week to pay basically, this wasn’t hard *at all* to do, infact you’d practically have to be sleeping not to do it) and work hard around the store tidying, be pleasant and create a welcoming atmosphere.
Now, I see most of that’s gone by the wayside and it’s all about attached sales, preorders etc.
Glad I had the experience in game retail when it was ALL about the games and customer service…
I never could wrap my head around this whole sales pressure work environment thing. I understand the reality of you needing to make more than you cost, but how can you, as an employee, create sales? People generally know what they want and whether or not they are going to buy something. You can’t somehow get more people through the door from behind a counter. When did it become ok to make the whims and wants of customers the responsibility of the store staff?
If the company is doing their job right, the sales should be making themselves, and all the checkout staff is there for is to facilitate said sale.
Not really dude, by that right you could have a self checkout aisle like coles and have no need for sales staff at all.
If a company is ‘doing their job right’, they’re providing knowledgable sales staff to give genuine, quality assistance when needed, not harassment. The reason I and a few other GRU members were so succesful and had repeat customers coming back for us specifically, was we took the time to talk to people, find out what they liked and could, in those days point them to the new games coming out etc. The videogame environment back then was *DRASTICALLY* different to now. A preorder was unheard of.
But good sales staff can make all the difference, while someone completely knowledged in videogames knows what they need, a sales member NOT being pushed by ridiculous KPI’s and being actually employed to give quality assistance, can advise for instance, if a game will run, what the content the game has, what age groups it’s suitable for etc. One example is when I used to sell The Sims part 1 to people, I believe it was M15+? People would ask all about it, I had played it extensively, I informed them of all the fun things you can do, even including the ‘woohooing’ and the censored nudity, the gay couples options etc. A lot of people didn’t know about this and found it interesting and refreshing.
When did it become ok to make the whims and wants of customers the responsibility of the store staff?
When you opened a store and decided you wanted to last longer than a day.
You don’t want a once off customer, you want repeat business by providing quality customer service and a friendly, informative atmosphere. People go back to shops they like, they even prefer to deal specifically with sales staff they get along with, that they prefer for whatever reason. Hence why I had a plethora of regs (and my manager Reubin had half of Brisbane asking for him every day).
Though people like to bitch and whine who work in retail, the simple fact is, the customer is always right. However, that doesn’t mean the customer can’t be ‘more informed’ to make a more ‘right’ decision. If you let your ego get in the way and try to be ‘the sales member who tells customers they’re wrong all the time’ and believe me, they’re a dime a million, you won’t last long.
But I digress, you can create sales, you can sway peoples minds by making them more confident in something (without lying to them), make them more informed and make them feel their decision is ultimately their own, just with a little input from you. That all goes in as part and parcel of what a good sales rep does.
A bad sales rep asks you if you wanna preorder a ****ing game, if you want scratch protection, if you have games to trade, if you have this, if you have that, if you need a backrub for 500 dollars blah blah. That’s not customer service, that’s just upselling random bullshit and people like myself who took pride in their retail work despise that sort of thing.
I remember my brother got a job a Roger David for a week after he left. Their sales target requirements were so strict that you had to force customers to take in multiple items of clothing to the dressing room, even, they recommended, handing stuff over the top of the door to them. They also had to effectively harass the customer within 30 seconds of entering the store to keep them there and get them buying.
If you couple that framework with an idiot manager who doesn’t have the initiative to realise sometimes you shouldn’t be doing things by the book, it can create a terrible environment for staff and customers. I personally don’t go into any EB or Roger David because of this exact type of “customer service”.
It definitely does happen. In a best case scenario like the one you’re talking about, you’re given the freedom to approach the “you need to make sales” problem in an organic and effective way. In the all too common scenario however, you have desperate staff suffocating customers with phony attention and managers forcing them to do so.
Btw those scratch warranties aren’t exactly bs. You wouldn’t believe how many parents have kids that play frisbee with their discs. Re. trading it really depends… If you are on here then chances are you aren’t gonna trade in an old console, but plenty of people are never going to use their ps3 once they get a ps4, so why shouldn’t they trade??
Regarding preorders….yeah I kinda agree. Still there are things like Art Books that make preordering a game worthwhile to me.
Yeah I actually got my PS4 for -$150 because I traded in all the games from the previous generation I knew I’d never play again. To JB of course, not to EB. Never to EB.
Oh god the preorders. I have all the Amiibos preordered, since my American friend can’t really get them, and I’m a filthy enabler of his collection habit. Every time I got to pick up something, they ask me if I want to Preorder anything else. Every. Single. Damn. Time.
It’s a corporate mandate you realise. If they don’t ask they get some sort of penalty, be it a warning, written up or what ever. It’s an EB company policy if you go in there to buy anything they have to push preorders.
I know how my mind works, if I want to preorder a game I will, if I don’t you can’t convince me to. I think Scalebound looks really cool, but I’m not game to preorder it. Same with Quantum Break, The Division, and the new Need for Speed. I’m just not confident enough in those games.
I’ve been asked to pre order the legend of Seles since I purchased Mario 3D world some years back
I didn’t get any training at McDonalds. I was supposed to, but the manager pretty much ignored it. I spent my first 3 shifts just making fries. I’m amazed I didn’t get burnt under the heat lamps.
I have never had a single good experience with EB, from refusing to accept a return a used xbox that had RROD making excuses such as they didn’t have the money on hand… To just general bad customer service. I walked in one day and the two clerks (male and female) where talking about the females partner and how they fight all the time, I honestly couldn’t believe how they could think that appropriate while a customer was in the store. I am not old but that just seems so unprofessional, and the way she served me, just her vocabulary was way to relaxed. I greeted her and she answered, sup…wtf. I asked for a xbox one controller (buying one for pc) and she answers yea, yea, yea ,yea over and over as she searched for it. I was flabbergasted.
Another time I went in and a male was just swearing left right and center joking with the delivery man, even he seemed shocked at his choice of words, he pointed me out saying their is a customer in the store he looks at me and just says nar he is cool right? Its common sense stuff too, there will be a line of 7 people waiting to be served the person being served is exchanging games which is fair enough but then the clerk asks would you like a rewards card and spends an extra 5 minutes setting it up for him… THERE ARE PEOPLE WAITING, I literally want to stab a clerk in the eye with a fork when they ask that and there is a line, or the manager whoever is making these clerks say it every time without any shred of common sense.
Returns and buying at the store is like clicking through ads on the internet, X game is coming out would you like a preorder with this purchase… no. Have you seen our latest gaming mag you can subscribe for only…. no thank you. Have you got a EB world card, it helps… NO JUST FUCKING SELL ME THE ITEM I HAVE ASKED FOR, I HAVE MONEY I WANT TO GIVE YOU AND YOUR REFUSING TO TAKE IT.
and then they cry, online is ruining bricks and mortar business, no lack of customer service and reward programs/extended warrants are ruining it, they really know how to suck the fun out of buying a new product. I can go online to a professional looking website, see whats in stock, order, pay for it, and I’m done… most stores don’t even require membership anymore allowing you to buy things as a guest. The only down side is having to wait 2 or 3 days for it to arrive. RL stores you have to go through way more shit to buy something these days.
what a rant, must of had that built up for a while…. ‘sigh of relief’
As someone who has previously worked at EB for 2 years: I can say that this video is nearly accurate. The only thing missing is the sales pitch for “Game guarantees” and “trade ‘n’ save”.
Oh and the mangers want you to talk to every customer. TALK TO EVERY CUSTOMER. Find out their name, their job, their family, where they live, what their favorite food is, what their shoe size is, what its like to wear their skin, what its like to date their partner, what its like to lay in their bed while they are at work, how they feel when they know someone is stealing their identity, what its like to walk into an EB games and be alarmed by the loud “HELLO!” coming from the socially depressed yet overly caffeinated creature that used to resemble a human being now crawling towards you with a smile that has been stapled into a permanent sneer…..
And did I mention that there is a sale on?
I may have never worked at EB Games, but hell if this doesn’t seem alarmingly similar to the training videos I had to watch while working for a liquor store chain. Especially that upsell one.
hahahaha, i was hired 2 months ago, and i have to say, its not quite accurate, we do get paid for midnight launches, and my manager trained me amazingly i do have to say, at the end of the day it is retail, so we have to upsell, like all retail I had to upsell in fast food when i was working it. Its apart of all businesses
I buy at JB exclusively. They respect me enough to just sell me their dam products at a fairly reasonable price.
Agree. “Welcome to EB games, how can I jam useless crap down your throat, your speaking with Lisa”. Take my money, don’t care about how YOU love a game in yet to play, stop talking, take a shower and have a breath mint!
I nearly saw an EB employee’s head explode yesterday. I had $80 down on Halo 5 thinking I could get them to price Match it to someone selling it that low, lucky me Target sold it for $68. For those bad at Maths that’s $12 change. But he had to offer me some preorder opportunities (Well not a word the rest of us would use). The problem was he offered me PS4 games when I had just purchased a XB1 game. But there’s nothing I’m confident enough in to preorder. It seemed to rock his world to it’s foundations, that and my refusal to get scratch protection.
I honestly thought he would just break down and tell me that giving me my $12 back would result in him losing his job. That and the 20 minute wait while the two guys ahead of me yapped on for ages. I get it’s rude to tell the customer to shut up, pay and leave. But he could just say guys just a moment, can I help you with anything.
I have no economic degree, but it seems to me that the sooner these stores go away, the sooner digital prices can come down. I’ve heard the only reason digital prices are so high is so these bricks and mortar stores can compete. Microsoft and Sony know they have to keep them happy for as little while longer – so they can sell the hardware – but the sword of Damocles is swinging closer and closer to EB’s squirming, fearful body.
I have no Economic Degree. But if the people (Microsoft & Sony) selling the games to EB wanted to lower the digital prices they could simply sell the games to EB cheaper. When Physical media disappears the prices are set digitally and there is no competition. Which means we’re stuck with the price of the online store and there is no incentive for them to give us good prices. What are you simply going to refuse to buy games digitally at 150% of what you used to pay, well I guess your brand new PS5/XB Stupid Name is an expensive paper weight.
I think the Distributors are sitting back letting Bricks and Mortar cop the heat for the high prices they set. Steam has competitors in both physical and the digital space. Even with the selling of online game keys that activate through Steam there is competition.
Funny….the other day I walked into an EB store. The young fellow working alongside his manager basically ran up to me after 2 steps into the store and said, “CAN I HALP YOU!?!?”. Woah…thanks, but no thanks. That kind of intense, overzealous greeting with no volume moderation needs to be added to this video training manual.
Anyway, the point of my story is that these two characters revert back to their previous conversation and it was about the whole terrible working conditions for young EB casuals etc. and the manager was actually making fun of the current affairs topic and using the young employee as the potential butt of his jokes. This saga still simmers……
As an ex employee this is one of the best things I have ever seen, especially the compulsory unpaid work for midnight releases. Upper management is just a boys club. If you aren’t liked by all of them you have no future. The store managers are great, they understand what’s going on so why people get shitty with them for not doing something so simple and logical is wrong. Believe me, they understand what your issue is it’s just the upper heads who haven’t worked in a store or served a customer in 10+ years think that the bullshit rules and processes work. I never went anywhere because I always pointed out flaws in their new marketing or product ideas. I got abused after a meeting all because I asked “Why is a video game companys mascot a bunny?” I am proud after 4 years I woke up and decided to pull the pin.
EB has always taken a super casual approach to gaming, as if catering to 12yr olds which i guess they actually do most of the time.
if i were to ever use a game store again id honestly prefer a more professional approach rather than being leghumped by the nearest employed neckbeard
1.33ish there is a subliminal picture on the right side right after he says “midnight launches”. SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT IT IS!
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