THERE’S nothing more annoying than going into a store for a casual peruse, only to be ambushed by an eager shop assistant offering their help.
But now the reason behind the often overly-enthusiastic approaches has been revealed.
Have you ever wondered why shop assistants in certain stores are so pushy?Credit: Getty
Comedian Maisie Adam used to work in FatFace, and revealed the SURFING rule they had to stick to as employeesCredit: tiktok/@willthereswake
Her admission left podcast host Mel Giedroyc cringing, as she admitted she finds the enthusiastic assistants in the store hard to deal withCredit: tiktok/@willthereswake
Ex shop turned stand-up comedian Maisie Adam opened up about said reason during a chat with on her Where There’s a Will, There’s a Wake podcast.
After Maisie opened up about working at store FatFace, Mel remarked: “Can I just say with FatFace, no offence, the shop assistants are too forthcoming.”
But Maisie said it’s because when they’re trained, they’re taught to “go surfing” – an acronym for what they have to do in their role as a shop assistant.
The S is for ‘Say Hello’, followed by ‘Understand the customer’ and ‘Relate to them’.
F is for fitting rooms – reminding employees to point out where the changing rooms are – followed by I for ‘Introduce a new product’.
“Those are nice jeans. Have you thought about this belt with them?” Maisie used as an example.
Perhaps the most aggressive letter in the acronym is the N, which is for ‘Never leave them alone’.
And the G concludes the acronym, standing for ‘Goodbye’.
“You HAVE to say goodbye,” Maisie stressed.
“Even if they’ve just come in for like a minute and you’ve not spoken to them yet, you have to go, ‘Goodbye!'”
A clip of the podcast chat was shared on TikTok , with the comments section immediately filled with people weighing in on Maisie’s revelation.
“Retail is hell and customers don’t want this,” one said.
“You feel like you are being harassed!”
“Customers don’t want it and employees don’t want to do it,” another sighed.
“It’s hellish for the staff too, you’re under so much pressure to do all these things and upsell as much as you can,” a third pointed out.
“Never worked for FatFace but they’re all the same.”
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While others insisted it’s definitely not just FatFace that forces employees to stick to such a rule.
“Reminds me of Hobbs, put me off going in,” one wrote.
“Ugh, I HATE shops that do this!” another raged.
“Space NK is also really bad for that.”
“I went into Lush in December before the Christmas rush had really kicked off but they’d obviously staffed more in case it got busy,” a third commented.
“I was asked if I needed help and complimented by no fewer than 6 staff.”
“This is why I no longer go into Lush.. I can’t stand being pestered,” someone else insisted.
FatFace is just one of the stores that uses the rule, but others said that Lush and Space NK have similar ones in placeCredit: Alamy
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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