Okay the title is a bit exaggerated, but honestly not far off. This post is very mundane and a bit long, but thought it fits the community.
I’m visiting my home country and went shopping for pants, there were “30% off everything!” signs with a tiny text underneath that said “member discount” (don’t have membership). Not a problem, did not notice and I don’t care for such marketing tricks to get you into the store but okay.
Picked up couple of pants, went to the cashier and they asked me “do you have our membership?” - I answered no and expected the follow up question whether I’d like to join, but, to my positive surprise the cashier just happily responded “okay, not a problem!” and continued to bag my stuff.
I stood ready to pay and then the cashier said “now I just need your phone number and you can pay”. Hold up. What. I did not expect that, I honestly had a burst of anger inside me (never gonna take it on a cashier, they are just doing their job). I asked nicely why do I need to give my phone number and I was told that to register me as a member so I can get the discount.
I declined and said I don’t want to join and would like to just pay.
The entire interaction after questioning why they need my phone number was awkward, as if I had been the first person to decline, the weirdo, aluminum foil hat wearing hermit.
This was just one of many interactions in the recent years that make me feel as if I was a weirdo for not sharing all my info around. The worst is when everyone keeps telling me “its just an app, just download it and use that why do you make things complicated” or “just sign up you don’t need to pay anything”.
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Now I know! I was positively surprised when they didn’t ask the follow-up question, but I see now they have been trained to not ask it at all.
To be fair to the cashier, they were just trying to do something nice for you and getting you a free discount. I doubt that any “training” was involved, they probably didn’t think that anyone would refuse to give a phone number for a discount.
Most people wouldn’t care, but I used to get so any spam calls that it wasn’t worth the risk anymore.
You made me question myself now, was I being unreasonable?
Didn’t even think that the clerk might have been just trying to help me out, I felt like this was a smart sales & marketing psychological trick to give up and go the way of least resistance to get me to sign up (obviously not by the clerk directly, but as part of their training on how to deal with customers).
But either way, thankfully I was polite and nice about it. I might have become too cynical about everything regarding my private info in the last few years.
No you weren’t being unreasonable. They absolutely weren’t trying to help you out of the kindness of their heart, they were trying to seamlessly get your info by just keeping the conversation moving, and not asking if you -want- to sign up, to which yes or no are the only answers. When they ask for your number it’s weird to answer as though they asked a yes or no question, and that’s intentional.
I’ve worked retail, I was trained on canvassing sales (just trained, I quit before I started because it was super shady tactics I wasn’t comfortable with), that tactic is 100% intentional to get the info without you thinking about it. Some places even give bonuses if the employees sign up a certain number of people. Nothing altruistic about any of it.
When you don’t follow their script they get confused… because it’s a script. Not because they think you are mad; they don’t care about you as long as you don’t yell at them. You are just nameless face #545 of the day.
Whenever someone asks for my number or email I smile and tell them “oh, I don’t have an account with you, and I really don’t want one, but thank you all the same.” It’s direct and maybe a bit rude to some people, but they typically apply whatever discount anyway, and if they don’t, meh.
If they ask for zip code or address, I tell them they don’t need it, and with those I will get rude if I get pushback. This includes when I call for product support or something and just have a question. “No, you don’t need to know anything about me to answer my questions, and I won’t be providing it unless I feel you need it, regardless what you think or what your system says.”
Thanks for the input! This kinda answered a question that popped into my mind: do the employees get bonuses for registrations.
And exactly, it felt too intentional to leave out the question, didn’t feel “natural” the way the phone number topic came up.
I know we are constantly being harvested for every little bit of data online, but it creeps me out when I encounter information “harvesting” by just talking to a store clerk.