B&N so does not get it when it comes to customer self service and is the furthest thing from the store of my future. Every time I go in there, I'm looking for something specific, which, inevitably, I have to ask for. I always disappointed at the point of service when it comes to finding a book for several reasons:

1. There is never anyone behind the info counter to ask for a book
2. They don't have self serve kiosks like some Borders book stores, so I can't help myself
3. The people in other depts, like the faux Starbucks & CD areas use equally useless
4. When I do get someone, they are typically incompetent, or I have to repeat what I'm looking for several times, and usually I'm looking for some quirky title that I don't want to have to repeat several times.
5. There's always a damn line for the service counter when there is actually a body behind it, which adds to the frustration because at this point I've usually squandered several extra minutes circling around the store because I'm confused, looking, bored, and frustrated.

The experience in the last 7 out of 10 visits has ended in them not having what I'm looking for, and my ordering it from Amazon anyway. Which may prompt you to ask "why didn't you do that in the first place?" Well, typically I always have a B&N gift card laying around that I want to use, and I really love visiting book stores... And, I like to do biz locally. However, it's such a pain in the ass because they just don't get it, they really don't.

People of the 'digital generation', at least the DG people in B&N, do not care why you aren't behind the counter, and in fact, they don't need you. Period. They know more about finding stuff in Google than you know about navigating the entire library on congress and are more passionate about reading, learning and books than you ever will be, so why the hell don't you just let us do it ourselves???

Barnes & Noble also sucks @ the Multi-channel experience. I should be able to check to see if my book that I want is located here in Green Bay right from the BN.com website...but no. I can't. When will they get with it?

Your complaints about B&N are the same as mine about Borders here in AU. The Website only lists books available thru Borders US - when you go to the store the staff are invisible - but they have just this last month put in self-help computer terminals which is one step forward.

Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!

Amazing how some companies just don't get it ... regardless of whether they operate on some level of self-service or full service (or anything in- between), it's all about the customer EXPERIENCE!
And any bad or less-than-satisfactory experience (as you & Gordon have written) reflect negatively on the brand. Last week I did a client workshop on this very subject ... the current business mantra is that customer experience is the new competitive battleground. Let's face it, consumers have LOTS of choice ... so we're gonna go where we're taken care of. Get that? To all those retailers & providers of poor or non-existent service, "it's the experience, stupid!"

Hey Dana, another option (the only advantage being the local business angle): consider ordering from the Attic.

i work for bn.com , consider this, would you want to help anyone making 6.15/hr, i think not. Most are college kids working for a few monthes, store employee turnover is high. So before you trash barnes and noble stores take that into consideration. And as far as bn.com , well we still have a phone number to call (with a US Citizan) for customer service unlike every other company.

I work at a BN. We try to get to everyone as soon as we can. You can't blame us if we don't have the most esoteric tome out there for every intellectual out there. Personally, I am able to find books in the store without having to look them up and I am a part timer with an extra full time job on the side. As to cafe and music staff not knowing what is where, they aren't trained to know what is going on on the bookfloor, they should be, but they aren't so don't take it out on them. Most of us do the best we can with the LIMITED resources we are given. Like one person for the entire sales floor for the whole evening. Please have some perspective. We don't go arund trashing your work ethic/performance, don't trash ours.

I noticed your feedback on BN on an old blog post. Thanks for the insight.

I see what you mean about ‘trashing’, but if BN doesn’t want to “hear” what customers are saying, then that further amplifies the reason why we blog about stuff like this. Customers have CHOICE, and companies have to be listening to what customers are saying about them. Period.

I see what I say as constructive criticism. BN needs to make it easier for customers to shop there and do business with them. The record industry didn’t want to hear from customers either. Now look where they are – losing sales to other modes of consumption like iTunes – because they didn’t want to hear negative things from customers and wouldn’t change their act.

I love BN, I really do. I shop there bi-weekly, even though it’s sometimes not the most efficient experience. However, what happens when borders comes to town and offers everything that BN doesn’t? Are we still supposed to go to BN “just to be nice” to them?

I understand your complains about B&N, but that just goes with the retail industy. Like Lankey said, turnover is very high, most people are trained for a specific job and yes, there are not enough people on the floor. Reason being these days is that bn.com and amazon.com are taking a lot of customers away from the actual stores and this cuts the amount of personel we have. I'm in a store that has a 50/50 ratio of helpful employees, our store manager is smart enough to keep the people that know the store well on the floor and the rest behind the registers. I'm sorry your experience at your store was not up to par, but most people who work at these jobs make minimum wage and could care less if you find the book you were looking for.

The other part you mentioned was that you wanted to be able to search online for a book in a particular store and see if it was there. This is not something you'll ever see because it creats the illusion that we are carrying something that could be a computer error, of which there are many. We like to guarentee that we have a particular book by picking it up off the shelf and holding it for you behind the counter. If you need a book, call the store. They'll find it, hold it for you, and all you have to do it come to the register to pay for it.

Borders on the other hand does have the self serve kiosk, which I am waiting for. BN is rolling it out eventually, but they don't want to seem just like Borders when they don't have too. The main problem with the kiosk is that we know there will be customers who will use it and pull a bookseller over to the computer to ask a series of questions when we could have just as easily led them to the book. I understand that people think our job is to help people find the book they want, and it is, but on top of that we have other responsibilites. Of course, customers also think we're there to clean up after them when they don't feel like putting books away, watch their children, and accept them yelling in our face for something that is out of our control, like the fact that their credit card is declined.

It's a rant, I know, but I've only been working there for 6 months and I can't wait to quit. Good luck.

P.S. read the site for more horror stories about BN customers