Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

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storewanderer
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Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by storewanderer »

Kroger really needs to do something with their creepy PA Announcements they have started to play in the stores that serve no benefit to the customer.

Tonight I was in there and they had some weird chime sound playing for a while then it said something to the effect of attention all associates, it's the top of the hour, it is time to freshen up your departments for our customers. The irony was given it was late at night the store had half of its lights out and most departments are not even staffed at that time...

Immediately after that the infamous "security area 5 zone b" or whatever it is announcement came on.

Then a little while later a page came on that said "attention all associates the recycling center is now open."
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by klkla »

Ralphs makes those kind of announcements, too. It's very annoying.
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by storewanderer »

klkla wrote: January 15th, 2019, 2:59 pm Ralphs makes those kind of announcements, too. It's very annoying.
The other funny part is many Smiths use headsets for the employees to communicate with each other (to avoid using the PA) throughout the store so I am not clear how much attention the employees are even paying to the PA system...

These announcements are just tacky and give an off vibe. Something uncomfortable about it. If the employees need to be reminded to "freshen up the department" at the top of every hour, it seems like something is wrong there. If you then follow that announcement by ghost security calls which are blatantly piped in ghost security calls, what does it say about the safety of the store? And as far as assigning a specific moment for the nightly trash compactor opening by the closing manager but instead referring to it as "the recycling center..." ... wow. Pretty harsh to dictate the exact moment the closing manager needs to get the compactor opened up based on a piped in PA announcement; what if they are dealing with other tasks like customer service if that is a busy moment?
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by Super S »

Fred Meyer has been playing similar announcements. I have heard some kind of random chime sounds also. But as for the security pages...if the store wants to really catch somebody the PA is the last thing you want to use...
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by rwsandiego »

I was at Fry's today and they played the "Attention associates. It is time to do the top of the hour conditioning!" It was 10:00 PM and they were putting out stock. Can't imagine what conditioning they would do at that point. The Mission Valley (SD) Ralphs used to play the chime announcement and follow up with some security announcement. Can't say it made me feel great as their customer.

For all their faults, Safeway does not have creepy PA announcements. 7th and McDowell had some creepy employees, but they seem to have vanished.
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by BreakingThrough »

I don't find the "tidy up" announcements creepy per se. Maybe I'm desensitized from hearing similar announcements at every 24 Hour Fitness I've been to. If anything, I find them pointless.

What I DO find offputting are employees loudly barking to eachother over the PA. Not talking, barking. "ALBERTO COME SEE ME UP FRONT," "THE DELIVERY TRUCK IS OUTSIDE," etc. Obnoxious, unprofessional, annoying, and downmarket.
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by pseudo3d »

I can confirm that the phantom security calls are chain-wide, given it happens at my (current) local Kroger in Houston.
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by Brian Lutz »

I haven't ever heard the announcement spoken of here in any of the Fred Meyer or QFC stores, but I have heard the security one on occasion, and the chime sound a couple of times. I would assume this serves the same purpose, but in a more subtle way.
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by omnisuperstore »

Hey there, I’ve been trying to get an answer about paging at Fred Meyer and their phones. I posted in the wrong spot.

1-Any reason why Fred Meyer has held onto those clunky old Rolm phones?

2-i live in Chicago and at Marianos paging is quite frequent, a bit less now that managers wear walkie talkies, but frequent enough that it makes the store seem exciting. I have not heard any creepy announcements at Marianos. The only odd thing is that when every page ends you hear a dial tone beep, even worse if someone hangs up the phone over the speaker....you hear click clack and then dial tone beep.

3-Do Fred Meyer stores do general pages, say if someone has a call and they are out on the floor with no other way of knowing they have a call? I remember being in one in 2013 and hearing a page, but wondered if it’s frowned upon at Fred Meyer?

4-QFC uses overhead paging from what I’ve heard, is that still true?

5-Krogers in Houston definitely use paging as I’ve heard it quite often including automated Call parking paging.

6-Indianapolis Kroger’s use paging much like Marianos.

7-Been to a few Fry’s and also hear paging there too.

8-lastly Harris Teeter is plain Screwed up with their phones and paging intercoms. They use old school “clean up in aisle five” gooseneck Mics at the checkouts while other areas Of the store using telephone paging. The problem with this is that the pitch from the microphone is completely different than the phone system paging and sounds asinine. I was really hoping that when Kroger took HT over they would knock some sense to the HT telecom people and upgrade them to the Kroger Nortel and now Cisco platform with a telephone at each register, not some 1950s Burger King styled microphone.
Interesting to note, many other southern chains use the microphones like Ingles and Food Lion, but it’s Almost Unheard of anywhere else in the US and Canada. I guess grocery store intercom people in the south just still live in the stone ages lol.

Let’s keep this topic going, very interesting.
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Re: Kroger and creepy PA Announcements

Post by storewanderer »

Smiths seems to have new security announcements. One is a female voice. Another is a male voice with an accent that is... clearly not from any territory Smiths operates in. They also come on immediately following some other sort of piped in announcement. It is a joke, really.

They'd almost be better off having store employees make ghost announcements at random times than this, if they are dead set on having these announcements made at regular intervals.

Or they could do what high theft Walgreens locations do and have motion sensors over "high theft" categories that play an announcement when triggered "customer service to... aisle." Not sure how effective it is but it gives the data to the employees in real time and those old Walgreens with mirrors all over the back wall do make it easy for someone to "watch" what is going on.
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