No Stupid Questions

No, the vast majority never did that and now most American Stores barely have enough staff to run the registers.

No, that customer is a cunt.

More often than not, retail workers behind the counter in smaller stores are required (by their employer) to greet customers as they enter. It's a tactic to reduce theft. However, employees hate doing it. Most customers understand its a mandatory part of their routine and hate it, or at the least are indifferent. It's an insincere greeting that nobody cares for, its just something employees have to do, or they get reprimanded.

Your customer encounter is not normal American behavior. Expecting to be greeted is a sign of entitlement (which is the likely case, due to asking for your manager) or possibly mental health.

No, it's pretty atypical. There's Walmart (as you mention) and a few others but more often, somebody stationed at an entrance/exit is security, a receipt checker (less common), or a cart-wrangler.

Sounds like you met one of our distressingly many entitled weirdos. Sorry about that.

No, most stores do not have greeters in the United States. You encountered a "Karen", a rude entitled American woman. There are so many of them in the US now. I used to love my country but every day I despise the bulk of the US population more and more. There are so many uneducated self-important assholes here now.

Was she expecting

"Welcome to Costco, I love you"?

No; in fact, most don't. Walmart is generally the exception, not the rule. And as much as people (myself included) like to shit on Walmart, if you actually look at the greeters, they're people who generally would not work out in any other position. So why are they there? If they weren't, they probably would not have a job.

There's another concept at play, though. In stores that do not have a greeter who stands at the door, a lot of places that pride themselves on customer service and community will have front-end staff call out to new customers to greet them. This practice is far more popular. Heck, we used to have an ice creamery that would have the entire staff sing if you put a dollar (or more) in their tip jar. Cold Stone Creamery, there might be a few of them around, but they used to be everywhere. Like Subway, Quiznos, and more. You might still know where one or two are, but you used to know where a lot more of them were.

Anyway, it's weird that an American visiting abroad would be upset that she was not greeted upon entering the store.

Greeters is a jobs program that keeps retirement age people working instead of them having to steal from the stores they work at.

It's seriously only disabled people or people who should have been allowed o retire already.

It's mostly just Walmart, and they have been laying off their greeters this year.

Dude we don't even have greeters at the stores that actually did have greeters in the past anymore. Walmart hasn't had dedicated greeters in years.

When I worked at Best Buy, if a customer entered my department I was expected to address them. We were trained to make it seem natural, just a greeting and naturally segway into asking if you can assist. It was to prevent theft but also the chances of closing a sale go up significantly.

My understanding is nobody likes doing it and most customers aren't big on the pushy sales people.

No, and the funny thing is the purpose of the greeter (at least at this stage) is to lower the chances of shoplifting

Not at all. That customer was hunting for something to complain about so they could negotiate freebies from your boss. Sounds like your boss fell for it.

No. A typical "supermarket" (grocery + clothes, housewares, etc.) does not, nor do smaller stores that are mostly just grocery. Walmart is an exception.

Costco has people who could be called greeters, but they are just checking that you, or someone you are with, has a paid membership. Some stores have security guards at the entrances, but that's a different thing.

Other than Walmart and stores that have memberships like Costco, there aren’t really designated greeters. That being said, when I worked for a gas station, the area manager, the person over a couple dozen stores in our part of the state, mandated that we all give some sort of greeting to every customer that comes through the doors. This is because, as middle management, she had nothing better to do than read google reviews of every store and make sweeping mandates based upon them. Obviously, we ignored her and continued greeting almost nobody. So, there are some crotchety people that will complain about anything.

Not by a long shot. It’s mainly just Walmart. There are others, but they’re the exception, not the rule.

I worked in retail for about ten years. The company I was at did make a big deal about making a customer feel welcome, which might incidentally involve greeting a customer at the door, but we certainly were too busy to have someone perpetually posted up at the door like Walmart. Any sort of “greeting” we might have done would be the same as I what I experienced in Ireland or Italian retail where if I was approaching an employee, I’d get the local version of “hello”. Didn’t strike me as being very different.

So, no, the American retail space that has a dedicated greeter is fairly uncommon.

lmao wtf

No, Walmart is kind of an outlier by having a greeter. In other places that have a "greeter" it's usually an extra layer of security/theft prevention, or it's a place like Costco where you need a membership to shop there. That said, it's basically standard for an employee to seek you out and ask if you would like help finding anything fairly soon after you walk in the store. It's generally seen as good customer service, and in larger stores it's not uncommon to be approached by several employees asking if you'd like help finding what you're looking for over the course of your time in the store.

American customer service culture tends to be a little extra. There's a premium on going the extra mile that's tied into America's self-image of the "land of opportunity," and the hustle culture that goes with that. But when that's what you're accustomed to dealing with, the customer service cultures of other countries can be kind of jarring. I know from my own travels through Europe that shopping in some countries can range from feeling cold and indifferent, to feeling actively hostile.

That said, most Americans wouldn't think of complaining to your manager about it. It's only a specific kind of over-entitled asshole that does that. Sounds like you had a real karen on your hands.

A ton of stores do this in the US, but I've never once found myself upset that someone didn't greet me. That person sounds bat shit insane

There are two types.

Greeters are typically someone staged at the door. They typically tend to be elderly, and often during Christmas season and sometimes longer. It serves two functions, being welcoming to customers and being a presence to thwart petty shoplifting. It obviously doesn’t stop someone committed but enough to make some think twice or choose a different exit.

The second type is just your average floor employee. This has become less common over the years with modern systems cutting back hours and shifts during the day. Back in the 90’s in my previous experience, we were expected to great EVERY CUSTOMER with a smile and a few words. Even offer to guide them to what they’re looking for. There were secret shoppers testing or observing and you’re get reprimanded for not doing it. Most customers appreciated the gesture but every once in a while you would experience a power tripping Karen/Ken being awful.

my boss comes back and says the lady was upset with me and my behaviour, because I had not greeted her as she entered the store

I'm sure she also went to the subway driver with the same complaint after she entered the train...

No but there's usually a cable, electricity, or phone company representative standing by the front door to try and snag you as you come in.

This would work well on AskUSA

As other commenters have said this is basically only a thing at Walmart. Sometimes in very small shops someone will say hello as you enter, but that's a much more informal thing and as I said only really happens with tiny mom-and-pop stores where there might only be one or two people working.

No, but common retail etiquette is to say to people who come in the store. That being said you were helping someone else so the Americans should have waited as that’s also standard US etiquette

In most stores, greeting is just a task that all staff are trained on. The store has to be over a certain pretty large size before that one task becomes an entire person’s job. They also fulfill other functions like giving directions that make more sense at larger stores.

Not all, but many in my general region do.

This article references Walmart, but you can apply it to most stores that employ greeters: https://www.historytools.org/consumer/why-does-walmart-have-greeters

New York City. Many places have a security guard near the front, but not a greeter.

I've only ever seen this at Walmart

So, like most people are saying, no. Most stores don't have dedicated greeters. However, I would say many, if not most, small store's staff will greet you when you come in if they aren't busy and are near the entrance. It's not an expectation, rather just a friendly "hello, welcome..." sort of thing.

I've literally never seen one.