Amazing idea. I’m sure the person on the line is… not used to this.
I remember one time having a super helpful person at Home Depot walk me through a home project I needed some advice on so I asked to talk to their manager to compliment/thank them.
After a few minutes the manager came over and looked so ready for me to berate them about something only to look incredibly shocked that I was actually complimenting the service I had just received. Was nice for everyone.
I’ve done this a few times in the past as well. But I found it’s less stressful for everyone if you preface it first like, “You’ve been really helpful. Can I tell your manager or mention you in a survey or something?” (Note: direct managers at stores don’t always have the ability to do much to reward good employees and it might be more helpful to fill out a survey or something that corporate sees.)
I would be worried about angering the manager if they learned that this super-helpful employee spent half an hour chit-chatting with a customer instead of doing other tasks. Kinda like how agents are under time pressure in call centers.
That's quite nice of you, though I don't think it is as rare as you suspect. My son works retail as a supervisor and his report is that, while complaints are the main reason customers escalate to him, he does reasonably frequently also get customers who want to compliment an employee.
I remember one time having a super helpful person at Home Depot walk me through a home project I needed some advice on so I asked to talk to their manager to compliment/thank them.
After a few minutes the manager came over and looked so ready for me to berate them about something only to look incredibly shocked that I was actually complimenting the service I had just received. Was nice for everyone.