So I've been playing around with the new retail features that came with this expansion pack, and I have to say for the most part I am very impressed. They have added some much needed challenge to the game. One problem that I keep facing is that my employees will not actually do the tasks I assign them. For example I have one employee and I had assigned her the task of ringing up customers to help my sim out as I hadnt purchased any perks so the action took some time, well that employee continued socializing while the amount of customers ready to buy increased. Hopefully this is a bug, as I really don't want employees who stand and chat their whole shift. On a separate note, do employees get breaks? Or is the only option working them for a few hours? They hadn't been at work more than 5 hours and they had to leave because they were in overtime.

Some employees with a low work ethic will just ignore your command and socialize .

This employee had a medium work ethic when I hired her, and eventually maxed out her work ethic. All she does is socialize though, my second employee was assigned to restock, and he did that with no problems. So I out him on ring up customers and now it's the same thing.

my employee just went to a chair and sat down... then talk to anyone....never did anything.

Fire that sim, clearly they're making fun of your business :O

Thats why i made a post about it earlier today. 'Bothersome customer and employee behaviour' it does not seem to work right.

Retail employees will not complete tasks

HoseokMolly
10 years ago
If you have the Debug Mod in game, what I do is; whenever I see a sale, I stop them from talking to people by right-shift clicking them and selecting "reset object", if they are assigned to ring up customers, they will immediately find and ring them up. The resetting just clears their task bar from talking so it gives them a chance to ring customers up.
funcrunch
10 years ago
I don't think I'll ever bother hiring employees for a retail lot from everything I've read and seen in playthroughs. Even my own controlled Sims won't ring up customers reliably unless I pause and first cancel the socializing action (which they are always doing when other Sims are around, whether I direct them to or not). And even then, they often stand there for a few minutes before heading over to ring up the customer. I've lost sales this way, and this is with my own directed Sims!! It's really frustrating how the game is so aggressively tuned to talking talking talking TALKING (oh and joking) taking precedence over absolutely everything else.
K0j1K
10 years ago
> @MollyG1997 said:
> If you have the Debug Mod in game, what I do is; whenever I see a sale, I stop them from talking to people by right-shift clicking them and selecting "reset object", if they are assigned to ring up customers, they will immediately find and ring them up. The resetting just clears their task bar from talking so it gives them a chance to ring customers up.

That's exactly what I do but sometimes it doesn't work, however i recently notice there is a retail perk call "Mega Manager" ( 1100 perk Points) its description reads "Management Social Interactions performed on store employees will have a better chance of succeeding" I'm gonna tried and see if it really works
A26R29
10 years ago
I think a lot of times the sims are stuck in the socializing interactions.

I also noticed that if there are no more customers to ring up, it will automatically change the employees task to something else.
drake_mccarty
10 years ago
"Juno;13515273" wrote:
I think a lot of times the sims are stuck in the socializing interactions.

I also noticed that if there are no more customers to ring up, it will automatically change the employees task to something else.

Socials take a high priority over most other actions, the only time another action will cancel out a group convo in my experience is if the sim is entering a failure state and will go satisfy a need.

I think in general the social part of the game needs major tuning still. Sims are drawn to sims who are socializing and it's actually pretty frustrating (for me at least) to have 3 or 4 random sims enter into a conversation my sim or sims are having. I get they want the sims to seem smarter by never standing around tapping their foot, but constant engaging in Socials autonomously just makes other sims annoying and less smart. Especially when they choose to talk instead of following a command.
MidnightEve
10 years ago
I'm having the same issue with employees ringing up customers. After firing two employees, one with high work ethics etc. I tried putting my best employee on the job of ringing up, it's a very good employee with everything else but will not ring up the customers so I think this must be a bug.
Cinebar
10 years ago
"Panderer;13485434" wrote:
So many of my customers have left! And when you first start out, you can only have one employee, so my poor sim chica is running around stressed, smelly, and starving while over-paid bum chats it up in front of the fireplace -.-

That chatting is what helps Sims become interested enough to buy. If you have an employee who gains sales experience (over time) you will start to see them ask retail questions of the customers. They have to chat with customers it builds a rapport.
madarHR
10 years ago
patch is needed and its needed bad they released broken retail
drake_mccarty
10 years ago
"Cinebar;13519968" wrote:
"Panderer;13485434" wrote:
So many of my customers have left! And when you first start out, you can only have one employee, so my poor sim chica is running around stressed, smelly, and starving while over-paid bum chats it up in front of the fireplace -.-

That chatting is what helps Sims become interested enough to buy. If you have an employee who gains sales experience (over time) you will start to see them ask retail questions of the customers. They have to chat with customers it builds a rapport.

The retail specific interactions are what increases a customers chance of buying, in my case the employees aren't using retail interactions and the sims that they are conversing with lose their "want to buy" bar. At the end of the day only a couple of the sims that were in the group had bought something, and it was after they left the group to do something else.
Willowana
10 years ago
I have the same problem with my retail stores. The one, absolutely hated flaw of the game is the talking. They ALL need to shut their yappers! All they do is flap their lips incessantly wherever they are. Who goes to a store and yammers for 5 hours? The customers talk more than they shop. They hardly pretend to even browse. You just end up with a circular Sim-pile and all of your active Sims and workers are pulled into the vortex of conversations.

Fix the talking and retail issues, give me lockable doors and the ability to assign beds - and I will be a happy camper.

Edited to change 'plummed' to 'pulled' since the censors are touchy about certain verbs...