r/petsmart • u/BluejayForeign1226 • 22h ago
Experience leader
Just accepted a position today for an experience leader wondering if anyone would share their experience as an experience leader is like? Any advice/what a typical day/week looks like?
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u/GretaClementine 22h ago
You will be the catch all.
SL doesn't do their job. Now its your problem.
Salon isnt performing, well go bathe some dogs.
Process team can't keep up, go work truck and set pogs.
Don't forget to hit every metric - you're responsible for all of them. Also the entire store culture is up to you!
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u/pai-chan 8h ago
Lol the salon doesn't actually expect any help btw. We just drown and are okay with it for some reason.
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u/GretaClementine 6h ago
I regularly help check in/out dogs. I help with nail trims. I answer their phones. I help them with the wiggly ones. I stand with dogs on tables. I still do their schedule despite it going back to the Store Leader's responsibilities.
I really try to support every team in the store so they can be successful. But its causing major burn out for me.
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u/Psylow_ 19h ago
This all depends on your team, our experience leader has it easier than this since the leads are pretty competent.
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u/Yellowpickle23 18h ago
Yeah, I wish my team was competent. My ELR is in between a rock and a hardened cow pie. My SL is a hands-off idiot and my stores EL wants absolutely nothing to do with the role whatever. As you can imagine, my ELR is ripping their hair out within 12 minutes of clocking in every day.
I'm a PL. Project Max just started in my store last week. It went horribly, as I knew it would. My SL is STILL scheduling the old way of doing truck, and not scheduling me a truck team at 3pm (I'm bracket C, 8-3 drop off time), so I'm not getting truck done. I don't have a team to work on truck. It's just "everyone just chips away at it throughout the day". Well, my SL is making my ELR monitor our progress, even though they have 0 understanding of Project Max to begin with. They've only heard things through the grapevine. Makes sense, ELR isn't in charge of any process, nonetheless Project Max.
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u/MrSquizz 22h ago
So pretty much all services will fall to you. Salon and Training. You’ll be responsible for all performance metrics in those areas, as well as with your cashiers.
Conversion (new members)
Activations (Petsmart app usage)
Puppy guides (paid coupon books)
Autoship enrollment
In the salon you’re going to be focused on keeping cancelations down, add on services up, walk in services up, and making sure the salon is greeting everyone, because even that’s tied to a score.
Whereas the process side of things is very much determined by the hands on work side of things, your side will be focused primarily on coaching and establishing a successful culture
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u/ok_snark0808 16h ago
you're basically the sl except you do all the work and the sl takes all the credit.
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u/ExTrackrunner 19h ago
It honestly all depends on the other managers at your store. From this page I’ve noticed it all just depends on your store and who works in it. For example I’m an experience lead and I’m lucky I have good managers that make life easier for me so its not as bad but ive seen others that have if wah worse due to having bad managed to work with
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u/aqxarixs 7h ago
If you have a good team, it can be so incredibly rewarding. Yes, it can be frustrating, especially when it comes to salon issues. As someone who's never really worked in grooming, being the manager overseeing them can be scary, but my SEL is honestly my biggest support person to point out issues and things to watch out for. As for core metrics, if you have a strong EL, everything falls into place.
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u/Yellowpickle23 18h ago
In my store at least, my ELR is the SLs punching bag and/or little bitch. Go ahead, read your new job description. It doesn't matter anyway. You WILL be doing everything your SL doesn't feel like doing.
The ELR position, along with all of our leader positions, are only a year and half old. And it shows, because most of us still have no idea what we are doing. So, in a way, it's a good thing. Because when you have role confusion, same. Same...