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Originally posted by panther10758
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I also advocate following a mixture of company policy and common sense with any approach to loss prevention. I understand that company policy in specific regards to the elements required to make a shoplift apprehension are there to form the framework for your typical shoplift scenario and to provide a good structure for the officer to rely upon.
However, you delude yourself if you believe that these elements should be set in stone and followed in a black and white sort of manner. As with anything else, you need to use common sense. Look around at the rest of your store or company and ask yourself if other store departments do not operate in the same manner.
I can tell you right now that your store sales managers do not follow a black/white policy in regards to customer service, because they understand that there are times in which those policies should be ignored in the best interests of the customer or company. For example: You have a valued, frequent customer who spends a lot of money in your store trying to return an item that she purchased 91 days ago. Your store policy allows returns within 90 days of purchase. Would you really expect that the company should tell the customer, "No"?
Or your human resources department requires that all new hires have a minimum of one year sales experience prior to being hired. One of the applicants has an exceptional work history, excellent recommendations, and interviewed extremely well. However, she only has ten months of sales experience. Would you really expect that the company should turn this person down?
Similarly, a common sense approach should also be followed in regards to theft apprehensions. We obviously follow policy (elements) in an attempt to reduce non-productive detentions ("bad stops") and to eliminate higher risks of liability to the company. However, these policies shouldn't be followed religiously when it's blatantly obvious that there is no liability risk involved, but I'm amazed that some people feel they should be.
For example, my company sold Coach and Dooney & Bourke handbags that often retailed for between $300 and $400 each. Some of them were placed on mobile fixtures that were locked down, but it was not uncommon for thieves to attempt to use bolt cutters to remove the fixture itself and run out of the door with it to a waiting car.
Now, there's no way in hell you can convince me that I should not make an apprehension on a subject who I see running through the store with a heavy metal fixture with $3,000 worth of handbags dangling from it--merely because I didn't have "approach" or "selection". That's just ludicrous. You may think that example is extreme, but it's not. We also sold leather coats that retailed for between $250 and $300, and thieves would attempt to scoop up an armload of them and run for the doors. Actually, anything they could grab an armload of and run with, they would.
There are times to follow company policy, and there are times to use common sense.
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