I’ve
previously chronicled some of the good and bad examples of customer service
that I’ve received and now have a couple of new stories to relate.
 |
| Hands up who's fed up of queues? |
On the
whole, I’ve always received a good standard of customer service at my local
Tesco stores. However a recent shopping trip to one branch left me feeling
rather annoyed. I’d popped in for a few necessary items and joined a checkout
queue with only one other customer in front of me. I should have whizzed
through the checkout easily, however this was not to be. There was a problem
with an item that the customer ahead of me was purchasing – some fault with the
bar code. The item in question was only worth a couple of pounds and the
easiest solution was for the cashier to total up the few other items of
shopping and refer the problem to customer services.
However,
she chose to send a colleague to track down a better bar code, who proceeded to
do so in the manner of someone taking a Sunday afternoon stroll. Ten minutes
later the assistant finally returned with the new code and finally the queue
got to move!
At no point
during all of this did either the cashier, or her colleague, attempt to apologise
to those of us waiting in the queue. When it was my turn to be served I was
just met with the customary, “Thank you for waiting”, said without any feeling.
I did not reply, “That’s OK”, because it wasn’t.
I am quite
prepared to wait in a queue if I 1) feel there is a valid, unavoidable reason
for this and 2) receive an apology for the delay. As neither of these points
applied to this situation I was far from happy and will be contacting the store manager.
On the
flipside, my local Sainsburys, who I’ve previously had to take to task over a
20-minute hold-up with a customer service query, appear to have upped their
game. How refreshing it has been to arrive at the checkouts with a full trolley
of shopping and be met by a smiling-faced individual who proceeds to take me to
the checkout with the shortest queue. It’s these little personal touches that
make a difference to a shopping trip.
The same
branch of Sainsburys sent a letter to me just ahead of Christmas, thanking me
for my custom and enclosing a gift voucher. OK, they probably did that to lots
of customers, but once again it made me feel appreciated.
Follow me
on Twitter @shoppersjoy
No comments:
Post a Comment