Bad customer service. Don't do it, Don't accept it

Jeff Rogut
So its Sunday morning around 7:30am and I head off to a supermarket. Not my local, but one about 10km’s away as it has a range of specialty products not available to the local branch. Supermarket shopping is not one of my favorite pastimes given poor experiences in the past, and yes, I was not disappointed this time either….
I find the things I need, filled the basket and off to hand over my money. If only it was that simple.
This is a comparatively good store and product selection. Nowhere near the standard of say Wegmans that I happen to have featured also in this newsletter – our supermarkets are light years behind when it comes to shopper experience and value.
When it comes to paying and leaving a very different matter – we seem to delight in torturing those who want to part with their money. There was only one register open at the service counter. There would have been 7 customers in line with baskets and a trolley. Self serve checkouts were all closed. Dozens of staff working in the store, filing shelves, walking around, talking amongst one another as well as well delivery people, but absolutely no one taking care of customers waiting to part with their money.

I approached on guy who looked like store management who I asked whether he could open another register and he said ”working on it mate”……and went back to talking to a bread delivery person and nothing happened. Visibly frustrating for the people still in the line waiting to pay.
The last impression of a store is just so critical, no matter how good the product selection and so often we get this wrong.
Forget the spin about loyalty programs where you need thousands of points to get … a toaster… offer a great experience, great value, excellent ranges of fresh products and efficient service and customers will shop with you.
Lessons for convenience – we are all about saving our customers time whether just paying for fuel or merchandise. We must never lose sight of the high standards we generally offer and should seek to find ways to offer even speedier service. QuickChek Stores that we recently visited in New Jersey use self checkouts to make the customer experience more efficient. What else could we be doing so that we are never compared with the poor ‘service’ offered at supermarkets?
I have written to the MD of the supermarket chain described above – will keep you updated if I receive a response.