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In this day and age with money tight cheaper shops are performing well leaving bigger chains to struggle and think of ways to pull sales back. One simple way to do this would be to focus on service and ensure they deliver great customer service every time to every customer. It should be top of their "things we must get right" list, sadly in big companies it isn't and that is not good enough. Customers will already want to choose the cheaper stores, so why come to you if your service is poor? In my opinion Asda is one of these companies that delivers poor customer service on a regular basis and in a minute I will explain what has happened to me to make me want to talk about this. The service is so poor I came up with this awesome acronym: Awful Service Displayed Again.
As a store manager in retail, which I have been for six years and have been in retail for fourteen years I am fully aware of how service should be. I expect great service from my colleagues and it should be first and foremost in everyone's minds. After all if you give bad service, customers don't like it and eventually they will leave and spend their money somewhere else, then you have no business left. We aim to give world class service in my store, I'm not saying were perfect, as nobody is but we know how important it is to the success of the store.
In my opinion Asda's take on service is getting worse, I take it as a win if I don't nearly get run over by someone pulling a cage around the store whilst it's open. I write this review of my local store in Hull as the service I have received twice in the last three days epitomises the overall opinion I have of Asda and it left me feeling pissed off because it seems as though service is unimportant to them. Here's what happened.
Three nights ago I go to Asda to get some shopping in, I'm at the checkout and I said hello to the cashier and she replied with "do you need a bag?". Not a great start as I felt that was rude, in my opinion the member staff should greet the customer first, this didn't happen and she didn't have the courtesy to say hello back. She then scanned in my products as I was bagging them. She then started a conversation with another member of staff whilst still serving me (this is a major pet peeve of mine, just as much as customers who use mobiles whilst you're serving them). Whilst I was being ignored and standing in shock that it seemed OK that I be ignored she scanned the last product twice. This was because she wasn't concentrating due to talking to her colleague. I wasn't 100% sure at the time due to turning slightly to put a bag in the trolley, so I paid and checked receipt once it was handed to me and I was correct, I was charged twice. I brought this up with her immediately, she looked at me confused and took the receipt out of mind to scrutinize it. Once she realised she had done this she apologised and told me I had to now go wait at the customer service desk for a refund. Off I trotted to the desk supremely pissed off at the service I'd just received. I must point out that the overcharge was only a £1 and generally I would let this go and just forget about it but this isn't the first time I've encountered appalling service in this store and I was so shocked at how I was served that I wanted my money back. Why should Asda get my money from their mistake? There were two people in front of me at the customer service desk, these queues usually take a while to go down, there was also a customer waiting to the side of the desk who had clearly been served and was waiting for something or someone. I was the next customer now, the member of staff stopped half way through her sale to shout on the tannoy for someone to come to the desk from the music and video department (this was for the man stood to the side). I could tell by the man at the side that he had been waiting more than an acceptable amount of time as he kept huffing. It got to my turn to be served, the member of staff said I won't be a minute and just left the till area. She didn't explain where she was going or why I was being left without being served, now there's two pissed off people stood at this desk, bearing in mind I'm already very annoyed. Around five minutes later (which is an extremely long time when you're stood waiting to be served) the staff member came back and then served the other guy waiting. After he had gone it was finally my turn, working in retail I know what it's like to deal with customers who are rude and talk to you like dirt so I kept my cool and explained what had happened , at this point I had still received no apology for having to wait so long or an apology for not informing me about what was happening (this would have eased my annoyance slightly). "Oh it's only a £1 as well" was her response to my issue. Really?! Only a £1!! That £1 would have been in Asda's pocket, how much money do they make a year by short changing customers due to bad customer service? There was no apology for the mistake from this member off staff. Needless to say I left still very annoyed.
Then today we nip into Asda as we where at a carboot just across the road so it made sense as we needed baby wipes for Alice. We get in the queue, oh great it's the same person who served me the other night.
Guess what?
She did it again?!!
No Hello even though my wife said hello first. I had already walked away and left Kerry to complete the sale as I was getting angry about this. Then guess what? She starts talking to another member of staff again and double scans something again!! Thankfully this time Kerry noticed and it was taken off, this then needed an override from a supervisor. The supervisor came and said jokingly "oh not you again with this" to the member of staff. All jokes have an element of truth to them so this led me to believe this is a regular occurance for this member of staff. This could easily be resolved with some coaching from the management so this doesn't happen again. I left again thinking:
Why does service training seem to be nonexistent? Why do I keep receiving awful service in Asda?
Do this happen to you? Maybe it's just me but I doubt it.
Their going to lose a lot of valuable and consistent shoppers if they don't do something about this soon.
Thanks for reading as always
Subscribe to One Hull Of A Dad
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As a store manager in retail, which I have been for six years and have been in retail for fourteen years I am fully aware of how service should be. I expect great service from my colleagues and it should be first and foremost in everyone's minds. After all if you give bad service, customers don't like it and eventually they will leave and spend their money somewhere else, then you have no business left. We aim to give world class service in my store, I'm not saying were perfect, as nobody is but we know how important it is to the success of the store.
In my opinion Asda's take on service is getting worse, I take it as a win if I don't nearly get run over by someone pulling a cage around the store whilst it's open. I write this review of my local store in Hull as the service I have received twice in the last three days epitomises the overall opinion I have of Asda and it left me feeling pissed off because it seems as though service is unimportant to them. Here's what happened.
Three nights ago I go to Asda to get some shopping in, I'm at the checkout and I said hello to the cashier and she replied with "do you need a bag?". Not a great start as I felt that was rude, in my opinion the member staff should greet the customer first, this didn't happen and she didn't have the courtesy to say hello back. She then scanned in my products as I was bagging them. She then started a conversation with another member of staff whilst still serving me (this is a major pet peeve of mine, just as much as customers who use mobiles whilst you're serving them). Whilst I was being ignored and standing in shock that it seemed OK that I be ignored she scanned the last product twice. This was because she wasn't concentrating due to talking to her colleague. I wasn't 100% sure at the time due to turning slightly to put a bag in the trolley, so I paid and checked receipt once it was handed to me and I was correct, I was charged twice. I brought this up with her immediately, she looked at me confused and took the receipt out of mind to scrutinize it. Once she realised she had done this she apologised and told me I had to now go wait at the customer service desk for a refund. Off I trotted to the desk supremely pissed off at the service I'd just received. I must point out that the overcharge was only a £1 and generally I would let this go and just forget about it but this isn't the first time I've encountered appalling service in this store and I was so shocked at how I was served that I wanted my money back. Why should Asda get my money from their mistake? There were two people in front of me at the customer service desk, these queues usually take a while to go down, there was also a customer waiting to the side of the desk who had clearly been served and was waiting for something or someone. I was the next customer now, the member of staff stopped half way through her sale to shout on the tannoy for someone to come to the desk from the music and video department (this was for the man stood to the side). I could tell by the man at the side that he had been waiting more than an acceptable amount of time as he kept huffing. It got to my turn to be served, the member of staff said I won't be a minute and just left the till area. She didn't explain where she was going or why I was being left without being served, now there's two pissed off people stood at this desk, bearing in mind I'm already very annoyed. Around five minutes later (which is an extremely long time when you're stood waiting to be served) the staff member came back and then served the other guy waiting. After he had gone it was finally my turn, working in retail I know what it's like to deal with customers who are rude and talk to you like dirt so I kept my cool and explained what had happened , at this point I had still received no apology for having to wait so long or an apology for not informing me about what was happening (this would have eased my annoyance slightly). "Oh it's only a £1 as well" was her response to my issue. Really?! Only a £1!! That £1 would have been in Asda's pocket, how much money do they make a year by short changing customers due to bad customer service? There was no apology for the mistake from this member off staff. Needless to say I left still very annoyed.
Then today we nip into Asda as we where at a carboot just across the road so it made sense as we needed baby wipes for Alice. We get in the queue, oh great it's the same person who served me the other night.
Guess what?
She did it again?!!
No Hello even though my wife said hello first. I had already walked away and left Kerry to complete the sale as I was getting angry about this. Then guess what? She starts talking to another member of staff again and double scans something again!! Thankfully this time Kerry noticed and it was taken off, this then needed an override from a supervisor. The supervisor came and said jokingly "oh not you again with this" to the member of staff. All jokes have an element of truth to them so this led me to believe this is a regular occurance for this member of staff. This could easily be resolved with some coaching from the management so this doesn't happen again. I left again thinking:
Why does service training seem to be nonexistent? Why do I keep receiving awful service in Asda?
Do this happen to you? Maybe it's just me but I doubt it.
Their going to lose a lot of valuable and consistent shoppers if they don't do something about this soon.
Thanks for reading as always
Subscribe to One Hull Of A Dad
Follow
Oh my god Rich you weren't kidding!! I avoid Asda whenever possible for pretty much the same reason. And it might just be £1 but it's YOUR £1!! You're a legend
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