Nobody Cares Anymore

On Sunday, stood at the checkout of one of my local supermarkets, I reached that moment, the final straw that took me over the edge and finally ignited months of irritation and frustration as a dissatisfied customer; and made me decide that ‘enough was enough’. 

As a customer, it is time to take a stand.

I’ve had a nasty bug this past week that’s gone to my chest and left me with a hacking cough and kept me house bound for far too many days.  Even so, at three on Sunday afternoon and in desperate need of fresh lettuce supplies for Luce, I was forced to brave the cold and make a last minute dash for some essentials. 

Now admittedly, I did perhaps look a little unkempt and maybe that didn’t help the situation.  Steve’s hat that I’d borrowed is oversized and droops considerably over my face.  My nose was red and flaky with dry skin and probably by the time I reached the checkout, I would have been in need of a jolly good blow of my nose.

Anyway, after wandering around the store aware of the final shopping minutes ticking by before the store closed, and throwing as much food in my trolley as I could remember from my shopping list, that was still wedged in my coat pocket, I loaded my shop on to the belt and said hello to the woman who was about to serve me. 

‘Is it raining outside,’ the checkout lady demanded, waving two birthday cards at me that both had drops of clear water sat upon their plastic covers, and which had been sitting at the bottom of my trolley.

I glanced out of the window uncertainly, wondering if it was a trick question.  ‘I don’t think so,’ I replied, a little surprised by her question and the curtness of her voice.

We both continued to stare at the drips on the cards as if we somehow expected them to tell us how and from where they had appeared.

Now, I have the tendency to be a bit of a germ freak.  If anything even remotely appears to be like blood I start to panic, and trust me, I would never touch an unidentified stain.  But even I could see that these spots on my cards were simply harmless dribbles of water that had obviously come from some of the vegetables or frozen food I had put in my trolley.

I mean, I was buying them and I wasn’t worried.

The check out lady didn’t seem to agree.  She gave me a look as if to say, in no uncertain terms, that she believed I had personally put the germ-filled marks on the cards myself.  She then proceeded to make a show in front of several people queuing behind me, of taking out a large roll of blue tissue.  Then she slowly tore a strip off, dabbing at the water on the cards before scrubbing the shopping belt dry with unnecessary force, murmuring something about finding out what the culprit had been.

Her tone implying that she had already discovered the culprit, and that person in her mind was obviously me.

Bemused by her reaction, I nodded while she put the blue paper roll away and grabbed a make up bag from beneath the counter, saying, ‘excuse me a moment’ as she extracted a small tube of hand sanitizer and made a drama of cleansing her hands.

Again, I’m all for cleanliness.  But hand sanitizer?

Surely I didn't look so bedraggled that I appeared to be the type of customer who would spit germs upon the cards they were about to purchase.

Her insinuation was bad enough but what was more offensive was her disdain and subsequent refusal to look at me.

Finally, when she was done began to push my food through and I swiftly packed it away beginning to feel increasingly irritated.  When the cabbage arrived beside me, and I noticed droplets of water hovering in the bottom of the bag it came in and was obviously the offending item, I was about to say, ‘here we are, here’s the cause of the problem.’ 

Then I realized she would have seen that for herself and anyway her head was determinedly set away from me.  So, I stuffed it away in a bag, feeling horribly small and grotty inside.

As I keyed my pin number into the machine, the roll of blue paper towel reappeared and a piece was swept across the belt fiercely as if to remove all remains of my germs.  When we were done and she handed me my receipt her eyes didn’t even attempt to meet mine. 

It was as if I didn’t exist.

And so I crawled out of the store feeling worthless and embarrassed.

Wondering what I had done wrong?

Trying to remind myself that I was, I am the customer.

During the drive home I ruminated on what had happened and how this awful had woman made me feel.  By the time I got home and told Steve, I had wound myself up, remembering all those other occasions I’ve experienced in the past year, when as a customer I have been let down and disregarded.

Only a few weeks back, I stopped at a petrol station with a cash point machine lodged in its front wall to take out some cash and buy a sandwich for lunch.  After several minutes of struggling to make the pad keys work and trying to get my card out again, it was with some relief when my card exited and I went inside to buy a sandwich.

A teenage girl served me.  ‘Can I get cash back here,’ I asked.  ‘Only I couldn’t get cash at  the machine, it nearly swallowed my card.  You perhaps want to put a notice up…’

‘It’s nothing to do with us,’ the girl interrupted, staring blankly at me.

‘Yes, but it’s going to take somebody’s card,’ I continued.

‘Not our problem,’ she said with a disinterested shrug.

And isn’t that the difficulty in today’s world.  Nothing is ever anyone’s problem.  It will be the problem for the poor person whose card gets stuck in the machine, who then has to go through the rigmarole of phoning the bank, perhaps ordering a new card, waiting for it’s arrival and possibly having to change details on monthly card payments.  For that person, it will become their problem.

For me, on Sunday, being at the end of this woman’s bizarre and unnecessary behavior, I reached the end of my shopper’s patience; and so, I decided that I would not be swayed by reduced prices and convenience anymore.  I will no longer shop within these vast, uncaring, faceless stores for my weekly food. 

No, I will make a stand and return to a more old fashioned way of shopping.  Of buying meat from the butchers, vegetables from the green grocer, bread from the bakers and start having my milk delivered.

In theory this idea works great.  But practically it’s not so possible, not in this modern world and the way we all live.  And that is exactly how and why these oversized supermarkets get away with shoddy products and the reduced and minimal levels of customer service that we have become accustomed to. 

How they get away with no longer caring about each of their individual customers’.

Because for a lot of us we’re tied over a barrel and simply have no other choice.

We live in a small village with no shop of it’s own and that is a twenty-minute drive in any direction to reach a shop or town.  Therefore to visit individual stores and buy our products from specialist shops takes time; a luxury many of us are hard pressed to enjoy.  And so, we have to rely on these enormous, impersonal convenient stores located on the edge of town’s that we pass by on our drive home.

So what then is the answer?

Earlier this year, I made the decision to avoid using one of the major supermarket chains (which was the one where I had problems on Sunday).  Having experienced repeated issues with chickens that had gone off while still having several days before the ‘use by date’.  And not just at the same store, it happened time and again at differing stores. 

Because there comes a point when you can only return so many stinky chicken packets back to a store for a refund, before it gets awfully embarrassing.  By the end, what I will now call Store Number One, no longer even queried what the problem was when they served me, they simply refunded. 

Then I had the same problem with fresh salsa that was also 'in date.' 

And then I had a dispute over the price of a box of chocolates that they’d overcharged me on.  It’s petty I know, but incensed at them taking my money, I stuck to my guns insisting they refund me £3.50 they had charged me in error. 

They stuck to their position too.  They marched me to the chocolate aisle so I could show them where I had selected the box from, and then told me that although it had been a special offer, they no longer had any records of it, although it was only days later, and declined to refund me the difference.

I couldn’t believe it, considering how ludicrously much I spend as a customer each week, month and year, which my bank statements are evidence of.  Yet, for them there was no consciousness or keenness to show a sense of customer service or a gesture of goodwill to maintain relations, or even attempt keep me as a customer.

They didn’t care.  Whether I shopped there or not; they just don’t care. 

They don’t need me.  One single isolated customer, who returns frequently with complaints.

Many years ago, in my dreaded-office-bound days, I worked in Customer Services.

Working within a call centre for a major marketing and publishing company that had to work hard to manage a positive reputation, we were geared in Customer Services to care for the customer. 

Our motto being: The Customer Is Always Right.

Of course there are times when the customer is clearly not right, but as a representative you swallow your pride and offer the profuse apologies you are paid to give and get on with it.  Always ready to admit fault, give apologies, send out replacements and always, always refund money when it was necessary and without quibble.

We didn’t question, or look down upon our customers, we cared for them the best we could.

So anyway, after my decision to stop shopping at Store Number One, I moved on to Store Number Two, another major chain supermarket.  Where, although the prices were slightly increased and Luce had to adjust to a new style of lettuce, the chickens were at least fresh and could be trusted.

Until late last year, when a chicken I bought at Store Number Two was well and truly off, although still being in date.

Immediately phoning the store, I was assured that if I returned the packaging with the receipt, they would refund me.

So I did just that and was left waiting for sometime as they repeatedly asked whom I had spoken to.

‘They didn’t say,’ I explained for the third time as two members of staff flicked through a customer complaints diary, as if by simply looking they could magic up the information they required.

‘There’s nothing here,’ they assured one another.

But of course there wasn’t.  I wasn’t asked my name when I called and I didn’t request their name.  They had said I would be refunded and that was enough.

‘If I’d known it would take this much trouble, I wouldn’t have bothered bringing this back,’ I tell the three members of staff who are hovering uncertainly, pondering on whether I will be allowed a refund of £5.00.

Eventually, they decide I will be allowed and even include a further £5.00 in way of an apology.

Which was good of them.  If only they hadn’t made me wait quite so long, and left me feeling awkward and uncomfortable.

And so, disappointed with Store Number Two I move on to Store Number Three.  Another major brand, with whom I decide I will shop online and have my food delivered.  For the first couple of weeks, I’m impressed.  The prices are better and the quality of the food is good.  The deliveryman even calls as he leaves to let me know that he is on his way.

However, on what ends up being my final shop with them, my order is interfered with by gremlins in their computer system and the nice man arrives with twelve packets of mushrooms instead of four, four chickens instead of two and six packets of steamed vegetables I had not ordered. 

As I tell the old boy that I didn’t order such ridiculous amounts, he shrugs, ‘Nothing to do with me,’ he says.

I return them as unordered and my paperwork is signed as such.  A refund of around £25.00 will be deposited back in to my account I’m told.  Days later when it’s not in my account I call the number on my bill.  The customer services department call the store and get back to me saying that the manager will be in the store the following day and then the refund will be issued.

Two weeks later, there is still no sign of my money and so I call again.

Customer services will investigate and get back to me; only they don’t.

Still no refund and so I call again to speak to a manager.

‘A manager will call you back,’ I’m told; only, once again, they don’t.

So I call once more, and repeat the whole saga again. 

A girl with a lovely, comforting South African accent assures me that she can deal with it and that will of course call me back.  There are no surprises when she doesn’t.

The next night I call again, and go through my complaint AGAIN.

‘Can I call you Melanie?’  The operative asks, as all the others have done.  I’m tempted to say, ‘I don’t give a flying monkey what you call me, I just want my money back.’

Finally they agree to call a manager to the phone, and I am left holding, on my phone bill, for ten minutes as the manager obviously dawdles through the office to answer the call, and my pasta in tomato sauce bubbles and burns on the stove, which, when Steve arrives home, I frantically wave at him to rescue.

Eventually the manager appears and I repeat the whole episode.  He will talk to the store he promises and sort this unforgivable mess out and refund me my money.

Later, for the first time in week's someone does actually calls me back to tell me they are in the process of putting my refund through.  Only my debit card had to be cancelled after fraudulent use and they in customer services do not have the ability to process a refund on a card different to the one used.

‘I’ll need to phone the store back,’ I’m told.  ‘I’m not authorized to change card details.’

That could take weeks and will undoubtedly involve me phoning them again and again.

So I agree to accept gift cards, which I can use in a store I have no intention of shopping at again.

‘I’ll post out a refund of £30.00 for you tomorrow,’ I’m told.

And three and a half weeks later, I’m still waiting.

Desperate and in need of shopping somewhere, I return to Store Number One; thinking that although the chickens were always off at least they didn’t dawdle in giving a refund or force you to make endless calls.

Then on Sunday, all my remaining faith in Store Number One was taken.

And so now I have nowhere to turn but the more expensive supermarkets or the pleasant but time consuming ideal of shopping as has been done in times gone by.

Surely there has to be an alternative, a way of carving out a fresh approach to shopping in this fast paced world, because I no longer want to shop at Store One, Two or Three. 

I’m tired of these anonymous, uncaring supermarket chain stores that seem to have lost sight of their end user, the customer.  The little people like me, who want and need good value for money, but also, more importantly crave and deserve exceptional customer service; and to know that someone out there does still care.

Comments

[Richard Davison]

Mel

You should have coughed and sneezed all over her and said how awful you feel to have to be out shopping with such a dreadful cold and would she mind packing your bags for you as you just didnt feel up to it, then march off wihout a care in the world,

love you lots

Rich xxxxx