While I am at it (I just finished writing the previous post), I have a complaint about Wal*Mart.
The other day (a few weeks back), my wife and I went shopping at Wal*Mart (in Wasilla, Alaska). After picking up the few items we needed (around 10 to 12 items), we headed to the front to check out. Most of the lines had two to three people in them, but one of the express checkouts only had a single customer (express checkouts at this store are 20 items or less). After standing for a few minutes, I moved to look around a support column that was right in the way and saw that the woman checking out had a very full cart. I was bored, so I started counting. I lost count around 60 (note again that this was a 20-items-or-less checkout). In addition, she was putting the items onto about 6 different orders.
After nearly 25 minutes we had four more customers in line behind us and the checker finally finished the last order for this woman. As she left, she said, apologetically, "That's what happens when you go shopping for six people." I wanted to reply, "No, that's what happens when you take 60 items to a 20-items-or-less express checkout," but I was to polite to actually do it (in hind sight, I really wish I had said it). When I got to the checker, I asked if they were allowed to do anything about that, and he said they were not (I have worked retail before, so I already knew the answer). Then I asked him to let his manager know I had complained.
Now that the story is over, it is time for the ripping. Assuming the checker was telling the truth (I am certain he was), this entire incident is Wal*Mart's fault. I am sure the reason they do not allow checkers to tell customers like this to find a normal register is to avoid loosing customers. The idea with this sort of retail policy is that you make a rule to add convenience for customers with small orders, but you don't actually enforce it, because you don't want to tick off customers that have too many items. Now, I would not mind this if it was limited to customers with only a few extra items, but when a customer has three, four, or even five times the limit, its going a bit too far. (I said I lost count at 60. That is how many items I could see from the back of the cart. I am sure there were at least 80, if not more than 100 items in the cart.)
Now, here is what that policy to avoid ticking off a customer actually accomplished. A single inconsiderate customer saved five minutes or less by going to an express register where she took nearly a half an hour to check out. (Saving 17% of her time.) At the same time, my wife and I lost 25 minutes, before taking 5 minutes to check out (loosing 500% of our time), and four customers behind us ended up waiting an extra 10 to 20 minutes to spend 5 minutes checking out (not going to do the math, but still loosing several hundred percent of their time each). A single customer did not get ticked off at Wal*Mart, because they did not send her to a more appropriate register, while five customers did get ticked off because what should have been a quick stop was turned into a long trip by a poorly managed company.
Tell me what is better customer service: sending a single customer to another line, where she should have gone in the first place (kindly and apologetically, of course), so you can take care of the other five in a timely manner, or taking care of the customer that either was not paying attention, or was blatantly disregarding the rules, and making the other five wait, when they are paying attention and following the rules?
Anyhow, we have started shopping at Fred Meyers more frequently since then, even though we are closer to Wal*Mart. If this happens again, I am leaving my cart in line, letting the checker know that I am leaving because of Wal*Mart's poor customer service policies and heading over to Freddys.
I hope someone from Wal*Mart corporate (who actually has power) reads this, so they can see that this poor treatment of customers really does loose them business (we just bought a months worth of water, Gatorade, Propel, Sobe, and a few other beverages at Fred Meyers today; if it were not for this incident, we probably would have bought it at Wal*Mart, since it is closer).
Lord Rybec
