Safeway - A rant!! (Safeway)

Member Name: Leolover

Product:	Safeway
Date:	30/10/01 (194 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good quality food

Disadvantages: Apalling customer service, expensive, rude and incompetent staff

Last Friday the boyfriend decided to embark on a booze cruise with the lads, and after an exhausting week, I was looking forward to a night in by myself, slobbing out in my PJ’swith some videos, a nice meal and a glass or two of wine.

On my way home from work I decided to get something for dinner. The nearest supermarket was Safeway, so it made sense for me to make my way there. Biggest mistake I ever made. Oh how I wish I’d made a detour and gone to Tesco instead….

Finding what I wanted wasn’t a problem. The store is fairly well stocked with a decent range of fresh veg, meat, canned goods, and a decent selection of wine. It’s slightly more pricey than the other big stores, but everything seems to be of a good quality and a decent quantity. Their concept of customer service, however, left a great deal to be desired...

Before I go any further, let me please stress that I am not about to imply that all checkout workers are gormless, rude and unintelligible. I have met many very polite and pleasant cashiers who have made the whole supermarket experience much more bearable than it might otherwise be. The one I encountered in Safeway, unfortunately, was of a very different type.

With my small basket of goodies, I made my way to the nearest 'basket only' checkout and unloaded my goods. My good mood started to evaporate when the checkout assistant started bashing around my goods while scanning them through the till. When she got to my sushi, I had to intervene and ask her to be a little more careful. Sushi does not take kindly to being waved around as if by some overenthusiastic cheerleader with a pompom. SHE did not take kindly to my request, responding in very poor English with “I ‘ave to get it to go through the bleeper...” Hmmmm. Yes.

When all my goods were packaged and it was time to pay, I handed over my debit card and asked for some cashback. I was then t
old by Miss Gormless that it was a cash only till. Where was the sign informing customers of this fact? It had fallen on the floor. How, then, was I supposed to have known about this when I joined the queue? No reply – just a blank stare. My goods were packaged and ready to go, there was no WAY I was joining the end of another queue to go through it all again, when it wasn’t even my fault that I’d joined the wrong queue. Apparently the cashier didn’t understand English as well as not being able to speak it, as she started unpacking my bag, tossing my already shaken up goods back into the basket where they’d recently been plucked so roughly from. Apparently I had no choice but to join another queue.

As you can imagine, my happy Friday mood had long since evaporated at this point. I marched down to the customer service desk and demanded to speak to someone, I was determined to complain about the rude, gormless cashier and the way she’d treated me (and my shopping!) They kept me waiting for ten minutes before I was able to speak to some underling only slightly more polite and approachable than the cashier herself. After listening to my complaints with barely concealed impatience, she told me I could get my goods re-scanned at the tobacco counter, instead of having to queue again in the store itself.

Slightly (but only very slightly) pacified, I made my way to the tobacco counter, only to be confronted by Miss Gormless’s younger, stupider twin brother. He scanned two of my purchases incorrectly, failing to scan through the reduced price stickers, and as a consequence had to rescan the entire lot. My fresh vegetables he put to one side and said I couldn’t have because he didn’t have any scales to weigh them! By this point I was ready to burn the place to the ground, I was so angry. My voice must have become slightly raised (!!) as I attracted the attention of the Customer Service Manager who, t
o her credit, did a lot towards restoring my patience by listening carefully to the full story, then apologising profusely and offering me the veggies for free.

I entered the store happy, relaxed and looking forward to my night in, but I left the store angry, tense and half an hour late for my favourite Friday evening TV show. Despite the admittedly valiant attempt of the customer service manager to sort out the mess the incompetence of the other staff had caused, I’ll never shop there again.

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