Asda poor service, should I complain?

trinidadone

hello all,

I saw this thread and thought I would put down an experience I had on wednesday at my local asda supermarket. I have never complained about Asda before, and have shopped for years with the company, but I was real ticked on wednesday

I went to the the Old Kent Road Asda Branch in London on wednesday nite. I arrived there at 10:30pm. I dont usually shop during this time, but decided to pop down there, wish I hadnt. First bad experience was trying to push a shopping trolly around the isles with nite staff replemishing stock. There were large cages on wheels everywhere, goods all over the floor, some scattered, others placed in a haphard mount way.

I had to ask some of the staff to move the things, so I could get pass, I did like the experience at all.

There was two cashers open which I joinged just after 11pm. After a few minutes waiting, a fellow customer infront told me this casher was closing. I felt a bit put out, so decided to join the second cashier que. I waited again for a few minutes and this time the casher stood up and told me his till will be closing and I should visit the self service. I told him I had a trolly, and he said, thats what I needed to do.

two cashiers now closing at the same time, and no new tills opening, MMMmmmmmmmmmmmm. I take it in my stride, and make my way to the bank of self service tills. There is two banks of four tills, but strangly one bank of four is closed and roped off.

As I made my way to the que, I notice people are queing along on the isles. There are eight people in front of me, some with babies, large shopping troolies. People are disgruntled to having to use the self service tills, and one customer starts shouting concerning the roped closed tills. More and more people join the ques, which now have reached half of the isle.

After 15 minutes, I finally get to my till. I scn everything, but have trouble with the till, as it does not recognise the bags I brought with me (asda reuseable bags) the till keeps telling me "unexpected iteam in bagging area"

the guy loking after the till is running around helping other customers. people are getting angry of the amount of time they are waiting.

Once i pack my shopping, i tell the staff member I want to use the voucher i printed from the asda challenge. I am told these tills dont take these vouchers. I insist on speaking to a manager. I wait, and wait and wait, eventually someone arrives. I tell him about the voucher, and he asks the first member of staff. I am told another person has been asked to come over.

I am real ticked at this point but remain calm. five minutes and another senio staff member arrives. both of them now start pressing buttons on the till. The second senior staff member tells me he will give me the cash instead and disappears with he voucher and till reciept.

Knowing I am going to get the money, i now attempt to pay. The till fails to recognise my credit card. I put it in the card reader several times, but noithing seems to work. I then have to wait again for the staff member. by now the second bank of self service tills are open, so he is doing eigh tills. red lights are flashing everywhere. Finally he approaches my till, and tells me the card reader is broken. There is no sign on the till, noithing to tell customers it is for cash only.

The first senior staff member approches and gives me the money from the till. I explain to him, i am not happy. He informs me there are cash machines outside the store. I now have to leave the store, draw some cash out, and reenter the store. I pay, and get out of there pretty quick.

I feel really upset with the whole experience, If it was not for the reusable bags, i would of left the shopping, and drove to nearby tesco. shall i complain to anyone????????

johnnyblount

Yes you should complain there is too much of this attitude of not helping the customer and staff taking rules on self service to the extreme when they know that there is a problem , the supervisor should have known that there was a problem but they use the advice that customers must learn to use self service as an excuse to cause problems.
Of course it may have been down to management to so as well as writing to the store manager send another copy to head office and put in your letter who you have sent copies to.
Ive seen this far too often just lately when there are paid staff able to help but instead checkouts are closed down , Ive even heard staff giggling at failed attempts by the elderly to scan shopping and heard one commenting , "well let them know what its like working a till" whist they pretend to be sorting stock in the aisles .
It needs sorting a customer is not a paid member of staff , having a customer shop in your store pays the wage and the only way this will be stopped is to make your voice heard or leave your shopping at the till and walk out , giving those that should be working more work.

Sadly its the only way they will learn and Ive done it more than once when "forced" to use a malfunctioning checkout and been grunted at as though its my fault and Im some sort of technical buffoon that has broken the equipment , quite the reverse Im a fully qualified technician and now refuse point blank to self serve unless a paid member of staff is around and then we just get 2 of us at the till rather pointless.

If it plays up I then threaten to leave unless they can sort it themselves immediately or move me to a checkout where I wont rejoin a queue.
You have to be tough and always complain if mistreated after all its our money they take and theres plenty of supermarkets and there should always be a checkout open in my opinion besides self service

trinidadone

Wow thanks John, glad someone feels like me. I thought these self service tills were introduced to give shppers a choice, but here, i felt so upset. I just need to find details of the manager at the store and head office. I have not been back to the store since I have heard tesco is accepting the vouchers asda issue as part of there 10% challenge, i could always use this voucher here

johnnyblount wrote: »

Yes you should complain there is too much of this attitude of not helping the customer and staff taking rules on self service to the extreme when they know that there is a problem , the supervisor should have known that there was a problem but they use the advice that customers must learn to use self service as an excuse to cause problems.
Of course it may have been down to management to so as well as writing to the store manager send another copy to head office and put in your letter who you have sent copies to.
Ive seen this far too often just lately when there are paid staff able to help but instead checkouts are closed down , Ive even heard staff giggling at failed attempts by the elderly to scan shopping and heard one commenting , "well let them know what its like working a till" whist they pretend to be sorting stock in the aisles .
It needs sorting a customer is not a paid member of staff , having a customer shop in your store pays the wage and the only way this will be stopped is to make your voice heard or leave your shopping at the till and walk out , giving those that should be working more work.

Sadly its the only way they will learn and Ive done it more than once when "forced" to use a malfunctioning checkout and been grunted at as though its my fault and Im some sort of technical buffoon that has broken the equipment , quite the reverse Im a fully qualified technician and now refuse point blank to self serve unless a paid member of staff is around and then we just get 2 of us at the till rather pointless.

If it plays up I then threaten to leave unless they can sort it themselves immediately or move me to a checkout where I wont rejoin a queue.
You have to be tough and always complain if mistreated after all its our money they take and theres plenty of supermarkets and there should always be a checkout open in my opinion besides self service

zenseeker

Sounds bad, I would definitely complain, but watch your spelling and grammar if you want any attention to be paid to a letter. The late night service at our Tesco is pretty good, even when they switch to self service and have staff stocking, all down to the attitude of the staff, which sadly sounds attrocious in your Asda

As for the closed till, did it not occur to anyone that there is a good reason for it? It was probably faulty, so roped off to prevent anyone having problems.

viv0147

Complain it sounds a total shambles.

Diane60

When I returned from holiday in November at 2.30am, I thought it would be a good idea to call at our local 24 hour ASDA to stock up on the way home.
Staff were amazed to see me shopping and all the aisles had packing cages etc in them. It was not possible to get near most of the fresh food. I was determined to get my essential items, but the staff were not helpful and I stumbled several times on wrapping that had been left on the floor. (Another person may have purposely tripped & sued them). There were no staff to check me out, but that was not a problem to me.
Why do they advertise that we can shop all day & night, as when you do, it obvious you are not wanted!

celebrate

your experience sounds absolutley shocking
can you write good letters?i would def write, what can you lose?

only time i personally had cause to complain in asda when one sa made an outrageous racist comment to me, i was trying to buy some okra in veg section and there were only a few in the tray at the top so i removed it to get some from the tray underneath, there was a chap stocking right next to me and he said oi what are you doing, i know your game, your sort of people are always messing my stock up. For a well educated (doctor) i was shocked at his comment, in fact he reduced me to tears. I spoke to customer services and they couldn't find his manager while i was in store so i walked out i was too upset to speak with anyone at the time. I avoided the store for weeks after in case i bumped into him. Eventually I asked my brother who is a solictor to help me write a letter of complaint and i was sent £50 compensation and i never saw that particular SA in the store again-i don't know if he left or was fired.

trinidadone

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam, my experience sounds small compared to yours!!

I am not bad a complaint letters, and your right, i only have a price of a stamp to loose. I will send in a letter today, will post a response if I get one I like asda, but i dont want to return there, the whole experience really affected me

Diane60 wrote: »

When I returned from holiday in November at 2.30am, I thought it would be a good idea to call at our local 24 hour ASDA to stock up on the way home.
Staff were amazed to see me shopping and all the aisles had packing cages etc in them. It was not possible to get near most of the fresh food. I was determined to get my essential items, but the staff were not helpful and I stumbled several times on wrapping that had been left on the floor. (Another person may have purposely tripped & sued them). There were no staff to check me out, but that was not a problem to me.
Why do they advertise that we can shop all day & night, as when you do, it obvious you are not wanted!

trinidadone

I decided to submit my complaint to Asda. I sent a email to Asda HQ in Leeds, I sent a letter by post to Asda HQ and I sent a letter to the store manager. Hopefully someone would respond

johnnyblount

zenseeker wrote: »

Sounds bad, I would definitely complain, but watch your spelling and grammar if you want any attention to be paid to a letter.

Get over yourself and your fixation with spelling and grammar please you seem to have some sort of fixation with spelling and people using too many dots or exclamation marks in their posts all over this forum it may matter im your vocation but it is not the most important thing here.

It it is irritating and childish get over it and stick to the advice instead of posting always including a thinly disguised knock at others posting style or spelling everyone is fully able to use a spell checker or a browser add on for automatic checking
Spelling is not a sign of intelligence when posting in a forum or a way of showing whether or not a customer is a big spender or valued for any reason never was and certainly is not these days.

There are many people that are unable to write correctly or spell correctly for many many difeerent (sic) reasons you may say in some of your posts that bad posting bothers YOU but that is your problem and if you are suffering OCD because of that deal with it and get off your high hores (sic)

Believe me everyone can complain and spelling is not that importamt in getting a reply or not a fantastic styled complaint letter can often have less effect from one that makes you look like a genuine first time complainer rather than one that spends their life constructing complaint templates and sending them out in the hope of discount vouchers.

People here should never be told to worry about their grammar ability when it concerns complaining , it is not a job interview and as long as your letter explains what happened without anger it makes little difference.

The most important thing is to send 2 emails or letters including on both that you have sent it to the manager/customer service AND head office etc it is that that draws attention and usually gets action nether will want to be caught out doing nothing if it goes further .

trinidadone

Hey Johnny, double ouch over the spelling I take it this is a ongoing issue???

johnnyblount wrote: »

Get over yourself and your fixation with spelling and grammar please you seem to have some sort of fixation with spelling and people using too many dots or exclamation marks in their posts all over this forum it may matter im your vocation but it is not the most important thing here.

It it is irritating and childish get over it and stick to the advice instead of posting always including a thinly disguised knock at others posting style or spelling everyone is fully able to use a spell checker or a browser add on for automatic checking
Spelling is not a sign of intelligence when posting in a forum or a way of showing whether or not a customer is a big spender or valued for any reason never was and certainly is not these days.

There are many people that are unable to write correctly or spell correctly for many many difeerent (sic) reasons you may say in some of your posts that bad posting bothers YOU but that is your problem and if you are suffering OCD because of that deal with it and get off your high hores (sic)

Believe me everyone can complain and spelling is not that importamt in getting a reply or not a fantastic styled complaint letter can often have less effect from one that makes you look like a genuine first time complainer rather than one that spends their life constructing complaint templates and sending them out in the hope of discount vouchers.

People here should never be told to worry about their grammar ability when it concerns complaining , it is not a job interview and as long as your letter explains what happened without anger it makes little difference.

The most important thing is to send 2 emails or letters including on both that you have sent it to the manager/customer service AND head office etc it is that that draws attention and usually gets action nether will want to be caught out doing nothing if it goes further .