Sainsburys Complete System Failure

Quat

rustyboy21 wrote: »

It just winds me up when people slag of retail staff, who are also people too, they work hard for their money, yet seem to get looked down on as being subservient and open to abuse.

Couldn't agree more with this.

I work in retail and I'm a business owner, although I still work very much on the "coal face" for part of the week. Retail staff are expected by some (not all) customers to achieve a level of perfection that simply isn''t possible, then are abused for not having achieved that impossibly high standard. I get abuse from customers myself from time to time, despite owning a business with a seven figure turnover, because I'm behind the counter in a fast food restaurant, many people assume I am stupid.

Customer service is important, of course it is and yes, the customer is king! The reality though is that the majority of retail staff DO treat the customer as number one and do their utmost best to do look after them. Problems arise when mistakes are made or when the customer's expectations are simply too high.

Let me give you some examples of what my staff have coped with over the past few days:

- We finish serving breakfast at 11am. A customer comes in at 11:30 and requests breakast, staff explain breakfast has finished and the customr tells them "well you've ruined my day now, pathetic you can't make an exception"

- Customer comes in with a voucher that was issued three years ago, the staff at the till are unsure how to redeem it. "How hard can it be to use a till"

- The coffee machine at one store broke down, unfortunately the manufavturer took several days to attend and fix it. The staff apologise for this, but are greated with responses of "not good enough". What can the staff do? Hands are tied until the engineer arrives to conduct the repair.

- A customer misreads the menu. They ask for something, then at the till assume it is part of a promotion that it is not. Staff explain this and the customer complains that the staff did not inform them of this at the start.

The most common complaints I come accross are customers requesting special treatment/discounts and the staff refusing, because they do not have the authority to grant such requests. That doesn't make them stupid, ignorant or ungrateful, they are simply doing their job within the boundarys of what they have been trained to do!

pullenuk

Deleted_User wrote: »

Supermarkets don't make any profit on home deliveries from what I hear.

On average Sainsburys make less than a few pounds per customer profit.I'm not giving any more info on that. That is on the service PER year. Obviously the products makes profit but that part of the store delivering profits.

A few pounds is pretty poor, but its a profit. The online service however increases profit at a store level bringing the store to the customer.

Its a lot of hard work for the company and staff. Think about it, how much does it costs to drive from your house to Sainsburys and back in just fuel? Bet most people would say more than the delivery fee!
Cyber attack? I believe that, no network in the world that is connected to the internet is safe. Everything is possible to hack.

[Deleted User]

pullenuk wrote: »

On average Sainsburys make less than a few pounds per customer profit.I'm not giving any more info on that. That is on the service PER year. Obviously the products makes profit but that part of the store delivering profits.

A few pounds is pretty poor, but its a profit. The online service however increases profit at a store level bringing the store to the customer.

Its a lot of hard work for the company and staff. Think about it, how much does it costs to drive from your house to Sainsburys and back in just fuel? Bet most people would say more than the delivery fee!
Cyber attack? I believe that, no network in the world that is connected to the internet is safe. Everything is possible to hack.

I work for a major supermarket chain and I'm well aware of what is what.

Paul_the_Painter

Of course, one crucial thing to remember is that if the OP shopping was so incredibly important, seemingly a life or death matter. Then it should have been ordered before.

Anyone who is truley reliant on their shopping turning up, and can't get out, will have plans in place to make sure they can eat for a few days, if the worst happens.

We could have had a snow storm like last year - shopping would be late. The van could be in an accident - if that happens late in the day - no shopping.

So the OP merely finds it inconvienient to go "normal" shopping, or wait 2 days.

Oh and Airbus planes revert from "normal law" to "alternate law" to "direct law" depending on system degradation. When it's in "direct law" the computers are not really doing anything at all, certainly nothing to keep you protected from making a silly mistake.

cornishqueenie

I placed and checked out an order on saturday - when i went to amend it yesterday it said my delivery slot had been lost. I contacted Sainsburys who said this had happened to a lot of people and was a problem with their system. I asked what they were going to do about it as when I looked there were no free slots now before Christmas, they said there was nothing they could do!?! I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to work paid overtime to deliver these orders as it is Sainsbury's fault not the customers. I was put on hold for 10 minutes and then cut off

baza52

And where do the extra vans come from to deliver your shopping?
Failing that would you be happy to get your groceries at 4am

katiejones

cornishqueenie wrote: »

I placed and checked out an order on saturday - when i went to amend it yesterday it said my delivery slot had been lost. I contacted Sainsburys who said this had happened to a lot of people and was a problem with their system. I asked what they were going to do about it as when I looked there were no free slots now before Christmas, they said there was nothing they could do!?! I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to work paid overtime to deliver these orders as it is Sainsbury's fault not the customers. I was put on hold for 10 minutes and then cut off

And where exactly do you get the idea of paid overtime - not in our store. If its not picked by the time shift finishes, then Managers pick. And believe me they are not experienced. And do we not have families to get home to and Christmas to get ready for, or do we not exist outside the store. Just like we are invisible in the store. And ( you have really peeved me) we are picking this week from 4am so that customers get their orders, shifts don't usually start until 6am .

realdeal1970

cornishqueenie wrote: »

I placed and checked out an order on saturday - when i went to amend it yesterday it said my delivery slot had been lost. I contacted Sainsburys who said this had happened to a lot of people and was a problem with their system. I asked what they were going to do about it as when I looked there were no free slots now before Christmas, they said there was nothing they could do!?! I'm sure there would be plenty of people willing to work paid overtime to deliver these orders as it is Sainsbury's fault not the customers. I was put on hold for 10 minutes and then cut off

you could go to sainsbury and shop it yourself

cornishqueenie

That isn't the point - it is Sainsbury's fault - their error - my car has broken and there are no buses

arcon5

pullenuk wrote: »

On average Sainsburys make less than a few pounds per customer profit.I'm not giving any more info on that. That is on the service PER year. Obviously the products makes profit but that part of the store delivering profits.

A few pounds is pretty poor, but its a profit. The online service however increases profit at a store level bringing the store to the customer.

Its a lot of hard work for the company and staff. Think about it, how much does it costs to drive from your house to Sainsburys and back in just fuel? Bet most people would say more than the delivery fee!
Cyber attack? I believe that, no network in the world that is connected to the internet is safe. Everything is possible to hack.

I highly doubt they only make a few pounds per year from each customer that orders online. I imagine a healthy chunk of the cost is covered by the delivery charge. Plus the ratio of home delivery costs to turnover will likely be relative to a stores turnover versus the £500k/yr store!