Tesco's customer service off their trolley! ~ Tesco-Complaint

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Tesco's customer service off their trolley!

I have just returned from Tesco and am far from happy. I spend a lot of money in Tesco's. Today I spent £40 on petrol and £140 on groceries. When I turn up there I fully expect to find a shopping trolley which will allow me to do my family shop. For some reason Tesco have decided to reduce the number of toddler twin shopping trolley's which is fine if you don't happen to have 2 twins that need to go in one. When I went to seek some customer service from the inappropriately named "Customer Services" I was looked at like as if I had asked for the earth. Eventually when it became clear that I was not about to be fobbed off, a trolley man was called. He found me one, but before I had time to point out that the harness was broken, he had taken off. Not wishing to return to the sour faced individual behind the desk I made do and hoped that the twins were securely wedged enough not to be able to climb out. I am going to write a letter of complaint and demand some Clubcard points as compensation!

30 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, but I doubt you'll get any form of compensation. You'll probably get the standard apology letter at best.

I've never had need for one of any trolley other than the standard ones, so the following may be totally unworkable for parents. Just thought I'd warn you.

I've long been of the opinion that these types of trolley should be the type you require a £1 coin for. I'm sure parents wouldn't mind if it meant that they were going to get the type of trolley they needed without having to go looking half way across the car park or having to go inside and wait for someone to find one.

It should also mean that the majority of them are returned to the correct places. If they had them at the store entrance, near the parent and child spaces and perhaps one over the other side of the car park then it should mean that parents wouldn't have to leave children in the car for more than a minute while they accquire/return a trolley.

Of course this relies on Tesco actually having enough of them to go around.

On a seperate note, everyone's life would be a lot easier if people actually retruned their damn trollies to the designated areas rather than just dumping them in the next parking bay, on the nearest bit of pavement or somewhere else inappropriate. I'm sure the short walk of would do you good. It would also mean that the trolley staff could concentrate on getting the trollies back into the main bays rather than cleaning up after the lazy bastards who just can't be bothered.

Anonymous said...

I agree with the last comment. I think the problem here is about people being considerate to one another, ie not just dumping these trollies in the most obscure of locations because they are too lazy to take them to a trolley bay.

Anonymous said...

I can understand why parents wouldn't want to go too far to return or get a trolley. I wouldn't want to leave small children unattended in a car for longer than a minute or so. However, even though there was a trolley bay no more than 20 seconds walk away from any of the parent and child bays at my old store, they would still just be left on the pavement in front of the bays.

You can guarantee though that these same people would be the first to complain if their cars were damaged by these abandoned trollies.

tesco-complaint said...

There is practically no service culture left in this country and some of the comments here are inadvertent testimony to how poor customer service is in the UK.

Should a company blame customers for not returning a trolley in a bay or should the company simply employ more staff and have more specialist trolleys in better working order such that this is never a problem?

Tesco's starting line should be that they expect nothing from customers other than a hope to serve them. Customers shouldn't return trolleys unless they want to, and if as Tesco Manager says most people dont want to then that is not unreasonable and is their prerogative as a customer. The company should do whatever it can to make the customer feel comfortable.

A company's duty is to make profit. Providing good customer service costs. In this country because the overall customer service standard is so low, UK companies can get away with low levels of customer service because consumers have little alternative. Providing poor customer service reduces cost and increases profits, the only truly accepted measure of conglomerate success.

Compare this to Japan, a society where customer service standards are very high such that providing the highest quality customer service is paramount in securing high profits. Without good customer service a Japanese company will fail to make large profits in Japan whereas here in the UK the situation is reversed and providing anything over a basic level of customer service and staff remuneration will impact success measured almost exclusively by profit.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure that even if we have a situation where there was every type of trolley always available, no matter what, then you would just move your complaint on to something else. Face it, we are just a nation of complainers! I agree, compared to other countries Britain probably does fall behind in customer service, but Tesco is not at the forefront of this, I shop at other retailers too and find their service poor.

Really though, Tesco does not under resource on trolley staff. I've never known for Tesco to make cuts in staff, only increases, a lot of your comments are not based on fact at all. We have at least 3 or 4 at my store, the bay is always full. I think we hear a lot of "one off" complaints which you think are happening at every store in the country. All the trollies are regulary cleaned and maintained. Each store is allocated a certain amount of special trollies which for the most part are sufficiant.

Anonymous said...

Okay, this may be a poor analogy, but it's the best thing I can come up with at the moment.

Tesco-Complaint, whichever one of you it is (it would be nice if the two of you could differenitate between yourselves so we know who we're responding to), you say that if customers don't want to return their trolley to many designated areas they shouldn't have to. That it's a customers perogative not to do so and that Tesco should simply employ more staff to essentially clean up after them.

So if this logic works out in the car park shouldn't it also work inside, if Tesco should exist solely to serve the customer and let them do what they want. Would you expect Tesco, or indeed any store, to allow a customer to go into a store on a regular basis, gather up some shopping and then dump it in the middle of the floor and leave? (I told you it was bad so you can't complain!)

That's essentially what you're saying the customers can do outside so why shouldn't they be allowed to do it inside. By taking products from the shelves and leaving them somehwere inconsiderately for someone to potentially fall over it's no different to taking a trolley from the bay and leaving it in the middle of the car park to potentially damage someones vehicle.

Why shouldn't Tesco expect a basic level of courtesy from their customers? It may be a business but the staff aren't robots. Even leaving Tesco out of it, it's a common courtesy to your fellow customers to walk a few feet and return a trolley.

tesco-complaint said...

Al, Please take a look at our post again.

"Customers shouldn't return trolleys unless they want to, and if as Tesco Manager says most people dont want to then that is not ***unreasonable*** and is their prerogative as a customer."

I've starred the relevant bit! It would clearly be unreasonable to leave a trolley in the path of traffic or near to a parked car.

Richard Eisner

Anonymous said...

Why is it their prerogative to leave a trolley where ever they want? This action cannot be justified due to them being a "customer".

If so, where would this end?? Like Al said, could it then be acceptable for them to go around dumping stock all over the store, because it's their prerogative to do so? Or taking chilled items then deciding they don't want it, so dumping it on the nearest shelf. This happens a lot, and we have to throw a lot of food away. I suppose you think this is acceptable as we "can afford it"!!??

Or what I find, is the opening up of packaging, then just carelessly dumped on any shelf. Should Tesco employ more staff to re-assemble products? Which seems to be your answer for everything. God forbid a customer stops to think about their own attitutde to staff who work there.

This whole situation is just like dropping litter and not putting it in the nearest bin. I suppose your answer is that it's acceptable because you pay tax and that a street cleaner should pick it up?

Anonymous said...

But that's what I'm saying! Customers do leave them in the middle of the footpaths running down the car park in front of the parking spaces, in the parking bays and even in the parking bays NEXT to the trolley bays.

I have even seen them left on the ends of the rows of parking bays actually sitting slightly into the path of the main entrance/exit road.

Just take a look at this story http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/yorknews/display.var.1115631.0.dearing_family_unhappy_with_tesco_after_trolley_damages_car.php to see what the consequences can be.

Anonymous said...

1: TESCO DOESNT REVOLVE AROUND YOU.
2: £1 IS GREAT IDEA IT STOPS ALLOT OF LAZY CUSTOMERS SO THEY GO IN TROLLEY BAY WHICH MANY DUMB CUSTOMERS ARE LAZY TO PUT BACK AND PLUS TROLLEYS DONT GET DUMPED €5 DEPOSIT FOR TROLLEYS NOT 1 EURO. THE STAFF ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE ITS MANAGEMENT ITS TESCO BOSSES. THE STAFF CONSTANLY SAY WE NEED KNEW TROLLEYS BUT OUR COMMENTS ARE IGNORED ASWELL. THEY SIT BEHIND THEIR DESK AND SAY NO CAUSE THEY NEVER HAVE TO FACE THE CUSTOMERS AND THE STAFF GET THE BLAME. (TESCO IRELAND, COUNTY DUBLIN)

Anonymous said...

Going back to the original poster, the Tesco at Lincoln has just had a refit (making the store worse, but that's another argument).

My wife and I took our twin 3-yr olds there for our weekly shop, and found out they have got rid of ALL their twin-trolleys (they still have the baby ones, just not the normal 2-seaters), so we had to wheel around 2 trolleys with the boys screaming cos they wanted to sit next to each other.

Oh well, looks like we're off to Asda on the other side of town from now on. Thanks, Tesco :|

Unknown said...

it is more than year since you made this website, but not a lot changed, i complaint to tesco before and never got any respond from them, their site is lots of rubbist, there is always positive click if it regards hot offers or so, but their customer service or contact us click does not work

tesco is not a monopol and they can not treat customer like "we dont care" yesterday my and my hubby were offered kebab of our neibrs and i thought there is too many small bones in that minced meet, today i made lamb myself and found 6-7 pieces of plastic materials in the meet, i broke my tooth and it is gouing to cost me 400 at least for new crawn,
if they dont pay for that i am going to get maaaaad, more than i am now, i only found this site as i try to get contact to them but all in vain

Anonymous said...

why does`nt tesco offer 50p off £5 spent in store so the single pensioner can save on their shopping instead of the £5 off £30 spent voucher we get in the sunday papers.

Anonymous said...

i work for tesco as a trolley person...if the staff was treated better they would treat the customers as nicely.also it isnt our fault the trolleys are broken, the reason they r broke in the first place is because of customers bracking them.mainly at tesco the managers tell us what to do and we do it, if the management was better then things would work allot better

Anonymous said...

at my tesco we have hardly any baskets and get loads of complains, i have no idea where they are goin but when staff tell the management who sit on there asses and drink and smoke all day and not working they do not listen

Anonymous said...

im a former trolley person for tesco and all i can say is you get treat like utter shit by everyone customers managers even other staff too big for there own boots theres also a huge work load for trolley people usually because there understaffed and cant possably do eveything or be everywhere at the same time which inevitably is going to dissapoint some people as not everything can be done and when you ask for help? oh dear god no please its liek asking for a miracle or the biggest favour u could imagine, end of the day tesco isnt about customer ervice or meeting the needs of the people there making all this money from so u might aswell live with it or shop somewhere els thats what i did and i couldnt be happier i got out of it peace

andymcb said...

yesterday i was short changed by £10 at my local tesco. when i pointed this out to the checkout operator she called a checkout supervisor who told me that she would have to take my contact details, as they would need to carry out a till check at the end of the day, and would contact me the next day. i was outraged not only because of the embarrasment and inconvenience but the additional expense of having to go back to the store which is several miles from my home, however i was informed that this was tesco's policy and assured that someone would be in touch "first thing" the following day. by 10am next day i hadn't heard anything so i contacted the store and was told that the cash room staff, who carry out till checks had only just started their shift and that a check would not be conducted until later in the day,almost 24hrs after the incident occurred. i made clear that i was not happy with the situation, and was told that someone would be in touch by around lunchtime. sure enough shortly after 12pm i received a call from customer services however it was not the news i had expected, the till had been checked and there had been no mistake. i asked to speak to a manager and told them that i was absolutely clear in my mind that i had given the checkout operator £26:20 for an item costing £16:08 as i wanted the £10 note to put into other money and had only £20 notes in my wallet, i asked how they could verify that a till check had taken place and asked why it had taken almost 24hrs during which time any number of operators could have staffed the checkout and any number of mistakes could potentially have been made, but was told that as far as the store was concerned there had been no mistake and the matter was closed. i am absolutely furious at this response and have made a complaint to customer services,although i don't hold out much hope of acheiving any satisfaction from them either. we do our grocery shopping in this particular tesco branch on average twice a week, spending £80 - £100 each time, we purchase about £50 - £60 of fuel each week from tesco filling station, and even have our home insurance through tesco, however this is all about to change as i will never spend another penny of my money in a tesco's store. £10 is not a huge amount, but it represents an hours pay to me and i work hard for what i earn, too hard to let tesco's defraud me of it.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I work for Tesco in The New Forest, Hampshire and am sorry for the way you have been treated. Just to explain some of the reasons on behalf of their store. Regular till checks are performed on each till throughout the day. When you reported your shortfall a till check should of taken place immediately. They have to wait until the following day because they have to 'close the day' to get a final figure. They then check till readings from checks before and after the shortfall and this tells them whether the till is up or down in takings. £10 is a large amount so would be obvious to them. Mistakes are made but not very often, usually pence rather then pounds. However, this is not to say a mistake wasn't made. Go onto the complaints site for Head Office 'customer comments' you can get the email address from in their store ask for a customer comments card with the contact details on. This goes straight to Head Office and they are expected to answer you within the hour unless it's a really serious matter in which they then involve the Store Manager.
Good luck and remember not all Tesco Stores treat their customers with lack of respect.

Anonymous said...

Hi, I wrote the above and would just like to add a comment about our hard working trolley people. In our store we have enough to manage comfortably all through the day, however, we cannot predict the weather, extremely hot, treacherous rain, gail force wind, etc or when we are suddenly going to have an everyone shop on the same day. So sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes the trolley bays maybe empty of a certain trolley type. Sometimes our people may be not feeling 100% but have come into work anyway, so maybe are not as quick,or sometimes we have put someone out there to cover and they don't really want to be out in the rain etc, but on average you will find they are an excellent hardworking bunch of people who carry on no matter what the weather, or how they feel.We are all human and errors do occur! A carpark is also quite a dangerous place to work,car drivers in a hurry! So I want to say well done to all our trolley people and keep up the good work!I for one am extremely proud of ours!

Anonymous said...

On Tuesday evening my partner went to the local tescos and purchased a cheap DVD player for the bedroom. Upon return we found the DVD player wasn't compatible with the television so I took it back and asked to upgrade it for a lot more expensive one. I didn't have the original receipt but the box had tescos written allover it and I told them the time it was purchased and how it was paid for but they said it would be to much effort to look into it and without the receipt they wasnt prepared to do anything to help. The moral of this is if you went that little extra to help then people mite respect you more

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