Fry's Food Stores Service Issues (Ongoing "Discussion)

I have written about customer service issues at Fry's Food Stores for quite some time now. The point? If they are not motivated to do anything about it themselves, perhaps some negative exposure to the entire world WILL. I have seen many Google searches for Fry's service coming here on the Feedjit software to the side of my blog. This is some kind of indication that SOMEBODY else must also be interested in seeing things change at Fry's Food Stores, even if in ever so small, incremental steps.

My latest round of emails were sent to all kinds of individuals within the Kroger's corporate structure. Whether any of those people read those emails and did anything (besides dump them into the recycle bin on their computer), I have no idea. The form I filled out through customer input on their website did get someone's attention. I believe they always respond to whatever comes their way through that forum.

This time, I received a reply email from a lady, after that I got a call from an individual that is regional manager or some title from someone else and yesterday, I got a call from the store's general manager. They were all apologetic. I sincerely believe they have great intentions, too. I also sincerely believe that absolutely nothing will be done about it.

Case in point: I sent this email out a week and a half plus ago. This information had already been received by the store's general manager. Yet, 2 days ago, I saw the general manager and a floor manager walking around the front of the store, discussing whatever and totally ignoring customers that were OBVIOUSLY waiting for help at the self-service checkouts. The floor manager had the device in her hand that remote controls all the screens - she was SUPPOSED to be tending to the customers and whatever issues come up with self-checkout, instead, she was babbling with the store's manager.

I was in a full-service lane at the time, watching this nonsense. The man was standing at the self-serve terminal where the employee is supposed to be helping people. Another guy was standing there, looking around, at a self-serve checkout, waiting for an attendant. Only when the lady that was supposed to be engaging herself with this setup looked up - and shock came over her face seeing people waiting to be helped - did they get helped.

I have threatened to take a video camera in there and film this nonsense, I always forget to take it in there with me. I could have acquired at least 4 videos of these people - whether employees or management - totally ignoring the customers. One of the videos would have shown fully FOUR employees, including a manager, standing there talking and yapping away, while I and another individual were standing there, waiting for whenever they might get their social hour over with, look up and do what they are supposed to be doing (well, one assumes that they are supposed to engaging in the work at hand, one does not necessarily believe that assumption after years of seeing this stuff going on).

Hey, the new manager of the store sounds like a very nice person. I'm not saying they are a-holes working there, I AM saying that there are some pretty spacey people who apparently have the attention span of a gnat working there. Well, there ARE a couple of a-holes working there, most notably a black man that works in the meat department who started what akins to a fist-fight with me over my question about why there was no chicken available that was advertised - and had NOT been available for the nearly 5 days I had gone in there looking for such. He got testy with me saying I would have to come in when they had it. It was aggregious attitude at best. When I went and got a manager - who went with me to approach this individual - this man started in on me, right there, with the manager standing there! He became VERY aggressive in his stance and speech and started walking towards me.

The manager shut him down. They SHOULD have FIRED his stupid ass. Forgive my language, but that kind of action towards a customer that is ONLY asking a question is beyond uncalled for, that person should NOT be working there.

So now what? I will continue to go in there and observe what's going on while I'm shopping. I never said I wasn't going to shop there at all - though I am spending some of my grocery dollars at other stores at this point, especially at Fresh and Easy since they have some great coupons. Oh, and the individual that called me wanted to know about the conveyor belts being used at Fresh and Easy - EVERYONE checks themself out there, but it is FAR easier to use than the ridiculous system that have at Fry's. I couldn't tell him if they are using a scale system like Fry's is - but I will ask them the next time I go in there. The point is you can get the scanning job 3 times faster - at least - than at Fry's because you don't have to wait for the system to weigh the product and verify it is the correct weight for the item that was scanned. Further, the employees are scurrying around at Fresh and Easy helping bag customer's groceries and whatever issues customers might have with the scanning system. They are VERY focused and do their jobs 100% better than anything I have experienced at Fry's Food Stores with their self-checkouts.

More to this story in the near future.

ben