Writinggal Reports

Consumer Reports is great if you need reviews on tangible products. But what if you want the scoop on customer service? That’s when you come to Writinggal Reports. I don’t know if it’s me (approaching my mid-30s and getting crotchety) or them (retail and service workers just sucking in general) but I have become a customer service stickler. Here, I give you a sample of the good and the oh, so, very bad:

Buy Buy Baby: ***** (That’s five out of five for customer service) This is a new entry into the baby gear market, currently dominated by Babies R Us. Buy Buy Baby, by the way, is owned by another BBB great—Bed, Bath and Beyond. At Babies R Us, the customer service is hit or miss. Sometimes they’re helpful, sometimes they’re not. And in these types of stores you really need help, especially if you’re wandering around with a registry.

At Buy Buy Baby, it’s almost comical how much they help you. When I printed out the registry list, one employee told me, “This yellow paper is like the Bible. If someone sees you holding it, they’re going to ask to help you.” And baby, did they ever! In every single department, an employee asked if I needed help. Sometimes I did and I was glad for their expertise. When I went to check out, the guy behind the register noticed I had gotten the wrong registry item and ran back to get the right one for me!

So now I’m saying, “Bye Bye” (or “Buy Buy”) to Babies R Us.

Kroger: * I get it, Kroger. You want to hire people who may not be able to get jobs elsewhere. That’s very noble of you. The thing is, sometimes I can’t tell who legitimately has a learning/communication/interaction issue and who is just an idiot. Take this lady who was bagging my groceries the other day. I handed her all my bags, including the insulated one. I told her, “Don’t feel like you have to put the cold stuff in that bag. You can just put anything in any bag cause I’m just going right home.” Her response? NOTHING. She didn’t respond at all. So I said, “You know what I mean? I just didn’t want you to feel like you had to bother separating out the cold stuff.” Again, NOTHING. “Ya know what I mean?” I asked one more time. “Yes, ma’am,” she finally said. Then I look like the b*t%h because it’s like I was trying to get her to say “Yes, ma’am.” I just wanted SOME response. I mean, how can you not say anything? Not even “uh-huh.” I was trying to save her some trouble! And as we know, that’s not my first bad experience with Kroger.

Delta Airlines: ***** When we had all the snow in Atlanta last week I called Delta to see if I could move my flight to the next day. The automated voice told me that there would be a long wait, and if I preferred, I could punch in my number and they would call me back. They even gave me a time: 12-18 minutes. Brilliant! I hung up, went about my business and they called me back within that time. It saved me the trouble of being attached to a phone and getting angry as every minute ticked by. To make matters better, the girl on the phone had a brain and was so helpful. She moved my flight, found seats for Frank, Leo and me to all sit together, and didn’t charge me a thing!

Target: * I’m in the dairy section today and THREE target employees were stocking food as I maneuvered around them in my quest for pimento cheese. I kept thinking one of them would ask if I needed help finding anything. They didn’t. So I asked one of them. She then turned to one of the other stockers and asked him if he knew where the pimento cheese was. He then turned to the third and asked her. She looked for a second and then picked up a block of pepper jack. “No, that’s not pimento cheese,” I said. “I would think it would be right here,” I said and went over to another area of dairy to look, thinking at least one would follow to help me. They didn’t. I said, “Um, well that’s okay,” and they just kept on stocking. Then I said really enthusiastically (and sarcastically), “Thanks so much for all your help!!” They couldn’t have been less helpful unless they didn’t respond at all like the Kroger Krazy. A few weeks ago I had a weird cashier at Target who suddenly said, “I HATE YOU!” while scanning my items. Startled, I said, “Huh?” and then realized she was talking across me to another cashier. What an odd time to have that discussion. Throughout my checkout process, she never offered any pleasantries like, “Hi, how are you doing? Did you find everything okay?” And when I was picking up my bag to go she still didn’t say anything so I said to her, “Thanks! I WILL have a nice day!!”

 

There you have it. The first round of Writinggal Reports. I’ll continue to serve the public, shopping and judging retail and service workers. And don’t worry, this won’t take away from me being a watch dog for the healthcare industry. They’re still on my radar too. Nobody is safe from Writinggal Reports.