Has retail priced out customer service?

Five contrasting examples of are you being served...

Jessop, Nottingham – went in to ask about a zoom lens for my Nikon. Assistant tried a tactic on me: show him expensive and he’ll buy mid-price. Didn’t work because I’d done my homework and knew there was something substantially cheaper. She didn’t seem to be able to find it, and looked more interested in handling a delivery which had just arrived: Customer service: 3/10

M&S Nottingham – big store, big racks, easy to pick the wrong size. Solution? Have someone near the changing rooms who will go and get the right size for you. Staff were efficient, pleasant, humorous even. Result? A sale with added value. Customer service 9/10

Gift shop, Southwell – my wife bought jewellery for a friend there a couple of weeks ago. She was served well by a helpful assistant. Phone conversation with friend’s husband later made it obvious the gift wasn’t right. So, took back unopened. Looked for alternative, but there was nothing even remotely suitable. But the shop refused to give the money back, insisting on a credit note instead. ‘But you haven’t got anything we can spend it on!’. ‘I’m sorry, but that’s our policy’. ‘So you’re basically saying you’ve got our money and you’re keeping it?’. ‘I’m sorry I’m not the owner, I don’t make the policy’. Result? We got nothing, but they got £20. And me bad-mouthing them in a blog because that’s what they deserve. Customer service: sub-zero – they took money, gave us nothing, parroted what is in the circumstances a wholly flawed policy which leaves the customer feeling fleeced.

Zara, Meadowhall. Long search for a particular coat that youngest daughter wanted had drawn a blank. Wife phoned Meadowhall branch, they had one in the right size in the sale but with a button missing. We can sort that, so we asked them to put it to one side. We arrived to discover that there were infact two buttons missing and the gilet that goes with it can’t be found either. Not unreasonably, we say to the assistant that since we’ve come all this way we would still be interested if they could reduce it a little further – it’s damaged, incomplete goods. Assistant says she doesn’t have authority to do that because all prices set by head office. Result? Embarassed assistant who knows how far we’ve driven and that a one-size-fits-all corporate policy has made them look like computer-says-no numskulls. Customer service: 2/10


Meadowhall generally. Even allowing for the fact that I’m a fully-qualified GOM, family agreed that this was a ghastly experience all the way from car park to check out. Big stores groaning with unbrowse-able stock, shoppers wandering around with hunted looks. By retail standards it was a medievally gruesome environment. Too big to offer service on a simple human level, it was an unpleasant machine which left me wondering whether malls on this scale are out-dated dinosaurs. Customer service: impossible.

Conclusions? Retail is in for a tough time this year because of the economic situation, and it is having to balance two conflicting pressures. One is the obvious need to add value to the shopping experience, a central part of which comes from staff offering great service. The other is a almost crushing pressure to reduce costs in a UK retail landscape where price is king. I almost wonder whether we’ve priced service out.