Useless DIY superstores... grrrr...

Just a query.... is it just me, or does anyone else find the likes of B&Q, Atlantic Homecare etc etc completely useless. I don't mean from a stock/variety (or lack of) perspective, but more the general numb-skullery of their half-witted adolescent staff. Since I bought a new home last year I have had the unenviable task of having to frequent these establishments on a reasonably regular basis and over the course of about a year I have slowly reached my tolerance limit. I would describe myself as a tolerant, forbearing individual and I've always been very patient with the 'Baldric' type individuals that are employed by these corporations but I'm afraid that my humanitarian nerves have begun to fray and I fear that the next time I make a visit to B&Q it'll be with my good friend Mr. Uzi and a box of hand grenades It's not even the army of spotty faced knuckle-heads that get to me, even if they do greet you with a grunt or with a digit firmly ensconced in their nose, what has pushed me off my knife-edge is the complete indifference to customers and total ignorance that some of these vegetables seem to hold so dear to their hearts >: Last Saturday was for me, the defining moment for the birth of this outburst. Off I ventured to B&Q to purchase a lawnmower for the garden, only to return 4 hours later (and after numerous visits to various Atlantic Homecare, Homebase etc.) annoyed and mowerless :x I won't bore you any further by going into the details but I just feel that these places are making an absolute fortune by employing very young staff at probably near slave-labour wages while giving a very poor service to the customer.

B&Q et al

Couldn't agree more, and what's more:

# Kids coming up to you 'can I help?' when they clearly don't have a clue what they're looking at. Simply mooching for the commission. Worst offenders: Dixons, Currys, PC World

# 'No, we only have what's on the shelves..'
All the big department stores with parttime staff

# 'We will have them here Monday'
Currently having this row with numerous O2 outlets

# Not having the decency for eye contact/please/thank you as you shell out. Common in Spars/Centra/and similar.

# Stroppy staff!!! Could not believe it the first time I experienced this in Dublin. Would not like Ireland to become another 'have a nice day (with rictus grin)' zone, but the yanks could teach us a thing or two.

# Staff continuing coversations while effectively ignoring you (dare I say it, particularly prevalent amongst our Oriental compatriots, and in their mother tongues).



Sweet mother of the divine, you'd swear they were giving the stuff away the way some staff treat you.

B&Q et al

> # Staff continuing coversations while effectively ignoring you (dare I say it, particularly prevalent amongst our Oriental compatriots, and in their mother tongues).

Not just the blow-ins...

Well in actual fact, I almost walked out of B&Q on Saturday after being practically ignored by THREE female staff who were having what seemed to be a conjugating session of the verb 'to say' - "I said to him and then he said to me, then I told him to...." :lol :eek :lol - you get the picture I'm sure. When I was told it would take 24 hours to get me a lawnmower from the stores I just couldn't take any more. Atlantic Homecare were equally useless, and the bag of hormones that went off to see if they had the mower in stock never returned. Incidentally, Atlantic Homecare were having a 'Sale' but were still €20 dearer than B&Q - lucky for us consumers they don't sell dictionaries. The sad thing is that not only are these companies all the same and will never change, they are also putting many smaller garden centres and family owned DIY and hardware stores (who actually put a little bit of effort into pleasing the customer) out of business. I say we should all boycot the likes of B&Q, if I need a plug in the future I'll fashion one out of tinfoil like my ancestors did!

With B&Q if you have a question always direct it at one of the older men, they always know what they are talking about, the rest tend to not be so helpful.

I was actually in B&Q at the weekend getting paint and I overheard someone being told they couldn't buy a certain item (I don't know what it was) that day and they'd have to come back tomorrow as there was no fork lift driver on duty that day and whatever it was they wanted was up on one of the shelves.

..

For saervice, I've moved to the view that your local hardware is your only man. They may not always have the range of stuff, but they can offer advice at least.

Not sure if you're in Dublin, but Churchtown Stores (very Ike Godsey-esque) generally have everything you need (and all you have to do is ask - no wandering aimlessly arouns the isles(they don't have any!))

.

I generally go to builders' providers. Much better service and will offer advice. They may also be better for the economy because your money stays in the country.

Re: .

Spacer - dead on! Churchtown Stores are probably the best small hardware shop on the Southside. I used to live in Templeogue and had cause to purchase a variety of items from them - if they didn't have what I was looking for they knew exactly where I could find it - very helpful altogether.

As regards the older store personnel in the likes of B&Q, you may be right Dowee, although I think all will agree that they are generally few and far between. As for no fork lift driver on duty, it wouldn't surprise me.... Saturday I would guess is their busiest day, it would be just like B&Q not to employ a driver for Saturday or to only have only one working over the weekends.

I'm not sure I share Another Person's opinion of builders providers - they too seem to have their fair share of 'Johnny No-Stars' (no relation to me!) working for them, Heitons in Santry for example.

.

Maybe I shouldn't have generalised. Smyths on the Greenshills road and Clondalkin Builders' providers provide excellent service.

B&Q

My sister wanted to buy some paving slabs from B & Q but to finish a job they had started. They called three times to buy them to be told they had no forklift driver.

May sister said she would they just pay for the slabs to hold them, and they would collect them later. B&Q's reply was that they are unable to provide storage for customers.

Priceless

Spacers.

I was in a Super Value last week buying some rice and a few other items. The rice was on special offer buy one and get one free. When I arrived at the checkout, the usual spacer was busy looking everywhere, talking to her colleagues and never once made eye contact with me, never greeted me, and never said thank you. As I was checking my receipt I noticed that instead of reducing my bill by one packet of rice they had in fact reduced it by TWO packets of rice. In otherwords buy two and get them free. The total of my bill was less than €2 yet this dimwit didn't even notice. I brought it to another dimwits attention who said that she would deal with it.
The next day I decided to buy some more and lo and behold it was still on offer at buy two and get two free.
So I went through six times, buying my free rice. The funny thing about it was that I used the same dimwit cashier each time, and she never even noticed that I was back again. Am I dishonest? But hey I looked a gift horse in the face, and she did nothing about it.
Suggestions for different rice recipes please.

Re: Spacers.

Hi Flied Lice,
I'd wait a week so the security camera footage gets recycled & post the receipts & a short note into the manager. It won't change the world but it might make him program his tills (& staff!) more efficiently.

Sluice

B&Q

according to an article in the Equality Authority mag (summer 04); B&Q have a policy of employing older staff after a customer told the MD that he wanted to be served by someone who owned their own house and had experience of DIY. THey then staffed a store somewhere in England totally with over-50s and found profits up, sales up, absenteeism down etc etc.

Don't you just love the contradictions between policy and practice?

Hey, Flied, where`s that Supervalu?!

Used to get that prob in reverse-before I stopped shopping in "Supervalu". Like `buy one get one free `not actually materialising when I got to the check out and me only realising it when I checked the receipt Or the price on the tag not matching up with the price on the till(always in the shop`s favour).

Got sick of all that receipt checking. Left Supervalu. Shop mostly in Lidl now. So I suppose "Supervalu" did me a favour as I`m saving a fortune now.

Atlantic/Woodies(ever wonder why it`s called Woodies?!) are my ports of call on the DIY front. Love the spacious stores/array of goods. But have wondered what sort of questions are on the apptitude test they set their potential job assistants.

Just to be on the safe side I generally queue at the till manned by older female staff in ANY shop. And head for the older guys in the DIY stores.(That`ll have the smart alecs queuing up to make a comment!)

Anyway, flies you can just live on lots of boiled rice for the next few months. Just dish the dirt on the store location please!

Faria

free rice

Ah flied rice

why did you let the secret out !!!
same in Super valu Blackrock , ( the supervisors are the worst here make you feel about two inches tall when you bring a mistake to their attention )
Didn't bother pointing the mistake out , just bought loads and noboby noticed

Re: free rice

Have to agree with Sluice44 - while the ignorance of the shop staff can pay dividends to the consumer, I have to pity the shop owners a little bit. I've seen a similar thing happen with flyers coming in the letter box whereby the gombeen (who is getting paid in accordance with the number of flyers he/she delivers I presume) posting the flyers obviously doesn't give a tupence and shoves 3 or 4 through the letter box at once thus halving their day, quartering the desired consumer base for the shop, and walking away with a fistfull of dollars.

Training

Atlantic/Woodies(ever wonder why it`s called Woodies?!) are my ports of call on the DIY front. Love the spacious stores/array of goods. But have wondered what sort of questions are on the apptitude test they set their potential job assistants.

None at all - at least that was the story about 4 years ago when i was an assistant manager with AHC. Staff would complete an application form....if they could write they would get an interview....if they were marginally presentable and could manuvre a brush over the floor then bingo the applicant was offered the job.

As an assistant manager/ dogsbody I usually got the busy shifts and had to deal with these guys and the customers complaining about them. My career in the DIY business lasted about 18 months, I was never as glad to leave any job as this.

moan, moan, moan...move on!

I am generalizing here but I wonder how many of us went to the bother of asking to speak with the Store Manager and expressing our concern at the treatment we received/experienced and outlining what our expectations are when it comes to shopping at these outlet.

You see, I firmly believe that our challenge as a nation is to stop complaining either amongst ourselves or to the poor employee who is paid crap wage and is working to make huge profits for these stores.....why not insist that we lodge our complaint with a "reputable" member of management and follow up to ensure that something is done.....but no, we would rather bitch and moan to each other about how crap it all is and really not do anything about it!

Say what you like about the cheesy grinned shopping experience in the US but consumers there would not stand for poor service and that is a consumer system that is, for the most part, a pleasurable experience, that works!

Re: moan, moan, moan...move on!

Say what you like about the cheesy grinned shopping experience in the US but consumers there would not stand for poor service and that is a consumer system that is, for the most part, a pleasurable experience, that works!

Absolutely. It works very well. And it's not the only country that has great customer service. I saw similar service in Australia during my travels. Every shop you were in, be it a Deli, a chemist or a large supermarket, had friendly and helpful staff. They actually seemed to be happy in their work too. Imagine!?

I don't know if it's the Irish mentality or what but I do know that customer service in general in this country is really poor. I've worked in the service sector before and I remember the type of service we offered, which was pretty good. It's not hard to offer people friendly (and knowledgeable) assistance. After all, retail isn't rocket science.
Commission is a killer for good assistance because all the staff see are $$$ signs when they see you coming.

There's a lot to be said for complaining alright. But most people don't really want the hassle of approaching the manager (or someone else to ask to speak to the manager - you always get that look) because so few managers really know how to deal with complaints. Managers in these places know damn well what their staff are like. If the staff are poor it's generally because the manager is too. Head office and the big boys is who to complain to...which is why we need a watchdog type program in this country. We're a pretty small place to be honest and I feel exposing really crappy service on national television would soon make these companies take notice of their failings.
We don't have a programme like this...sure we don't?

Mind you, I do remember many moons ago when, as a teenager, I worked for a clothing outlet which supplied schoolwear to some well known Southside primary and secondary schools. We frequently had problems with our suppliers delivering stuff on time. Man you'd want to have seen some of those mothers. They had no problem making a complaint. We nearly took to wearing chain mail armour to protect ourselves. Some of them were literally vicious!

customer service

Last month: bought a vacuum cleaner from one of the electrical discount stores advertised (annoyingly and repeatedly) on television.

Special offer was on, in that it came with a free set of attachments worth €80.
None of these sets on display at the time.

Asked the teenage salesman if they had them in stock.
>No.
Are you getting them in?
>No, end of the promotion.
Have you got them in your other branches?
>Yes, our [15 miles away] store has them.
Can you check?
>Did about an hour ago. They’re there.
Could you ring them to be sure?
>No need…

Off goes me to the other branch, somewhat knowingly. And having bought the vacuum.

Lo and behold, branch never ran that promotion, never heard of the attachments. Never had them.

Muggins tears back to the original store, looking for the manager.
Got his deputy.
Calmly explained the situation.
Dep. manager summons the assistant, asks him to explain.
> Never told you they were there, told you we were out of stock, etc.

Me loses it, 30 miles and an hour worse off.
Noticed promotion sign had been removed in the interim.
Manager-lite shrugs his shoulders, backs his salesman, accuses me of making a false claim.

Much verbiage later, manager states salesman would order in as a special delivery from England, ring me when they arrive, and send to my house…

Three weeks later, message on the phone, come and get them if you want them.

Goes out…wrong stuff ordered…incompatible with the €350 vacuum…

Hmmm…