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Are your channels of communication clear?
By Charles Martin | January 7, 2009
I had a complaint to my very local Albertson’s. The store is old, tired, dirty, leaky and in this case the fine print on their coupon wasn’t clear. I contacted the toll free number (I hate toll free numbers) at Albertson’s HQ in Idaho. In the LA market, 3/5 Albertson’s I go to are in the same shape — in dire need of help. I feel as though if I’m buying something to eat for my family, I don’t want to overspend (Albertson’s also has the highest prices in the area) in a gross environment. Send me live piano players if I’m spending the big bucks.
I received a phone call the next day from the manager of my local store.
Now think about this for a minute — was that the right person to call me? Changing the store is a major investment and something that is assuredly done from HQ or at least a few rungs from the top.
As I expected, he could do nothing. In fact, he went on for 20 minutes about how he agreed with me 100% and that his hands were tied. The decisions were made from up top. The landlord has reneged on making a new plan more than once. Yadda yadda yadda.
I’m a grocery shopper. I buy lettuce and milk. I understand leases and such, but I just wanted to be the 10,378th customer that filed a complaint on the shabby store. I wanted to help tip head management from “it’s a bad store but…” to “we are planning for a redo in October of 2009!”.
If you have a business where customers need to reach the right people and then you go out of your way to provide the “toll free number”, then make sure the information is ported to the right people.
If not, your calls aren’t really toll free are they?
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