If I were a Safeway executive, or a Safeway stockholder, I might be a little worried about the problems with “Just for U”.
But I would be extremely concerned about stories like the one that follows, which came via email yesterday from a regular reader.
She writes:
We shopped at the Waimalu Safeway for seven years or more until last year. Then someone stole my husband’s wallet, which held some credit cards, some cash and one blank check. (It was later found on a bus, intact, except for the missing cash.) In the meantime, we canceled the credit cards and went to our bank to end our joint checking account and open a new one.
The next time we shopped at Safeway (we had the red Safeway card from the beginning), we used an imprinted check with the new number. As we went through the checkout, the clerk informed us our check was not accepted. It did not have the account number we’d always had, she said. I said, “But we have shopped here for years. You know us. And we have Safeway’s membership card.” No deal, we would have to pay for our groceries some other way. I paid with a credit card.
Then I asked for the manager’s name. I called him when I got home and he said they just had too many bounced checks and could not allow a new checking account for our names. Then I e-mailed Safeway’s customer service on the mainland. You would not believe the idiotic response I got (or maybe you would.) Basically, as you said, with Safeway the customer is always wrong. I replied and got another idiotic response.
At that point we decided there are plenty of other grocery stores in our area and we now shop in them. We never did receive a clear answer as to why Safeway could not put our new check number in their computer, along with our Safeway card. We have excellent credit and spent $800 to $1,000 a month at Safeway.
At first I thought this was unrelated to the “Just for U” issues. Then I realized it was the computer system that rejected the new checking account, and apparently no way for managers on the ground to bypass it.
Safeway, if you’re listening–this was a very good customer driven away from your store, apparently by the rigidity of a poorly designed computer system that store managers and customer service agents are unable or unwilling to override. Add in you poor customer service, which appears set up to deflect complaints rather than solve problems, and it was too much.
I suppose that although I’ll shop at Safeway, at least some of the time, I wouldn’t advise anyone to invest in the company, at least under its current management.
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I shop at Safeway as a last ditch measure for my own reasons and now for these shared reasons.
I like having my bank there. That’s really that kicker that gets me in the door. And I like the sushi. That’s it.
Oh – let me add that over the weekend they didn’t have something I wanted and called me within minutes to say they had ordered it for me and I could pick it up next weekend. That was nice.
So are you backing up that sell/hold recommendation with any real stock analysis, or are you basing it entirely off of an anecdote about not accepting a personal check?
Safeway’s 2009 revenue was $40,800,000,000, but hey, that lady isn’t going to spend 12k annually at the Waimalu location any more so….
After two bites of the apple with back to back comments, we get the picture. It seems you’re in the “Safeway, right or wrong” camp.
Ian, I shop at my local Safeway regularly because of location, and have for nearly 10 years. I find, on a regular basis, expired product on the shelves. This happens mostly with yogurt, but I’ve seen it with other dairy products, and once with a shelf full of expired taco dinner prep boxes.
Personally, I can’t stand Safeway. The managers are frequently rude. Once I returned some sour milk I just bought and the manager told me my refrigerator was bad. My new refrigerator has a temperature reading on it and I keep it at 37 degrees at all times. Today’s ad had cooked frozen turkeys on sale. I called my local Safeway to reserve one because they often do not have in stock all of their advertised specials. I spoke to the meat department and was told they are out. It is only Wednesday morning, the first day of the sale. I called back and the meat department said it was a deli department item and was then disconnected. I called back and the deli department told me the only turkey thay had was cooked turkey breast and that I should check with the meat department. I called back and was again told they weren’t sure what I was talking about. I asked to speak to the meat department manager and was told he was the meat manager. I asked him to check on the item, he did and told me I still needed to cook the turkey. I asked him if he meant I had to thaw it out and reheat it? He said yes. I asked him if he could look it up on the computer to see if any was coming in. He replied, I guess I can. He came back and said they weren’t expecting any and that this was a small store and they didn’t carry everything in the ad. This is just ten days from Xmas, a time when many people serve turkey again. I frequently find my dealing with Safeway apalling from a customer service point of view, but will still go there to pick up a special, because, afterall, this is how many seniors survive the high cost of living in Hawaii.
Are the folks at Safeway HQ taking notes?