The Sweet Service Award goes to hi, a new outlet with an odd name I discovered in the V&A Waterfront, and which belongs to The Foschini Group (designated by a TFG circular logo outside the store).   I was looking for a new iPhone cover, and priced those at Vodacom (who have an irritating new queue numbering system, except that the number issuer was not at his post) as well as at the Apple store, both of these stores being out of stock of iPhone 4s covers.  At hi the cost was only R149 for a reasonable looking cover.  I also found a car charger for the phone at R99, something I did not know existed until I saw a guest using one last week.

The Sour Service Award goes to the new Pick ‘n Pay in the Waterfront, which had been open for five days when I popped in to have a look on Monday, incentivised by a massive insert in the Sunday Times, which reflected excellent opening prices, my favourite perfume ck one costing an unbelievably low R399 for the 200ml pack. The new store is in the underground parking area, having trebled in size, now having an in-store bottle store, a clothing section, more electrical appliances, and a Clicks-like cosmetics section, with brands including Revlon and L’Oreal.  There are three sets of doors, and coming down the escalator one is inclined to enter on the right.  There is no signage to show that it is the Exit.  A security person merely pointed left, and did not speak to indicate which of the two remaining doors was the entrance.  One enters at the bakery side, and I saw a lovely farmstyle bread.  Pre-priced packets lie nearby, but have other bread names and prices already marked on them, but were not for my bread type.  A sign above the bread counter invited one to have the bread sliced, but I was told that the slicer has not yet arrived!  A Bakery Manager came to my rescue, and the bread was perfectly cut by hand while I was shopping.  I then headed for the cosmetics section, to find the ck one, and it was at the opposite end of the store.  There was only one staff member in this section, and she did not know where the perfume was.  She could not help me with lipstick prices either, as they were not marked on the shelf.  Wilmia, a friendly Customer Service advisor dressed in red, sent me on my shopping way, saying that she would find the price, and that she would find me, quite a feat in such a large store, but we did connect again.  The lipstick was not on the system at all, so she made up of a price of R89, saying that I should tell a till operator that.  I had less than 10 items, so found that queue, but it was not clear how long the queue is, snaking around impulse items which were so dreadful that it was no challenge to resist them!  Two of the seven ‘express’ tills were not manned.  The lady who rang up my purchases was doing the best she could, but told me that the till bell in the ‘express’ section does not work.  There were no managers to be seen.   The lipstick ‘deal’ caused a problem, as a supervisor had to approve it – without a bell no one could be called.  I had bought fruit, and not seeing a weighing section, I assumed that they would weigh this at the till, as Woolworths does.  It was the wrong assumption, so my till operator had to weigh the fruit herself!  The biggest challenge was asking about the parking – if one spends R150 or more, one gets 1½ hours parking for free.  The only problem is that the staff have no idea how it works, and there is no information in the store about the parking discount and how it works, and one is not told about it proactively by the till operators.  One receives a small slip with a barcode when one has shopped for more than the specified amount,  and is told to go to the parking pay machine (the staff weren’t sure if it was the one closest to Pick ‘n Pay or all of them), enter the parking ticket, and then scan the barcode slip underneath this – the only problem is that the Pick ‘n Pay name is minute at the space where one must scan it.  It was a relief that it did work where I had parked, on the opposite end of the parking garage.  It is clear that Pick ‘n Pay opened far too early, not having trained its staff.  It felt like chaos management, and no managers were to be found when we asked for assistance with the parking ticket.  Anyone suffering from claustrophobia and that is allergic to poor service should stay away from this Pick ‘n Pay branch.  I did not find the quality of the merchandise, e.g. the cold meats, the breads, fruit, etc to be of any better quality than at any other Pick ‘n Pay, which was my expectation from the pre-publicity.  I heard from a supplier that they realised that they were short staffed the day before they opened, and threw more staff from other branches at the store on its opening day.  This sentence from the Pick ‘n Pay website sounds completely unbelievable with regard to the new store:  ‘Our dedicated team of researchers travelled to the world’s culinary capitals to find out the most popular lifestyle and food trends, and then tailored them for a South African market‘!  Pick ‘n Pay’s Tweeter picked up some of my feedback but did not ask for more details.  They Tweeted on Tuesday: ‘You will be contacted with feedback from the store management team shortly Chris‘ – I am still waiting to hear from them!

POSTSCRIPT 5/12:  Despite this Sour Service Award and the outstanding feedback promised on Tuesday, there was no reaction from Pick ‘n Pay today via Twitter or any other communication medium!

POSTSCRIPT 6/12: Store Manager Mark called with an apology, and a positive attitude about what we highlighted in this Sour Service Award, including getting a bread slicing machine (they have since removed the slicing sign); making the fruit weighing, which is hidden behind a column, more visible; having a supervisor on call near the 1 – 10 item tills; putting Exit/Entrance signs above the doors if allowed by the V&A Waterfront management; and having a better way of communicating the free parking benefit to its customers.  Lipstick prices have now been marked on the shelves.  He fed back that the response to the ck one and other perfume brand promotion has been fantastic, his store having sold the most in the country.

The WhaleTales Sweet & Sour Service Awards are presented every Friday on the WhaleTales blog.  Nominations for the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be sent to Chris von Ulmenstein at  whalecot@iafrica.com.   Past winners of the Sweet and Sour Service Awards can be read on the Friday posts of this blog, and in the WhaleTales newsletters on the www.whalecottage.com website.

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