We live in a place where malls and supermarkets occupied the commercial areas. We have SM North EDSA in front, Trinoma in southeast and Waltermart in the northwest direction.
Each mall has its distinctive factors to shop. If we are looking for best brands, fine dining experience and taste of Ayala, we go to Trinoma. Value for money and wide variety of choices meaning everything in one roof, “we got it all” it is undoubtedly SM. But if we need supermarket items, Waltermart will be our top choice because we feel the nice community shopping concept.
Located along EDSA near Munoz area houses its carrier supermarket, common food chains, dolby cinemas, medical clinic and even fitness center. It is perfectly situated beside a public market where you can buy fresh farm and aquatic products. Best of all, it is the only mall that offers free 3-hour parking for a minimum of Php500.00 purchase from the supermarket.
These admirable distinctions and experience from Waltermart all went bad today simply because their CUSTOMER SERVICE FAILED!
Let me see how you will react to the situation.
We already finished buying our grocery stuffs for the week when my son decided to go back inside to buy something for his mom (my wife of course) as a valentine’s gift and I had to buy some things also for my dad.
At exactly 11:35am (counter time in tape receipt) upon reaching the counter, I handed my ATM card for a convenient cashless transaction on counter 22. The cashier told me that the machine is not working so we transferred to another counter (I think counter 18 or something) then it failed again and transferred to the next.
She then decided to make a balance inquiry and showed me my current balance then swiped my card again. Still the machine did not respond and the lady inquired again for the balance and it showed few bucks deductions from my previous balance since she made already 2 BIs.
We went back to her counter and asked me to wait for she will call the bank to make the necessary adjustments or verifications. This is when the disappointment started. After 5 minutes, she came back to tell me to wait again and same after 10. Approximately around 11:50am I went to the CS desk where she was making the call and suggested to her (with other 4 staffs hearing) that if she will be requesting for a refund from the bank or whatever, I said that it is best if Waltermart just give me few pesos equivalent to BI charges and I will just pay the grocery items in cash. They acted like no one was talking and continued in their activities. Same thing happened after 20 minutes in total and still ignored my suggestion. While she kept on calling the bank I also tried calling automated hotline using my phone.
Suggesting for the third time that they should just refund me the BI charges since the transaction did not prevailed and again I was ignored. My son was already fuming out of boredom, my wife already came back to me after making ATM withdrawal from a machine downstairs and it was already 12:30pm (55 minutes later) when another lady told me to talk to the bank rep on the line and as expected I was charged with Php4.00 in total for making 2 BIs and will not be refunded. That was when the time they began calling their superiors because I was really upset.
I waited for almost 1 hour just to get a response saying that “Yes the bank deducted Php4.00 and kindly just pay in cash”. This is bul*S%it right? A lady from the check-out counter approached us and asked me about the incident claiming to be in the right authority but out of anger I ignored and asked her to send someone higher and worth talking to since I already talked too much. Then a guy named Stephen approached us apologized and promised that the incident will be investigated and reported.
Nothing was given back but the Php4.00 which I suggested 55 minutes earlier and I still paid cash.
Time was wasted, mobile calls as well, my wife and son got annoyed and me as a used to be satisfied client went furious because of a simple POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE HANDLING. I am not even making “utang” on the stuffs I bought. It should have been the most convenient and safest mode of payment.
I felt that I was treated unfairly. I maintain my Plus Card (Watermart’s loyalty program) despite living very near SM and Trinoma and no need to spend extra on fuel consumption for my 2-liter engine automobile because we like and feel good shopping in Waltermart.
Nowadays competition is stiff, market demands better other than the price tags, brands they carry and sale offers. After sales and customer service should ALWAYS be considered. Bigger, better and well-organized shopping centers like SM and Ayala perhaps will not fail on this very simple incident.
Yes, it is beyond their control but what I am trying to point is how they poorly handled the situation.
Let this sharing be pointers to consider when choosing the right shop to go to and observe how they should treat us – customers.
