On Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, my wife and I needed to go grocery shopping. We had just finished moving to our new home in Tustin, CA and needed somewhere close. A quick Google map search on my iPhone revealed that there was a Stater Bros just north on Redhill about a mile.
The place was really busy being the day before Thanksgiving but we needed the stuff so we braved the crowd. We wound up filling a cart with $250 worth of items including some perishables and frozen foods and proceeded to check out.
Let me start off by saying that the cashier that helped us was very nice. The rest of the story is an example of bad management, bad marketing and bad systems. So here is where things went bad… When I went to pay (and complete my fist shopping trip in a new area) I discovered the hard way that their credit card system was not working.
The first attempt with my American Express card resulted in an error something like “transaction count exceeded”. The cashier asked one of the other employees what it meant and what to do. They asked me to try it again. After my wife and I tried 3 different credit cards issued by different banks I decided to try to use my debit card (which I never do). The same error occurred for this one too. The only proposed solution was to go to their ATM and pull out enough cash to pay for the order.
At this point I asked for a reasonable concession. Not only had they wasted my time, with something that should have been working seamlessly, I was also going to save them money for credit card merchant fees and I would incur additional fees myself from two banks for a problem that was not mine. Therefore, I asked for commitment from the cashier to discount the order by $5 or $10.
Up to this point I was very understanding. Like I said before, the cashier was nice and it was not his fault that the merchant account provider had limited the store’s transaction limits. When the cashier was unable to authorize this accommodation I asked to speak with the manager. The store was so busy that the manger was working a register and my guy had to switch with him so he could talk with me.
Apparently the manager was having a bad day. He made it clear that my only two options were to either get cash from the ATM and pay or to leave the cart in the store and leave. He did not care that it was our first time in his store and that the failure in the system and management’s response was hurting their brand and costing them more than the $5-10 requested. He claimed that he did not have the authority to provide the discount.
At that point we left and we don’t plan to return. As we walked out of the store some other vocal person, who only had a few items, was telling everybody coming in that they would not accept credit cards. Apparently she had the same problem but she had enough cash in her pocket to cover the tab.
We still needed to buy stuff so we searched for another grocery store. We went to Ralph’s and discovered that they had a better selection, cheaper prices, and they accepted my AMEX card the very first time. The contrast between the two was clear and they’ve increased their “share of customer” with us.
I talked about the Stater Bros issue with my Dad and brother the next day (one is in marketing and the other public relations). We all agreed that it was Stater Bros fault for not having a credit card system that worked. They didn’t have a backup strategy or if they did then the staff was not trained (including the manager). The result was a negative brand experience, the loss of a sale, incurring additional costs for restocking, etc. The one thing they did do was get people talking (but not in a good way).
Your brand experience is impacted every day by good and bad experiences. If things don’t go as planned then be prepared to backup systems and policies that are able to restore things to normal with the least amount of damage. If done really well a problem solved can turn a normal customer one that is extremely loyal.
LESSONS LEARNED
- Don’t shop at the Stater Bros at 14171 Red Hill Ave in Tustin, CA
- Make sure your systems are operating properly before a high volume day
- Give managers enough authority to operate the business
- Teach every employee that the brand, and the story of the company, is being written with every transaction
- Get people to talk about how your business exceeded their expectations
- Even if you can’t solve the problem at least pretend like you care.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Sorry for the bad experience with Stater Bros. I would not have stopped there and gone to corporate. It would make a good follow-up if corporate gives you the same line. That manager should be trained or fired for the way they handled the situation. Have a great holiday.
I use to work for a Stater Bros not so long ago. I did hear about the incident with the credit cards, the whole chain was down none of the stores had service. I did not work that day but I can imagine the frustration. I recently got out of this company because I was having issues with the fact that the employees are not well trained and their is no strategy for a situation like this. It was not the first time the system was done so there is no excuse why this problem was never solve. All Stater Bros employees know that the day before Thanskgiving is the busiest day of the year is amazing how much profit they lost for their lack of strategy or implementing a strategy they do have.
i actually work at this store and i remember you, i was working a nine hour shift that day. anyways, do you remember what the manager looked like>?
I don’t remeber what he looked like… I just remember the bad corporate image he provided. BTW, true to my word I have not set foot into the store since this day.