As most of you are already aware, the New York Giants managed to pull off the incredible upset over the New England Patriots yesterday in the Super Bowl. I’m not a fan of either team, but I was rooting for the Patriots to lose. I’m just glad they did. That’s all I’m going to say about the Super Bowl, so, switching topics…

Terrible Shopping Experience

Over the weekend, we went shopping for a few new items for the house to spruce up the place in order to better market it for sale or a possible rental. We decided to swing by the nearest Wal-Mart since they always have cheap prices and we were just looking for a couple rugs and maybe some bathroom hardware such as towel racks and the like.

It ended up being such an ordeal and taking much longer than any shopping trip needed to. The parking lot was poorly laid out and once inside, you could hardly get through any of the main isles since they were so narrow and packed with merchandise all through the middle. Many of the isles also didn’t go all the way through so your constantly back-tracking to try and find anything. Once we finally found what we were looking for we went up to the checkout which was a model case study of inefficiency. We stood in line at the express lane only to see person after person go up the lane next to us and cut in line at the next express register. Complete disregard for everyone who was actually waiting there, and none of the staff seemed to care.

Once we finally made it to the register, the cashier just mildly plodded along at her sweet pace and would put the items in the bags and then pull off the bag and take the time to tie the bag shut. I’ve never seen this before. There is a huge crowd of people waiting to be checked out, and she’s tying the plastic bags shut. Simply unbelievable.

Great Shopping Experience

On the other end of the customer service spectrum, we were picking a few things up at Lowe’s to finish our new floor in the front room. The guy the flooring department told me that I would need a brad gun because I wouldn’t want to just nail the quarter round trim all the way around the perimeter. I wasn’t really too sure about this since I don’t plan on putting in too many new floors, but I went up to the tool department to ask about it. After talking to one guy, I finally found a guy who took the time to understand what it was I was trying to do and just sold me some finishing nails and a nail set. Very simple and it got the job done. It was nice to talk to someone knowledgeable and who cared about what I wanted.

I know a lot of times here at Fiscal Musings I talk about getting the best deal possible and spending as little for something as possible, but I don’t want to lessen the importance of customer service. Repeat business is easier to come by when you treat customers the right way or at least don’t irritate them. And for this go-round, Wal-Mart irritated me.

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