The Best Food Superstores case is about ethical marketing behaviours and customer service satisfaction. In this case, Brenda who is a regular customer to Best Food Superstores for over thirty years tries to explain her dissatisfaction with the service and guarantee she gets at the store. From the case it is evident the Brenda had been overcharged on various occasion at Best Food Superstores but upon reporting to the customer service desk she has been receiving unethical responses that are contrary to the stores policy.
Brenda has compared the responses she got from Best Food Superstores when overcharged and that of their competitor Sobeys. Brenda has found Sobeys to have good and ethical customer service in case a customer is overcharged. It is her dissatisfaction with the service at Best Food Superstores that Brenda decide to write to the top management of the stores on the same.
In this, case the main issue customer service. What are the stores policies in terms of dealing with incorrect prizes charged to customers? From the case, Brenda has been charged incorrect prizes a number of times while at Best Food Superstores but the staffs there have been violating the stores policies concerning incorrect prizes. This was the case when Brenda was overcharged one dollar on a bottle of olive oil she had purchased.
When Brenda reported to the help desk, they wasted a lot of her time to check and confirm the prize and lastly, Brenda insisted that they follow the stores policy and not to charge her for the item contrary to what they wanted to do. Another problem in this case regarding customer service at the store was employee’s attitude towards work and time management. This is evident when the woman at the help desk could not go to confirm the prize of the olive oil, which could on time but rather, delegated another employee.
The case is also similar when one of the employees by the name of Ken was asked to confirm the prize of one onion by the cashier. Ken seemed negative about doing that, an attitude that led to even the cashier admitting that he is always not in good mood. There is also the problem of supervisors in the store colluding with their juniors to breach the stores policies. This is evident when one of the supervisors concurs with a cashier to change the prize of an overcharged item because I had not paid for it, instead of adhering to the stores policies on overcharged item and give the item free.
The weakness in this case is that of a store that is unwilling to implement the stores policy and only implements the policy to those customers who are knowledgeable about the policy and insist on their rights. A constrain on the internal environment of the store where employees in supervisory position are colluding with their juniors to take advantage of ignorant customers. With these unethical behaviours in the store, it is more likely to lose customers when they realize they are not getting value for their money.
Customer will prefer shopping in stores where they get customer guarantee on their purchase. As for the case of supervisors, colluding with junior staffs to take advantage of customers these will lead to lack of respect between employees at different level in the stores. It will be hard for customers to get quality service from the staff because they know their seniors in case of any undoing will support them. Lastly, the store faces a future threat with their behaviour of wanting to capitalize on ignorant customers, as they will deviate from their main objective of quality service provision and in the end lose customers.
Faced with this situation the management has to consider implementing a number of alternatives in order to implement the stores policy and give quality customer service. One of the alternatives the store has in regards to the policy on the overcharged prizes is to make the policy know to all its customers through either advertisement or educational promotion. On the other hand, the store should educate and instil discipline to its employees to adhere to the policy or face punishment in case of violating the policy. With this in place, employees will fear taking advantage of ignorant customers.
In conclusion, for Best Food Superstores to provide quality customer service and be in a position to compete with other stores, employees need know that the priorities of the customers come first. They need to show confidence and undivided attention to the person (Gallo, 2011). The store management should ensure that their customers and employees know all their policies. The store management should set up a customer suggestion and complain box as this will help in problems solving. Lastly, the management should have incentives for performers in the store; these can be done through customer’s feedback for every service they get.
Reference
Gallo, C. (2011). Five ways to win over customers. Web.
