Pathetic online support

In order to save myself time, I do most of my shopping online, and most of my groceries have been bought at Makro until now. While order processing & delivery are first-rate, their online support is the exact opposite.

Since groceries purchasing most often involve ordering the same items repeatedly, I have painstakingly created shopping lists grouped by similar items for convenience & saving time when ordering. In August 2023 I renamed my shopping lists, only to find that they could no longer be retrieved. Being a software developer, I managed to identify the error via my web browser (it turns out that the Makro website happily allows one to create lists with hyphens in the names, but oh boy, don't try and retrieve them afterwards). I notified Makro of the problem, requiring assistance. Note: They didn't even have to trace the bug - it was given to them on a platter, complete with screenshots of the error and browser debug output. I should mention that this is the type of bug that would take even a very mediocre developer about 15 minutes to fix - if that long. The response, however, can only be described as dismissive, with a half-baked apology and acknowledgement of them being aware of "problems" with their website.

Deciding to just put that behind me, I once again painstakingly recreated and populated my shopping lists, and things went well - for a while. On 29 February 2024 I found that, all of a sudden, I was once again unable to retrieve my shopping lists. This time the problem is being caused by only one of the many lists I have added, resulting in a complete failure to retrieve any list. Although I have tried, I'm unable to gather enough information to know what the root cause is (not that it is my job anyway), but I suspect it is something as simple as an item in that list, which is no longer available or stocked by Makro. I found that I can still access some individual lists if I type in its name; problem is that I have many saved lists - and there is no way I know/remember the name of each (as a side-note: What sort of poor and fragile design is responsible for an error in one single list resulting in complete failure retrieving any of them??).

I phoned Makro support and reported this issue on 2 March, with the support agent promising escalation of the ticket and a speedy resolution. In case any Makro representative ever reads this and is at all interested, the Reference no. is ***.

It is 13 June at the time of writing this - 103 days later - and NOTHING has been done. This is totally unacceptable. The Makro staff involved seem oblivious to the fact (or simply don't care) that their website is the interface for online shoppers, and literally fulfills the function of a real-life shop assistant - a very bad and ill-mannered one in this case.

The total lack of support I have experienced, will make me take my business elsewhere. Makro is unlikely to lose any sleep over the R4000 - R5000 per month that I have spent with them over the past 17 months, but I'd rather pay over my hard-earned cash to someone who can provide me with better service.