Lemon tree superstore is beautiful - tillpoint poor, you wait ages to pay...

Earlier this evening, I went to Pick 'n Pay at the Lemon Tree branch (Alberton). I think the store is very nicely set up - from walking in and the various departments from vegetables/fruit, bakery, foods and butchery all are so well set up.

I must have half filled the trolley with items from meat, vegetables and many items - I estimate that I was going to spend easily about R1,500 for the items I needed to get.

The problem came when I needed to pay - frankly, the store's frontline is really not up to standard. The first issue is that there were about 6 teller points that were closed and while ALL other teller points had long queues (at least 5 customers each) - including the option of 10 items or less, which had an even longer queue.

I was in the queue at teller point 17 and waited patiently for my turn to pay. with 5 people in front of me, it took about 15 minutes for the teller to assist the first 3 people. On the 4th person, who wanted to spend about R1 800 - took longer than average (more than 5 minutes) - the items were already scanned and the only outstanding matter was for this customer to pay using a card - the system was not working (this customer even offered to go withdraw the cash). When we enquired with the teller, she indicated that the paypoint was slow and that she needed the supervisor. It took the supervisor at least another 5 minutes to attend to Till 17. Her arrival and intervention still did not solve the problem, instead we were told that it would take 10 minutes for the machine to reboot.

What was unfortunate is that despite us having waited for at least 20 minutes in the same queue, there was no apology or plan to get us to another till. There is no reason why another tillpoint was not opened/set up, given that teller 17 was having technical issues.

Needless to say, myself and the customer before me left without making the purchase - at least R2 000 to R4 000 would have been spent in this store, if only the front line department was efficient and quicker.

I find it difficult to understand why a beautiful store would not have an efficient and fast paypoint - is the point of a retail store not to get customers to spend in the store? Why is it difficult for the store to have a quick/faster and working paypoint?