Pathetic Customer Care and Mediocre Standards

<p>Pathetic Service and Mediocre Standards</p> <p>Spar Supermarket in my area is located at 3 minutes walking distance, so we go there on a daily basis. We wish it would be a Woolworth's, to benefit from better service and higher standards, but unless we are willing to drive 10 minutes to get to the closest Woolworth's (and we do at least 2-3 times a week to get better fruits and vegetables, and proper bakery quality), this is the supermarket we have to deal with.</p> <p>It's the first time I am writing a comment on this board, as I have enough of this lazy Spar and *********** management. Too often, the dates at Spar on Hobart Road are expired.</p> <p>Often, regularly, recurrently, frequently.</p> <p>When the date is off by only by a couple of days, you can assume that it was overlooked and the result of an "honest mistake" - although the simple operation of checking the dates on every products is at the very base of a supermarket responsibility.</p> <p>But when it is by more than two months old, it becomes a serious and major problem. If they can't verify the dates on packaged goods, what can possibly happen with products that don't have dates, like the ready-to-serve section, the meat section, the cold cut section...? It is really worrying.</p> <p>If a supermarket doesn't have any standards to manage the out-of-date products, do they have higher standards for fresh produce, for their lasagna, their roasted chickens, their stews, their meats??? How negligent, how low can you go when operating a supermarket where obviously, only profits count and customer service is a distant, abstract notion.</p> <p>The product that I purchased today was I&J Light & Crispy Haddock, a box that I took under the pile, because the freezers at Hobart Spar are completely open, creating layers of ice and condensation. So by picking a box at the bottom, it is usually shielded from the damage of condensation, being protected by the boxes on top.</p> <p>But little that I know, I happened to pick a very old box that was intentionally put under the pile.</p> <p>I only noticed the bad date once I arrived home and as I opened the box, I could see the fish portions covered by a 2 centimetres thick ice, showing the problem of condensation, a constant and serious issue with this Spar Hobart, with their ice cream, frozen vegetables and throughout their frozen food.</p> <p>With a best before date from the 6th of August, and bought today on the 4th of October, it shows how bad is the verification of the products at this store.</p> <p>I have to admit that there wasn't any problem to change it, but the official excuse was: "Sheppard (the frozen food manager...) was sick.</p> <p>Well, even if your "official" clerk is sick, and no one else is available to check the freshness of the products, the problem is that the expiry date is of 2 months old... What happened in between, for the other 7 weeks and a half???</p> <p>Another issue with Spar at Hobart Centre comes from the fact that their freezers are the same as in the 1960's, an obsolete model without sliding doors, so the products are always exposed to the hot air of the store. The result is deteriorating condensation that affects the quality of the products.</p> <p>This is a culture of taking commercial decision based on cheap and nasty greediness, avoiding to invest for as long as possible, even if it is to the detriment of products freshness and quality, instead of adopting a vision based on consumers satisfaction and business ethic, as it would be done in responsible business with common sense and awareness of customers care.</p> <p>But "customer care" isn't a notion that this supermarket is fami**** with.</p> <p>When management can't notice that these old freezers are affecting the product quality, it's being called ignorance and total unconsciousness.</p> <p>Even petrol stations have covering glass for their ice cream freezer, but for Spar, it isn't a concern. Who cares, as all that counts is profitability, saving, and ignoring client's needs and health. The policy is: "Pay full price, but receive damaged and altered products".</p> <p>With the volume of clients a supermarket like this one has, it is inadmissible to see that degree of negligence and dumbness. Standards in South Africa are usually rock bottom, but this type of carelessness is beyond acceptability.</p> <p>I understand that I can't use abusive language on this website, but you can easily imagine the ones that I would like to punctuate my message with, as we are dealing here with pure imbeciles.</p> <p>If the management doesn't know how modern-day frozen section looks like, I have attached visual references.</p>