feeling listless

Commerce Vicky's reminded me of the letter of complaint I sent to Asda just before Christmas. See below:

"Dear Sir or Madame,

I’m writing because I finally have to express my continued disappointment with the customer service at your newly opened Sefton Park store. On a number of occasions I have found the staff to be rude and unhelpful and it has finally meant that I dread visiting the store. In a way, what happened tonight encompassed many of the things which have happened previously, which is a shame, because it was my way of giving the store one more chance.

When my father and I started to put the goods on the conveyor belt, a friend of the lady serving arrived and they began to talk. The lady serving did not look up at us, and I had to run to the part of the till were the goods are scanned to start packing because she was throwing the goods towards there. I bring carrying bags from Habitat, because they are stronger than Asda carrier bags and make it easier to carry my Dad’s beer and my shandy. I’m trying to open these out so that I can continue to put the goods in, but because the lady serving wasn’t paying to attention to anything but the conversation, the goods were mounting up. Because she didn’t look up, a loaf of bread was almost squashed between two packs of beer – I only just managed to save it in time.

If she had looked up she would have seen I was already packing the goods and wouldn’t have bothered to start half-heartedly packing things into carriers – I say half heartedly because she put a sixer of shandy on top of some lolly ices squashing the boxes. It might have been nice if I could have got at least some of the goods home in one piece.

If she had stopped talking to her friend for a moment she would have noticed that she hadn’t reduced a lettuce and scanned it properly. When my Dad pointed out the error, she snatched it from him, reduced it down and flung it in with the rest of the goods. Again, she didn’t look up, she didn’t stop chatting, and above all, she didn’t apologise for her error. The only time she paid any interest in us was when she barked the price at us. At no time did she even say please or thank you.

When she’d got her money, without acknowledging, she asked her friend to sit in her place whilst she went to the toilet. We were still packing. Only at this stage did her friend again half-heartedly ask if we needed any help with the packing, a bag of oranges and the afformentioned lettuce before the end. I declined. I just wanted to leave the shop as quickly as possible.

I fear I may have to visit the shop again, because it’s the only convenient supermarket to get to after work. I hope that next time I visit there has been an improvement. I would like to know what you plan to do to improve the service available as this is the last straw.

Yours sincerely,

Stuart Ian Burns.

I haven't had a reply. I suspect they think I'm a nutter. But I'd never written a complaint letter before. I think it went quite well ...