Four of the five retailers boasted no out of stocks this week, but Waitrose in Altrincham clinched the top spot thanks to staff who "bent over backwards" to help.
Our shopper described the staff as "brilliant", saying they went out of their way to help him find a few items. There was a hole in the bag of sugar, which held up the queue at the till, but a helpful assistant replaced the items for our shopper.
Sainsbury's in Ipswich also impressed overall, but our shopper struggled to locate the Flora because it was hidden behind a misplaced product. Staff around the aisles were happy to help, except for one, who seemed "distant".
Asda's Colchester store was let down by its staff. An assistant told our shopper where the Actimel was but did not escort her to the shelf, and the unenthusiastic checkout assistant was described as "pretty unfriendly".
Tesco in Launceston was tidy and there was no queue. Our shopper asked two assistants for help around the aisles, with mixed success. Although one was polite, the other did not make conversation or ask her if she needed any further help. The checkout assistant was friendly and "efficient", though.
Availability let Morrisons in High Wycombe down, but customer service was good. One assistant escorted our shopper to several items and asked if she needed any more help. The checkout assistant was also friendly.
Winner: Gill Huynh, deputy manager, Waitrose, Altrincham
Tell us about your store. I moved to the store when it opened in October, but have been with Waitrose for eight years. The store has lots of green features, such as eco-friendly refrigerators, which recently won an award. We also have a rainwater collector.
When will you be getting Boots products in your store? The company's plan is to put them into rebranded in-store pharmacies first, but we don't have one. We will be stocking products in the main store as part of the second wave, but I'm not sure exactly which products we will get or when we will get them yet.
What's selling particularly well? We recently launched Menu, a new premium range of cooked and prepared meals that aim to bring the restaurant experience home, and which has been created by top chefs such as Neil Nugent, Pierre Koffmann and Anthony Demetre. The duck leg confit in red wine jus and the scallops with smoked bacon and black pudding, for example, have been well received.
How has the frozen range fared since its revamp? We relaunched it at the start of the year with a strong focus on scratch-cooking ingredients and products such as bakery, risotto and slow-cooked meat lines, and it has gone down very well. Our shoppers appreciate value for money and good-quality food and I think the range offers exactly that. Seriously and Essential Waitrose are also strong performers. There are no big range extensions planned, but there will be the occasional new product introduced during the year.
If you could change one thing about your store, what would it be? We have a modern coffee shop, which has a really nice environment and offers items such as cakes, sandwiches and cream tea. However, it is fairly small so I would like to make it bigger because so many customers like to eat and drink in there. There are no current plans to do so yet, though.
How is your online service doing? Very well it has performed much better than we forecasted. We currently have just the one van and once we have started taking over a certain number of orders we will introduce another, but we haven't reached that stage yet.
Our shopper described the staff as "brilliant", saying they went out of their way to help him find a few items. There was a hole in the bag of sugar, which held up the queue at the till, but a helpful assistant replaced the items for our shopper.
Sainsbury's in Ipswich also impressed overall, but our shopper struggled to locate the Flora because it was hidden behind a misplaced product. Staff around the aisles were happy to help, except for one, who seemed "distant".
Asda's Colchester store was let down by its staff. An assistant told our shopper where the Actimel was but did not escort her to the shelf, and the unenthusiastic checkout assistant was described as "pretty unfriendly".
Tesco in Launceston was tidy and there was no queue. Our shopper asked two assistants for help around the aisles, with mixed success. Although one was polite, the other did not make conversation or ask her if she needed any further help. The checkout assistant was friendly and "efficient", though.
Availability let Morrisons in High Wycombe down, but customer service was good. One assistant escorted our shopper to several items and asked if she needed any more help. The checkout assistant was also friendly.
Winner: Gill Huynh, deputy manager, Waitrose, Altrincham
Tell us about your store. I moved to the store when it opened in October, but have been with Waitrose for eight years. The store has lots of green features, such as eco-friendly refrigerators, which recently won an award. We also have a rainwater collector.
When will you be getting Boots products in your store? The company's plan is to put them into rebranded in-store pharmacies first, but we don't have one. We will be stocking products in the main store as part of the second wave, but I'm not sure exactly which products we will get or when we will get them yet.
What's selling particularly well? We recently launched Menu, a new premium range of cooked and prepared meals that aim to bring the restaurant experience home, and which has been created by top chefs such as Neil Nugent, Pierre Koffmann and Anthony Demetre. The duck leg confit in red wine jus and the scallops with smoked bacon and black pudding, for example, have been well received.
How has the frozen range fared since its revamp? We relaunched it at the start of the year with a strong focus on scratch-cooking ingredients and products such as bakery, risotto and slow-cooked meat lines, and it has gone down very well. Our shoppers appreciate value for money and good-quality food and I think the range offers exactly that. Seriously and Essential Waitrose are also strong performers. There are no big range extensions planned, but there will be the occasional new product introduced during the year.
If you could change one thing about your store, what would it be? We have a modern coffee shop, which has a really nice environment and offers items such as cakes, sandwiches and cream tea. However, it is fairly small so I would like to make it bigger because so many customers like to eat and drink in there. There are no current plans to do so yet, though.
How is your online service doing? Very well it has performed much better than we forecasted. We currently have just the one van and once we have started taking over a certain number of orders we will introduce another, but we haven't reached that stage yet.
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