Tesco’s Blandford Forum superstore took the top spot with 81 points this week. Our mystery shopper said the store was very clean, tidy and well stocked. While none of our items were out of stock, the own-label croutons and City Kitchen chicken katsu curry were not stocked there – though there was an own-label alternative for the latter in stock.
Shop floor service too received high marks as “it felt like everyone worked together efficiently”. All three colleagues our visitor interacted with were helpful and polite. The same was the case for the till assistant, who was patient and chatty but not “overly familiar”. The reason checkout & tills did not get top marks was because the queues were quite long and the manned tills seemed to be short-staffed. There was however an announcement calling for more tills to be opened.
Asda Abbey Lane in Leicester followed with 77 points. Shop floor service was excellent – staff approached were all “extremely helpful regardless of how busy they appeared to be”, our shopper said.
This superstore had an overall clean and tidy appearance, and the layout was easy to follow. Our visitor managed to buy most items on our list, barring three that were not stocked.
But one of the key things that surprised them was the number of facilities available to disabled shoppers at this branch, including temporary parking permits, a braille gun, adapted cutlery, and My Hailo service at the fuel station.On the downside, the area immediately before entering was not as neat as the shop itself, as the sacks of compost on display were untidily stacked. The checkout area was also quite busy as only two assisted tills were open.
A 23-point gap separated Asda and third-placed Sainsbury’s. While its Chippenham branch offered a “generally positive shopping experience”, it fell short on many fronts. The shop was well laid out and shelves were well stocked overall, but availability was hit by two out-of-stocks.
Store standards also fell below average, as there were some visible bits of litter on the floor and “a lot” of restocking trolleys blocking aisles. Most staff members appeared busy picking items for online and click & collect orders, which meant they were often “unable to help with queries”, our shopper noted. Staff were pleasant when approached, but were difficult to find and “could have been more attentive”. The till assistant on the other hand was very friendly and gave excellent customer service.
Waitrose East Sheen, Richmond, scored only 49 points. This store proved “quite disappointing” to our shopper. The front of store seasonal aisle had “too many signs” and did not make clear what the promotion was, as the assortment of displayed items was miscellaneous. Other end-of-aisle promotions were equally confusing, “with no real theme or purpose”.
There was a spillage in the fruit & veg section that was flagged by a yellow sign, though there was no one cleaning it. There were also lots of unmanned trolleys in the produce and bread sections that were hard to navigate. This was exacerbated by the fact that aisles were narrow and the signage was placed too high up, making it hard to spot.
Plus, availability on the whole was not good – there were lots of gaps and some had even been covered by large cardboard signs. In the end, our visitor only bought 26 items as four were out of stock and three were not stocked.
The highlight of the trip was the “fantastic” customer service. Staff were diligent and worked fast and hard.
Morrisons Southwark, on Walworth Road in London, had two out-of-stock and 11 not-stocked items. On top of that, the store layout was not intuitive, making it even more difficult to locate some items.
The main issue our shopper encountered was that the heavy restocking activity taking place during the Saturday morning visit made it difficult to browse. There were several trolleys “causing far too much obstruction” in several aisles, and some were even blocking access to promotional displays, forcing shoppers to move them around to access items.
Additionally, the floors were being cleaned in one aisle and shoppers “were expected to move out of the way”. Ours found it surprising that all these activities were being carried out at such a busy time., which led to the store feeling mostly cramped especially around the checkout area. Because of all of the above, it scored only 42 points.
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