One more little report from Walt Disney World about how easy it is to lose a customer and how the bigger a store is the more things can impact the decision.
A talkative waiter, noting the Pundit children’s high fruit consumption, started talking about how much fruit his children ate. Which segued into where he shopped.
He used to be a loyal shopper at a Wal-Mart supercenter near his home, buying over $100 a week in food and, often, picking up other items while he was there.
Yet he hasn’t stepped into a Wal-Mart in two years and cancelled his Sam’s Club membership.
Why?
Two years ago he brought his car into a Wal-Mart auto center to have two new tires put on. At opening they promised him the car would be ready in an hour. He went for breakfast, returned, they said another hour, this went on for five hours whereupon the truth came out, as our waiter related the story: Wal-Mart had lost his keys.
They virtually disassembled the desk, looked everywhere, another two hours and the keys were found.
There was no apology, not even an offer to replace the two tires at once, for free, so our angry waiter took his car and went in and asked to speak to the manager. The manager sent out somebody who claimed the manager was “too busy” to see the man. But offered to give him a $20 Wal-Mart gift card.
Offended by both the paltry card — considering he blew a whole day off from work — and even more, offended by the unwillingness of the store manager to meet with him and the obvious lack of authority of the person they did send, he let the woman keep the gift card and drove away, never to return.
The guy obviously knew food. He talked about Goodings and its glory days, showing 20 varieties of mushrooms and he perceived a new Publix by his house to really be competing with Whole Foods. But where does he spend the over $5,000 a year in food purchases that no longer go to Wal-Mart… SuperTarget gets that business.
