Snails pace at the Co-op

[MaMaD1990]

Just interested to see if this is the same in other places. We have 3 local Co-ops and in every one, the service is so slow! I find it quite amusing and usually just use the self service so not bothered by it, but my partner and a few friends get driven up the wall with it. There is actually a well known joke between locals that you go in a youngster and come out an OAP it's so slow! Is the Co-op like this anywhere else, or is it just my sleepy little town? YANBU - yes its slow and drives me mad, YABU - no its not slow at all.

One lady who must be well past 60 now still works at one

How awful, a woman past 60 working. Someone should report her.

One lady who must be well past 60 now still works at one

What on Earth?? Surely this can’t be legal!! How is it even physically possible for a woman as old as that to be upright, let alone working????

Head/desk

Love my local co-op. Small store, no self-service tills. Staff are friendly and fabulous.

The customers on the other hand..... aisles are very very narrow and it's difficult to pass. Bad enough in ordinary times but during Covid people literally hiss at you when you try to get by.

So you're stuck there while someone looks over every single pack of pears before deciding not to buy any, and shuffling on to the next thing.

You may have thought you were starting a famed ‘light hearted thread’ but it isn’t really is it??

Oh and there it is….. someone slating older women

Nice one op!!

there's four locally that I use on a regularish basis - three near home, one opposite work. I've not noticed them being particularly slow, but I don't use them for a main shop, so mostly use the self service tills.

@MaMaD1990

It seems fairly consistent! I find it amusing when I see a huge line of people waiting to pay and the dear assistants are having a chat with Maud about her recent hip operation seemingly unaware of the 10 customers waiting. Bless her cottons.

That's nothing to do with what franchise it is. We have a village Spar that's bad for the staff talking to customers for ages whilst watching the queues go around the store. Small/village type shops get the older shopper who tend to be slower generally and tend to want to talk.

Yes every coop I've been to seem so slow! My sister works in the one in our home town and she says customers often moan about the wait and I think it is the till system. Even the self checkouts in my town are so slow, the woman behind the kiosk actually apologised while I stood there waiting for it to work properly 🤣

seeing the comments above about chatty assistants reminded me of my irritation with superdrug.
No matter how long the queue, lengthy inquisition of do I want the special offer perfume-hand sanitiser-whatever other crap they are trying to shift/do I have a loyalty card/do I want to sign up to their phone service...
No, I am cross because I have stood in your queue for ten minutes, if I wanted to by perfume etc it would be in my basket. I JUST want to buy the sodding paracetamol which is getting worse by the minute of standing in your queue and now being asked the same sodding questions as everyone in front of me.
I do not wans a loyalty card (and if any one in front of me had said yes and proceeded to give all their details to set one up, I'd have eavesdropped on the details and revenge-posted them somewhere for them to get phished by every scammer in existence.
Given that your phone service might be as bad as your ability to speedily serve a que of customers, NO, I do not want it.

rant over - sorry about the typos

Ours is terrible. Lots of tills but only ever one or two manned and it's not that the staff are chatting to customers, they barely acknowledge your existence. Always a massive queue and everything is overpriced.

@StacysMomMandyJessiesEx

You may have thought you were starting a famed ‘light hearted thread’ but it isn’t really is it??

Of course it isn't. It's covert - and overt - ageism. If you replace the 'well over 60' with black or Muslim or gay, the thread would be removed immediately. And the whole 'Maud' and 'hip operation' thing isn't much better

@drawerofwater, I did, I did.
Hope that's OK with you ?

In our co-op (small community) the till staff know everybody and vice versa; so as they ring up the shopping there's almost always some social conversation with the customer. It is a bit slow but it's part of the charm of the kind of place we live in. It's also the font of all local intelligence and gossip. So if you want to sell a car / get a dog/ find a man to paint your shed/ wonder what your funny rash could be, just drop it into conversation at the co-op.

@ThinWomansBrain

seeing the comments above about chatty assistants reminded me of my irritation with superdrug. No matter how long the queue, lengthy inquisition of do I want the special offer perfume-hand sanitiser-whatever other crap they are trying to shift/do I have a loyalty card/do I want to sign up to their phone service... No, I am cross because I have stood in your queue for ten minutes, if I wanted to by perfume etc it would be in my basket. I JUST want to buy the sodding paracetamol which is getting worse by the minute of standing in your queue and now being asked the same sodding questions as everyone in front of me. I do not wans a loyalty card (and if any one in front of me had said yes and proceeded to give all their details to set one up, I'd have eavesdropped on the details and revenge-posted them somewhere for them to get phished by every scammer in existence. Given that your phone service might be as bad as your ability to speedily serve a que of customers, NO, I do not want it.

Then you need to complain to Head Office about forcing their staff to say all of those things.

I work in a supermarket now but had a job in superdrug when I was at school and also do some mystery shopping on occasion. Head Office set the "standards" and its down to shop floor staff to put it into practice and then invariably take the flak when customers are pissed off, but because Head Office don't get enough negative feedback then they presume that pissing off a few people is worth the risk because they don't have to deal with the daily abuse.

All of the "script" that pisses you off is enforced by Head Office and you would get in trouble if you didn't say it. As a mystery shopper they ask lots of questions about "Were you offered XYZ?"; did the staff member say ABC?" Etc and if the staff member didn't then it would be a fail and they would get in trouble - I knew someone when I worked at Superdrug who lost her job because she didn't do the script with customers despite the fact everyone hated doing it and customers hated it too. She received so many write ups and disciplinaries for not following company policy that she was eventually sacked.

[quote Amdone123]@drawerofwater, I did, I did.
Hope that's OK with you ?[/quote]
You literally didn’t SCREAM, why are you lying? 😂

There are two near me and I’m always irritated every time I go... service is very slow (I usually go self service) and the staff always seem to be in the way, not doing very much! I find the aisles are very narrow as well so it’s difficult to pass when the shelves are being stacked. They’re always a bit untidy too, lots of things in the way. I only go because it’s convenient and one of them has good parking so easy if I need to get a few bits.

The worst near us is KFC. I waited 40 minutes once. Fast food it isn’t.

I don’t mind our local coop but I use the self serve tills.

Ours has changed hands now, not the co op any more. Same shop, same layout, same staff.
Never empty though doesn’t matter what time of the day you go in always a queue. Life saver if you want a loaf or couple of pints of milk.

Oh yes ours is also legendary for it I have no idea where the training for the staff comes from they change relatively regularly but are all still sooooooo slow.

I don't go in mine v often but when I have done it has been slow service. One young girl on her own at the till

The staff are helpful and efficient in ours. Yesv they do chat to elderly customers. I suspect that is why many shop there.

@Kazzyhoward every shop serves a key type of customer. Some like amazon are based on quick delivery and no human interaction. Others like local shops often depend on people who go regularly and want a chat. My father goes to the local shop every single day. If they didnt chat to him he would go elsewhere

@2bazookas

In our co-op (small community) the till staff know everybody and vice versa; so as they ring up the shopping there's almost always some social conversation with the customer. It is a bit slow but it's part of the charm of the kind of place we live in. It's also the font of all local intelligence and gossip. So if you want to sell a car / get a dog/ find a man to paint your shed/ wonder what your funny rash could be, just drop it into conversation at the co-op.

Exactly the same here. One of the ladies, who had worked there for yonks, died recently and there were over a hundred messages from customers in the family’s fb post. The family had her funeral entourage take a route round the town and so many people lined the route to pay their respects, it was so moving.

All the ones I’ve been to have been fab and we used them during lockdown 1 for top up shops as I couldn’t be bothered to wait outside the big supermarkets and my pantry and freezer were full.
I’ve had nothing but positive things to say about the Coop 👌🏼
However, a small Sainsbury’s (not a local) in the next town is dreadfully slow and the staff don’t seem to know what they’re doing. I can buy a trolley full of food and get good to go to the basket self service tills 🙄