Sainsbury’s

This has been my local supermarket for 20 or so years as I live so close, I really don’t have much choice but to shop here. Recently (during 2011) they’ve put in several scan and serve yourself counters thereby reducing staff on the tills. There is ALWAYS a queue at the few tills which are actually manned by humans. They have no buzzers at the tills to call for help if there is a query and often you end up standing there for ages whilst the cashier hollers across the store for a supervisor to come over. This is really quite frustrating, whether you’re the customer that’s waiting to be served and there’s a problem with a bar code or something or if you’re waiting in that queue and all the other queues are moving faster when you’ve already unloaded your trolley or basket.
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They have a very annoying habit of moving things around every few months or so, from their point of view I guess it’s to make you wander round even more and pick up other things on the way, from my point of view it makes me not bother searching for the item I wanted and less sales for them!
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The staff are generally helpful and I’ve got to recognise some of the most helpful staff who I will ask for help if something is missing from the shelf that I need as I know they’ll go out of their way to go check.
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The staff on the tills are friendly, seems like they’ve had customer service training in recent times as they always ask how you are and have a little chit chat which until a year or so ago never happened. I remember feeling like a nuisance at times when I shopped there in the past with staff looking like they had been slapped in the face they definitely ALL make a real effort to seem cheerful these days.
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There are products that we used to purchase here regularly in the past which are no longer stocked by the store which I can understand from their point of view but means we have to go elsewhere to purchase and it usually means we’ll pick up other things there instead of at Sainsbury’s.