Good and bad customer service in SE1

Waterloo Sainsburys. Staff always pushing into me in their want to get past. Lousy bag-packing. Crap queuing system. Goods often swiped through checkout twice. Staff surly and mute. Hate. Hate. Hate.

The people on the tills at Bermondsey Square Sainsbury always greet me with a friendly "how are you today" and see me off with "have a nice day/evening" and sound like they actually mean it.

Gordon OKR wrote:

The people on the tills at Bermondsey Square Sainsbury always greet me with a friendly "how are you today" and see me off with "have a nice day/evening" and sound like they actually mean it.

Well, it has only been open a couple of weeks. Give them a few months and they will be like the staff in the Elephant Tesco Metro.

I do agree ref. Sainsbury's on Bermondsey Square. They always have a smile or a friendly word for you. It's a nice change from the experience I used to have at the nearby Costcutter.

aoibhneas wrote:

Just read through this thread when I should have been getting down to my day's work. Realised that, although I've mentioned it on other threads, I've missed an opportunity here to put in a good word for Fine Life on Tower Bridge Rd.
The lady who's usually on the tills is always polite and pleasant. Actually she's kind of quiet - definitely not someone who's been on a havaniceday course - and, to me, all the better for that.

Yes the service in Fine Life is consistently good and the lady that you mention is lovely.

I think I've mentioned both already in this thread but Fine Foods Deli on Long Lane and SixWinesEight are amazing, great people in both places and I always end up chatting away to them.

With the pleasant staff in Sainsburys too, we are spoilt!

I did however have the misfortune of shopping in Sports Direct on OKR yesterday, I fear that if the girl on the counter smiled her face may have cracked.

Cost-Cutter on Tooley Street. Never good with their ps and qs at the best of times but today the guy behind the counter was serving the queue while on holding his mobile to his ear and chatting to whoever was on the other end. So bad it's almost funny.

The people at El Vergel in Lant Street are really friendly. It lifts the spirits.

I also like the down to earth attitude at Terry's Cafe in Great Suffolk Street. They are very good with kids - making them feel welcome.

Here's just a small bit of a gargatuan letter of complaint to Tesco about the long lane store...

I entered the store at 21:30 to purchase 20 JPS Superking Black for my
partner, upon entering the store I noticed a queue at the till which was at least
8 deep, there was only one till open, the persons in the queue were all
complaining of this fact and that also it is always the same in the store, The
queue moved along a bit as someone half way down asked those in front could he
get through to use the fast self service tills then a sales assistant came
down and took the next person in the queue over to the other self service till
and proceeded to actually serve the customer at the self service till! Why did
he not go and open one of the other tills behind the counter which were all
vacant and still only manned by one assistant? I was very confused by this
action. During the time we all stood in the queue waiting I had mentioned I
only wanted a pack of cigarettes for the other half and luckily for me the
person (who had a full trolley) in front of me said please go before me!
if that's all you want, I thanked him and went forward I asked the chap
behind the till for 20 JPS Superking Black, to which he responded, ""No
twenties." (This is not the 1st time there has been no twenties it is a regular
occurrence) I replied "none in the store?" he said "none here." Your guess is as
good as mine as to whether there were any in the store or not he didn't answer
my question really. At this point because of his lackadaisical attitude I
got very cross and told him he had better give me two packets of ten then even
though it is ten pence dearer (he didn't offer a discount), whilst muttering
under my breath half at him that I am fed of the store the laissez-faire
attitude of him and everyone else that works in it there's never any selection of
bread on the shelf after about 16:30 in the afternoon, once on a Saturday
and once on a Sunday I have gone around at 07:00 and the store has not opened
until 07:15 I was told on one of those days that the newspapers ha!
d not been delivered when in fact the delivery van had left them on th
e shop doorway floor and I had to direct the staff member to them! On a
separate occasion I went there at 07:45 on a Saturday and the store was not open,
there was no notice apologising or explaining why, but there were several
persons outside trying to enter the shop who were as confused as I was.

Make of it what you will but I emailed this letter three times before I got any kind of apology. I don't go there if I can help it Sainsbury local is further to walk and quite often in disarray but the cashiers are always pleasant!

[email protected] Tower Bridge Road. I've written a crap review for them on this site and so have several other people. They're not just bad, they're incredibly rude. I tried more than once because it was conveniently located between things and other things, and because I thought it could be a bad day or one bad employee, or maybe I was getting the tourist treatment. I've noticed in many places here that gruff service can turn into friendly service after just a few visits. But Cof[email protected] just sucks. After the last time, you couldn't pay me to drink coffee in there. No, not even for the privilege of basking in the exquisite heavenly light they seem to think shines out of their a**holes.

Speaking of which, now I'm down at Bermondsey Square, which one of these coffee shops around here has decent coffee and service? I don't want to choke on trendiness, just want to get some foamy coffee and leave.

I actually think the service at [email protected] St is worse than at [email protected] But the key point is, it's dire at both. So up-itself!