What did Whole Foods Associate Manager Ted Donoghue do when his West Hartford store lost its computer system during a major snowstorm? Nothing! After realizing that the registers were down for the count, Donoghue issued simple instructions to his cashiers: bag the customer’s groceries and wish them a happy holidays.
No storewide announcement was made and the store ended up giving away groceries worth $4,000.
[Manager Kimberly Hall] said Donoghue did not consult headquarters before making his decision and said she has heard no negative feedback from the top brass.“They just totally trust us to do what is right for our customers,” she said.
It didn’t appear to be a big deal to Hall. In fact, neither the store nor the chain sought publicity for what happened.
Just as turtle hatchlings know to shimmy towards the moonlit sea, employees freed from constraining corporate codes know exactly how to provide unimpeachable customer service. Great work, Ted!
Whole Foods Shows You Can Get Something For Nothing [Hartford Courant]
(AP Photo/Tony Dejak)
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@edwardso: I figured it was a long shot, but so is assuming that anything good ever came out of a Whole Foods.
For those of you lucky enough to be near one, go to Wegman’s instead (New York based regional chain). Better quality and selection than Whole Foods, cheaper prices, and none of the pretentiousness.
@Katharine: Agreed.
It is probably some cheap marketing and/or can be written off as charity or a giveaway come tax time.
Speaking of which:
Consumerist articles on tax help and loopholes in 3…2…1…
@MystiMel:
If your power was out, how did you have TVs running?
Mystimel actually said “the registers went down” which sounds like a computer problem or a phone problem, not the power going out.
The power went out a few times when I was a grocery cashier, back in the day (a whopping 10 years ago or so)… but the store had a generator, so the lights would go out, everyone would go “oooh!” and then 20 seconds later they’d come back. The registers would all have to be restarted and everything rescanned, but it wasn’t too bad. However, when the phone lines went down, we couldn’t process any credit cards and people were SOL. I worked there when that satellite went down and lots of people’s cell phones died (remember that?) and we had no Muzak for weeks because it was stallite radio. Instead the owner brought in a bunch of Frank Sinatra tapes.
Safeway would NEVER do that.
@DAK: I have dreams about wegmans (I went to undergrad in upstate new york); it would be almost worth moving into a wegmans zone to be near a wegmans. almost.
. All-in-all, Whole Foods is a classy outfit. However, I have one complaint. They have a great coffee bar, or whatever it’s called. So, I ordered a latte, or something like that. I got it and then asked where the “Equal” was. “Oh, we don’t have anything like that in the store, it’s not NATURAL.”
. Well, of course it’s not natural. But, my diabetes is. Another customer behind me offered me a packet of Equal; he had brought his own as he also had diabetes and could not tolerate the “natural” sugar Whole Foods offered.
. I consider this a pretty serious transgression by Whole Foods. Sugar, carbohydrate, in any form, is pure poison to a diabetic. And Whole Foods forces it upon us. Diabetics are Second-Class customers at Whole Foods.
@coren:
Whole Foods and many of the larger organic/natural chain type stores make A LOT more than 3 or even 8% on their groceries. I’ve dealt with some of the wholesellers that ship to these types of stores and they have obscene markup.
good for that manager…..sounds like a good guy to work for…..has good common sense……
I love Whole Foods- they are pricey but I HEART organics and the service is awesome…They really do empower their employees to be humans…( and this is speaking not just as a customer, but as a mystery shopper for them.)
How long until people start taking advantage of this persons good will? I bet it has already happened….
@BOMBLEDMONK – Whole Foods and many of the larger organic/natural chain type stores make A LOT more than 3 or even 8% on their groceries. I’ve dealt with some of the wholesellers that ship to these types of stores and they have obscene markup.
Yeah. I think those 1-3% numbers for the grocery biz are like the numbers from Hollywood. I don’t think there is a film that has ever made a profit for investors using standard Hollywood accounting rules.
It all depends on what you are counting and how you are counting.
Ha! And speaking of Hollywood accounting, this just in:
[www.techcrunch.com]
The power did go out on one occasion, I think in the convenience store portion we just let people take the snacks they had picked out for free, and with the bookstore we ended up having to kick everyone out, but we sold scantrons and pencils outside with cash for people who needed them for tests.
The television with movies and the time we played games was when the registers went down during the time students all buy their books.
@Jesse in Japan:
That’s actually crap. The profit margins are rather high on individual items.
Unfortunately, idiocy at the management and ordering levels causes a lot of loss. Overstocking the shelves doesn’t mean the margin on items is low, it just means the people in charge are brainless twits.
Constantly stocking items which don’t sell at any location and constantly restocking items which don’t sell at specific locations – these are what drive net profit down.
Supermarkets could charge a lot less and still make substantially more money if they were a bit more intelligent. Trader Joe’s and Aldi are an excellent example of how to properly run a grocery business.
@HungryGrrl: Some stores still carry the old hand swipers as backup. Insert paper. Insert card. *crunch crunch*. At office depot the networked POS (point of sale) system was always going down, requiring us to use the funky card cruncher. To the untrained they’re almost as slow as paying with a check. :-
management must be pissed but they cant say anything because its already done and if they do, it turns good PR into bad PR.
I heard a similar story about a Harris Teeter, years ago. It’s one of the reasons I continue to shop there.
Making good choices and helping out customers is generally the right way to go. Kudoos to this manager, she deserves a raise.
@MystiMel: Where in the hell did you go to school that you had to pay for scantron sheets?
@SpdRacer: Most US colleges and universities, AFAIK. It’s one of those great mysteries. Thousands in tuition and they can’t afford the $15 it would cost to supply the whole class with scantrons. Same story for blue books. FTR I went to UCI and everyone I know who went elsewhere was in the same boat. It’s a popular rant.