WalMart customer service

The BBQ Pit
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[QUOTE=LilyoftheValley]
Care to tell me why? (Serious question, I want to know why you think Consumer Reports is “biased” about paint.)
BTW: In fairness, I shouldn’t have included nametag’s quote in my post, as he didn’t suggest that he didn’t know about WalMart’s paint department, unlike ZipperJJ.
[/QUOTE]

Well my first reaction to your post was that this was some use of the phrase “number 1” that I was not previously aware.
Why do I have a hard time believing this?
Well the times I have read CR it takes hours to get my eyebrows out of this :dubious: position.
They do not follow scientific procedure, and often compare apple to kumquats. For example back in the early 1970’s I sold tires for Montgomery Ward. I had several customers tell me they would not buy a Ward’s tire as they were rated very poorly by CR. I asked a regular customer if he would bring in the issue. He was right, the top of the line $75.00 Sears radial built by Michelin bet the $18.00 straight bias ply nylon bottom of the line tire, that Wards sold. :rolleyes: No shit? Ya think? I think they just decided that the Sears tire was better and set out to prove their theory. Like we used to say in Chem class, it’s lots easier to draw your curve and plot your data to match.
They often “test” items of opinion or taste. Which peanut butter tastes best was a headline I saw on a CR cover once. I hate to break it to you, but the brand you might dislike, I might like. If I want taste tests, I will read Cook’s. At least they back up their opinion with some rather exhaustive research.
Getting back to your post in particular, I have never seen a big box store paint that could hold a candle to paint from a real live paint store. For a real life example of this, read here.

22

First of all, apologies to the OP; I didn’t mean to make this a CR hijack.

[QUOTE=Rick]
Well my first reaction to your post was that this was some use of the phrase “number 1” that I was not previously aware.
Why do I have a hard time believing this?
Well the times I have read CR it takes hours to get my eyebrows out of this :dubious: position.
They do not follow scientific procedure, and often compare apple to kumquats. For example back in the early 1970’s I sold tires for Montgomery Ward. I had several customers tell me they would not buy a Ward’s tire as they were rated very poorly by CR. I asked a regular customer if he would bring in the issue. He was right, the top of the line $75.00 Sears radial built by Michelin bet the $18.00 straight bias ply nylon bottom of the line tire, that Wards sold. :rolleyes: No shit? Ya think? I think they just decided that the Sears tire was better and set out to prove their theory. Like we used to say in Chem class, it’s lots easier to draw your curve and plot your data to match.
[/quote]

I do see your point about not having multiple price points from one manufacturer being annoying, but I wouldn’t necessarily conclude it’s about setting out to prove a theory. And hopefully it’s changed since the early 70s. (I didn’t find the tires I bought this year in CR either; I found CR rather useless about tires altogether, now that you mention it. But I also received WILDLY conflicting advice from “tire professionals”.)

Interesting thread. I myself just had my entire house exterior painted with Sherwin Williams from a paint store; I’ve never used Walmart in my life. But the reaction to the Walmart paint seemed to be more along the lines that anything at Lowe’s instead would be better (which is what my mashed post with nametag in it originally was going to address), not to go to thy nearest real paint supply store. I just didn’t see why the OP of this thread deserves derision for shopping at a place that an average person might believe has reasonably decent paint, based on the information that is available to a non-professional painter.
I shouldn’t post when on cough medicine as my posts come out unclear, and then I need to clarify. Crap. Now since I’m still doped up, I’m probably not any clearer now.

23

[QUOTE=gonzomax]
You can not expect good service or enough employees in a company that is barely making enough profit.
[/QUOTE]

Good point. :stuck_out_tongue:

Over worked, underpaid, stressed, homeless, uninsured American workers can only give so much back to Joe consumer. Wal Mart doesn’t treat employees with a shred of dignity, so how can these employees feel any pride or concern for the prosperity of their slave owner –err-employer? If I worked at Wal Mart, I would have an attitude. At the very least, gumint can provide health insurance since Wal Mart feels no responsibility to provide health insurance or a living wage for its employees.

Wal Mart represents the decline of America’s work ethic, pride, value, competitive spirit, and ingenuity, I fucking hate Wal-Mart, and I particularly hate Wal Mart Way with the cursory stop light.

24

Your walmart has customer service?

25

[QUOTE=CynicalGabe]

Me: Is there someone you could call to come over to the paint department?

DWME: Probably.

DWME then turned around and walked away.

[/QUOTE]
This point seems to have been lost in the hijacks about paint. Of course people shopping at Walmart can’t expect good or even adequate customer service, but this is not just poor customer service - it’s inexcusable. Poor customer service would be the guy pretending he hadn’t seen you, or saying he’d go find somebody and then not returning.

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[QUOTE=Blue Mood]
saying he’d go find somebody and then not returning.
[/QUOTE]

Actually, Home Depot owns several patents on this customer service method, so you would not find this at Wal Mart unless they’ve licensed it.

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Just curious. How do you know that when he said probably and went off, he wasn’t going off to find someone to help you?

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[QUOTE=Liberal]
Just curious. How do you know that when he said probably and went off, he wasn’t going off to find someone to help you?
[/QUOTE]

A combination of the tone of his voice and the fact that being right next to the paint counter, he was going in the wrong direction if he was going to page someone.

29

The reason I was curious is that I was at the Super Wally a few weeks ago. I asked the guy putting out meats where I could find beef stock. He said he wasn’t sure, and turned around and walked away. In a few minutes, he was back with someone who took me to the soups aisle and found the beef stock for me.

30

[QUOTE=Martin Hyde]
On the whole Lowe’s/Wal-Mart thing, I’m not surprised that people are under the impression that Lowe’s is owned by Wal-Mart.

I’ve seen this lay out many, many, many times in shopping centers (you know the big ones that sprout up in the middle of nowhere off an interstate.) The center will have a Wal-Mart, Lowe’s, and Sam’s Club all right next to each other. They all have the same general look/appearance on the front of their stores.

I’ve seen this enough that it would not surprise me if Wal-Mart/Lowe’s has some sort of strategy in which they work together when deciding on store locations. Lowe’s and Wal-Mart do compete somewhat but a huge section of Lowe’s goods aren’t sold at Wal-Mart so they actually don’t compete directly for that much business.
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There is a Wal-Mart and a Lowe’s side-by-side here in Boise (Google Maps satellite view). It’s right off the interstate, too. The building on the left is Wal-Mart and the one on the right is Lowe’s. If you take the time to play around with the Street View feature you will see that these are Wal-Mart and Lowe’s stores.

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As I mentioned, there is also a Lowe’s near my WalMart.

A conspiracy, I tell you!

:tinfoil hat:

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[QUOTE=Blue Mood]
This point seems to have been lost in the hijacks about paint. Of course people shopping at Walmart can’t expect good or even adequate customer service, but this is not just poor customer service - it’s inexcusable. Poor customer service would be the guy pretending he hadn’t seen you, or saying he’d go find somebody and then not returning.
[/QUOTE]
I agree that this is worse than just being lazy, but I wouldn’t put it at the level of ‘inexcusable’ by WalMart standards. Inexcusable would be if DWME cursed at the OP or sold him the wrong item — this is just general salesdude snarkiness, which is obnoxious but doesn’t really hurt anyone at the end of the day. Sure this sort of asshattery doesn’t fly at Whole Foods, but it’s not Whole Foods, it’s Wal Mart, where millions of customers seek out low prices and are content with knowing that DWME if fact does not give a rat’s ass about their shopping experience. Like other’s said, when it comes to service you get what you pay for and at Wal Mart you’re not paying for it.

CynicalGabe, I’m sure the local competitors are happy to see you walk thru the front door.

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[QUOTE=CynicalGabe]
As I mentioned, there is also a Lowe’s near my WalMart.

A conspiracy, I tell you!

:tinfoil hat:
[/QUOTE]

:smiley:

It might be a conspiracy, in fact. But I think it tends to have more to do with individual municipalities that have an available plot of ground, doing everything they can to entice as many big box stores as possible within their sales tax borders.

Not every defunct drive-in theatre is going to be able to support a swap meet, you know.

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[QUOTE=CynicalGabe]
I only needed a tiny bit to cover a hole I had made in the wal of my BRAND NEW apartment, before the wife found out.
[/QUOTE]

Why would your wife get mad about a hole in the wall that you were fixing? Unless said hole was a result of a prostitute’s head banging into it with you behind her, then I could see some disappointment there.. :dubious:

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[QUOTE=CynicalGabe]
As I mentioned, there is also a Lowe’s near my WalMart.

A conspiracy, I tell you!

:tinfoil hat:
[/QUOTE]
At one time, I read an article (how’s that for a cite?) that a company that I can’t remember placed their new stores near McDonalds. They had a similar demographic to McD’s (just not hamburgers) and they were taking advantage of the exhaustive research McD’s did before placing their own stores in neighborhoods.

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With regard to Consumer Reports: I don’t think that they’re biased in the normal sense, but I do find that they often (or even usually) miss the forest for the trees. It’s hard to explain, but when I read a review of some category that I do happen to know a lot about, I can’t help but shake my head at their results. Maybe it’s because the things that they test quantitatively don’t always have much to do with what makes a product great or just mediocre.

[QUOTE=LilyoftheValley]
I just didn’t see why the OP of this thread deserves derision for shopping at a place that an average person might believe has reasonably decent paint…
[/QUOTE]
I don’t know what an “average” person might think, but a reasonably intelligent and well-informed person probably wouldn’t assume that Wal-Mart has reasonably decent paint. And it’s not just “it’s Walmart so it sucks” bias.

We all know that Wal-Mart squeezes suppliers HARD as far as pricing goes. (there have been threads on this, as well as lots of information online) As a result, the suppliers have to find ways to cut their production costs. One of the biggest ways they do this is by reducing quality.

Now, I don’t know squat about paint. Well, I do know that what we think of as “paint” is usually pigments mixed with a binder mixed with some sort of solvent. So after you apply it, the solvent evaporates, leaving the binder holding the pigments on the surface.

So, to reduce costs on paint, you could use lower-quality pigments (less light-fast, muddier colors). You could use less binder in relation to the solvent (less durable finish). You could take shortcuts in the manufacturing process (not blended properly, variation between batches). And the results of these changes are generally not the kind of thing that the layperson could detect upon opening the can. Maybe a less refined finished wall is an acceptable trade-off for the consumer. But as the years pass, the cheaply produced paint would be more likely to fade, crack, and peel, too.

Really, paint is kind of a gamble.

Now, I’m not saying that you need to spring for Benjamin Moore to paint the spare room, but I think it’s pretty foolish to go for something where you have good reason to think the quality might be compromised.

(Note: I’m not actually criticising the OP here–considering this was a touch-up, maybe the above issues really aren’t all that relevant. But it was pretty dumb to expect any kind of service at all at Wally World.)

p.s. We have WalMart next to a Lowe’s around here, too. Also two Wal-Mart-right-by-Home Depot combos. But all three companies were expanding in this area at the same time, and the three shopping centers I’m thinking of were newly developed land. There may be some kind of cooperation going on, but it also could be that the three companies were all looking for the same types of sites at the same time.

p.p.s.: With regard to Ruby’s example of some company piggybacking on to McDonald’s site research–There is more of that kind of thing going on in the retail world than anybody wants to admit. But it generally benefits both sides.

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[QUOTE=Ruby]
At one time, I read an article (how’s that for a cite?) that a company that I can’t remember placed their new stores near McDonalds. They had a similar demographic to McD’s (just not hamburgers) and they were taking advantage of the exhaustive research McD’s did before placing their own stores in neighborhoods.
[/QUOTE]

Was it Long John Silver’s ? They are usually beside or across the street from each other. At lease in Iowa.