Supermarkets: fresh food people - just don't use the toilets!

I’m always mulling over the relationship I have with my supermarket. Despite all the data they’ve collected about me through their frequent shopper scheme, I just don’t think they understand me.



I don’t want them to market to my children with branded merchandise all over the store, and I'm not really that bothered about specials. But if the public toilets had soap and toilet paper and were checked and cleaned reguarly - I'd love that!

We’ve had rather too many adventures with the toilets of our supermarket. ‘I want a poo Mummy!’ Smudge demanded in aisle seven. So we left our trolley at the ‘customer service’ desk and headed for the loos, only to find there was no toilet paper. Back to the customer service desk we went, and a member of staff went to get some. But it was too late. Smudge did what he had to do right there and then in his pants. He walked with his legs wide apart back to the toilets and we dealt with what he’d done. Luckily I keep a change of clothes in the car. As ever, there was no soap provided in the toilets, so I had to clean up using my own resources. I keep some anti-bacterial hand wash in the car too – because I know how poorly the supermarket provides for me.


Then there was the time when the ladies’ toilets were closed ‘due to vandalism’. We hovered outside for a moment, Smudge with a certain sense of urgency. The disabled toilet was occupied and there’s no way I was going in the gents. What could have been done to the toilets to render them completely unsuitable for use? Could it really have affected all three cubicles? We took a punt, pushed open the door and went in. The toilets sat silent and untouched. And the vandalism? Some graffiti on the wall.


That said to me loud and clear that this store management doesn’t understand its customers: the notion that a woman with a child needing the toilet would rather the toilets were closed until the graffiti was sorted out, well that’s just laughable.

What’s lowest of all, though is that these facilities don’t offer the means for customers to wash their hands properly, as there’s never any soap. Many of us are heading into the supermarket to handle food and produce. It kind of takes the shine off the company’s claim to be the ‘fresh food people’. I’ve seen a staff member using those toilets and going back to work in the store, washing their hands under running water only. I’ve used the toilets myself and then returned to the store, only to be offered samples from a fruit and cheese platter; there were no toothpicks, I was invited to pick an item off the plate with my fingers.


I like to be polite to the staff of shops, but I gave a frank account of my views on this occasion. To be fair, the woman holding the plate said she’d raise the matter at their next Occupational Health & Safety meeting. They did raise it – I called the store a couple of weeks later, but nothing ever changed, despite the usual assurances.


There’s a sign on the back of the door saying ‘These toilets are provided and maintained by Woolworths. If you have any concerns, please address them to staff at the customer service desk, so that they can completely ignore them. (Okay, I made that last bit up.)


I’ve been using this supermarket for five years now, and I’ve addressed my concerns to them in many ways. I’ve talked to the staff at the desk, I’ve talked to the manager on the phone, I’ve complained to the woman handing out free food from a plate, I’ve written to the General Manager of Customer Engagement at head office and been rung by someone on his team. I’ve had all sorts of assurances, and a few excuses. We’ve lost the key for the toilet paper dispensers. The soap dispensers are the wrong size for the soap we’ve got. Bars of soap get stolen. Meantime, customers put up with grubby toilets, frequently not cleaned very well, no soap, toilet paper rolls sitting on the floor. Cleaning and checking roster? You must be joking.


Despite all their marketing departments and customer engagement teams and management training, they haven’t got the simple integrity to make sure their facilities are clean and useable.


What amazes me is their apparent lack of interest in getting it right, when this is an issue upon which customer loyalty and engagement could turn. If they’re so determined to engage with their customers, why aren’t they doing something about this issue when a real live customer has got in touch with them?

I nearly laughed my socks off when I heard they had a Customer Engagement team. They couldn’t be poorer at engaging me. I reduced my engagement with them all the time. I buy my meat from a butcher because I know it’s local and has no growth hormones in it, as Tasmania bans them. I buy my fruit and veg from a local roadside barn. I buy my local farm milk from the greengrocer whose shop is in the shadow of the supermarket.


If I can find a reason not to go to my supermarket, I use it. Pretty soon I’m going to put in place a regular online monthly order so I visit even more seldom in person. That means they’ll miss out on the incidentals I buy if I’m actually there looking at the shelves.

If I felt they had integrity as an organisation, I’d still be going. But it rings false to have lilting tunes piped at me about how they’re the ‘fresh food people’ when I’ve just been to their scummy facilities. There's a gap between the reality of going there and the spin they put on it. When the gap becomes too large, it's hard not to become disenchanted.


Please tweet this - they deserve it!