A couple of months ago, I happened to visit one of the oldest surviving cities of the Punjab region in India – Jalandhar. The place is far away from any of the metros that you would come across. The city is known for its lineage associated with the manufacturing of sports goods and a drive down the city highway shall also bring to your notice innumerous resorts and banquet halls that will give you a peek into a lavish Punjabi wedding! Retail in Jalandhar is still at its infancy but it is a good sight to see majority of the supermarket and hypermarket chains having set themselves early on.
My trip to Jalandhar was a leisure trip where I tagged along with my hubby for one of his business meetings. Our toddler accompanied us and because the city is otherwise a bit dead, the option before me and my daughter was to just go and spend time at the nearby malls (if I can call them so!!). One of the malls that I happened to visit had Bharti Wal-Mart’s Easyday as its anchor. The store entrance would literally confuse you of the store being under renovation but then since I had nothing better to do and I wanted to pick some cup noodles for my little one, I thought of just taking a stroll within. The product display is at par with what you would find in any other super / hyper market. The cooling within the store is decent as well. The product assortment has a good mix too but what really amused me was the training extended to the store staff specially considering the brand name – Wal-Mart is associated with this place! The staff seemed to be in a kitty party mood with all of them standing in clusters and exchanging jokes thus filing the air with their laughter. Well, laughter is the best medicine but then I am sure this exercise can be practiced outside the store when they aren’t spoting the uniform that they were in!
As I strolled down the aisles hunting for cup noodles, I just could locate them and finally I had to go and disturb a gang of girls on duty to help me out. None of them were rude but yes, ignorant to the core of what the supermarket housed! Firstly, one of them just couldn’t comprehend what I was looking for and because she had more jokes to share with her colleagues hence could really waste more time to solve the mystery that I had just presented her with, she requested me to go to the enquiry counter / helpdesk and just get my query resolved. Wow!! I thought to myself – Now that is indeed a solution!! How couldn’t I have thought of this before! As I was standing there with my little one thinking how could I be so daft as to disturb the girls’ with my silly question, the gang just decided to leave me alone with my thoughts and guess what!! Just as they moved, I found my cup noodles that were hidden behind their backs!!
Now, Bharti Wal-Mart EasyDay really really cannot afford to take it this easy when it comes to customer service and staff training!
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