Being a Post-Graduate in Retail and a RetailDude, I was not able to avoid writing this post. It basically covers my experience in Big Bazar near one of the busiest area in Bangalore i.e. ITPL. It’s a big huge outlet but lacking at all the so called customer touch points.
During my Post-Graduation, I was lucky to be taught by one of the most renowned name in the field of CRM i.e. Prof. Mukesh Chaturvedi of Birla Institute of Management Technology (BIMTECH). I will not write about him in this post as this space will be less and I won’t be able to do justice to his Knowledge and Experience. But the insight he gave us on how can we increase customer service by using customer touch point to our (Retailers) benefit helped me to understand that how bad is Big Bazar at it.
I and my friend Pranshu went there to buy a 21” Television which was already selected on net and we just went there to pay and pick. My dissatisfaction begin from the baggage counter (1st touch point) where the person refuse to keep helmet of my friend and said that it can be kept only if we can adjust it somehow in our bag. Anyhow we carried the helmet with us. Then as we went inside, air conditioner was not working and store was stinking. People didn’t had much idea that where exactly electronics department is located in store. Somehow we managed to know that it is in 1st floor. When we went there we find some televisions with a layer of dust over it, but no executives to assist us. After a little bit of search we found that all executives were busy watching a South Indian Movie in LCDs which were displayed for customers. I can’t tell you how badly they were using that LCD. How can someone buy this used LCD at the price of new one? When we went there we asked the department head that we want to look for a 21” television. That dude didn’t even bothered to look at our face and pointed an executive to assist us while he continued with his movie. We were feeling very much sorry for the executive whom we interrupt in mid of the movie. So, he asked us what you want and very quickly told that what the options they have are. He was actually in hurry as he was missing important scenes of the movie. Somehow we felt that we should not disturb him anymore and we decided to go back.
I came down and enquired for customer service desk. Thankfully it was in ground floor only. There I find a group of employees chit-chatting. I went and briefed my experience. They said this is something which is happening on regular basis why don’t you write a complain. I was shocked to know this again. I wrote a complain and left with a feeling that nothing will be done for this complain.
I don’t have any enmity against Big Bazar. I have earlier had good experience in Big Bazar near my home in Delhi at EDM. It is just the result of expansion drive with which they are not able to provide uniform experience at all of their stores which is ultimately reducing customer loyalty. It’s happening in almost all the companies in this format. We cry that we don’t have sales, cost are increasing blab blab. But this experience shows that how we lose customers who come with a fix mindset of buying a pre-decided product. Result was that we went to a local dealer and bought the television where we had a very good experience. And I don’t think that I will enter any Big Bazar store in near future!!
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Rajeev Damani 
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December 2nd, 2008 at 12:45 pm
This is far from an isolated experience!
Being a compulsive shopper & having keen interest in studying “retail”, I visit at least 4 retail destinations every week.
The Great India Place in Noida is almost a regular on my Saturday post-lunch agendas, which inevitably ends up with a visit to the Home Store & Big Bazaar, both owned / managed by Pantaloons.
Last Saturday I actually needed to buy a non-stick casserole, which took me to the HS first. They have a separate crockery section, generally well stocked. Though the section-execs generally never come up to help (which is good with me, as I like shopping in peace), I was not expecting anyone. However, it was worse, almost all the execs were either huddled up with colleauges, around corners / water dispenser, or they were somehow avoiding eye-contact with customers!
I found that quite strange & then dismissed it as a simple expression of insecurity, in the sector.
I finally selected a Nirlep deep-dish casserole. The label said casserole with glass lid, but the lid was missing. I had to hunt for the section exec, who agreed to help after much persuasion! Surprises did not end there though.
When asked about the missing lid, he said that he “had no idea”. Then I suggested he looks at the outer-carton for this specific item (which are generally stored at a lower level rack, close to the items), in case the lid was left inside. You know what he told me?
“Sir, we have only one piece left of this & there are NO cartons for any of the displayed items in this section! Even if you agree to buy this, without a lid, I cannot provide the carton and you will have to carry it in our plastic carry bag”. I was disgusted & enquired why it is so? I was told that this was due to a “stock-liquidation” programme & only “display” stocks are in inventory! As no one knows when these items were first put on display racks, no one would know about the original carton! And they had only “one” piece of each!
I walked out, completely disgruntled & finally bought one casserole from a small crickery store in Sector 18.
It was indeed a very sad experience!
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:31 pm
As rightly told by Rajeev and Arnab, sometimes we do have isolated experiences, what may be called as a stinker. But I beleive we have to give our retailers a space to breathe. Prof Mukesh told us the same thing that even one bad experience liquidates all the good work done by them, be it any industry we are talking about. But count the number of bad experience you had against the number of visits to BB. The great indian retail dream “BB and Reliance wanted to give customers the real feel, and wanted hawkers to shout loud the prices for you to pick up” thankfully you did not have to deal with the rotten tomatoes in a pile anymore. To the width they offer, big retailers are doing great! the retailer with the lowest number of the ratio which i talked about earlier will emerge the best. And am sure Rajeev will flock to the FOOD BAZAAR section next weekend