Costco Wholesale — Attraction in Burnaby

The employees need to develop active listening skills and offer Costco membership to the people who do not have one.

We have been visiting this Costco location for at least five years and visit it at least once a month.

My brother is currently abroad taking care of urgent matters. Yet, he decided to order the tires from Costco without handing me and my mother his Costco card.

Thus, we went through the exit and explained that my brother ordered tires, a month ago, and we are here to get our tires changed at the tire centre. Thankfully, our explanation to the tire centre employees worked.

So, we decided to try to get a refund using the screenshots of the membership card my brother sent through my phone.

We tried, and we got rejected. Before exiting, my mother wanted to use the washroom. So naturally, we headed to the washroom. Then, suddenly, the employees wanted us to exit the store immediately. And NONE of them offered us to get a Costco membership.

[This part is odd.  If you look at the Costco financial report, their main source of revenue comes from membership fees, not really from sales of products (sometimes Costco even lose money selling stuff, only being able to net positive revenue through membership fees)]

So, we waited for an hour, outside near the smoking area, for the car tires to be exchanged, and right before it was almost done, my mother wanted to use the washroom again [as there is no washroom nearby within 1km other than the Costco location].

So, we went to the exit area of the Costco, hoping to get the washroom access.

Even though, we have CLEARLY stated that we wanted to use the washroom (we repeated the word "Washroom" at least five times) and NEVER mentioned the shopping, the person at the exit, Henry, was constantly trying his best not to let us in and emphasized we won't be able to shop and we cannot use my brother's card without him being there.

[And not to mention NO membership was offered to us AGAIN. The funny part is, before getting called out by employees to leave the store ASAP, my mother was telling me that if at least one of the Costco employees offered us the membership or the opportunity of making one, we should make one.]

Thankfully, after repeating the word washroom at least five times and a few minutes of our attempt to shift the exit agent's topic to WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT SHOPPING BUT WASHROOM, we managed to get in and visit the washroom.

I am shocked that the Costco employees never offered me a membership and that it took so long to let us in for the washroom due to the lack of active listening skills of the exit receipt check agents.

I expect little from Costco, but if the only barrier to entering is a lack of membership, PLEASE OFFER ONE.

There were many conversation opportunities where if AT LEAST ONE OF THE EMPLOYEES had said, 'Hey, if you like, I can help you get the membership,' it could not have led to leaving this review.

However, Costco employees seem to be forbidden from offering Costco membership to people visiting the store.

So please. If you are seeking to be a member of Costco, do not visit this location. If you don't have one, you will be asked to leave the premise IMMEDIATELY without any offering of purchasing...

Shopping at Costco.ca is like shopping with your family. No it’s not. Costco employees are better than family. They don’t fight with you. The warehouse people who work tirelessly making sure everything is available for us to have it right at our fingertips when we want it and the online customer service people who are ready for calls that aren’t necessarily kudos will listen to us respond to us and understand us. And those people find solutions. The Costco family is the result of a large corporation that knows how they became a successful large corporation. They don’t take their customers for granted. They respect us and they make sure we’re happy when we enter their store or receive products from Costco online or talk to customer service. That is how a large corporation becomes successful, stays successful, and shares their success with their employees and their customers. I’ve talked to a few customer service employees at Costco recently and they have been amazingproblem solvers, and admitted that they’ve been working with Costco some for more than 10 years others for more than that. And the warehouse people are as pleasant and helpful and motivated to help shoppers in anyway they can. I think Costco is the only place that I know where every employee knows exactly where I can find a product. I took a bus recently and asked the bus driver if bus number 106 would meet this bus at a bus loop the bus driver said I don’t know so when I got off the bus I asked another bus driver can I find the number 106 bus anywhere here and if I can, what stop would I find it at. That driver said look at the signs. I said I am vision compromised I was just asking for some help. That charming bus driver said come here and grabbed my hand and said feel this thing. It was a star that’s for braille you can find the information yourself and off you walked, I don’t think that fellow would ever be hired at Costco.ca. Thank God for that. Sometimes when a corporation becomes financially successful, they forget how they got there. Those corporations tend to forget that the customers got them there and employees that are respected got them there. Costco did not forget. And I’m glad. I think the best thing that came out of the pandemic was the same day delivery of groceries from costco.ca? I started shopping the same day delivery from Costco when I started this and I haven’t quit. Many people my age say it’s impossible to buy groceries from Costco if you’re single. I do and i have found that many other grocers cost more deliver less and the product does not last as long as Costco produce does. I’m a senior living on a low income and I can definitely manage the cost of groceries from Costco, and I’m delighted with the wonderful array, fresh fruits and vegetables I can choose from. And afford.

I truly do appreciate how Costco makes each of us feel appreciated, respected and listen to Thank you Costco for doing a great job. Keep doing it and I’ll...

Hsiao is very rude. I don’t know if maybe she was just having a bad day and just wanted to be a menace on purpose but when she was packing our cart at checkout, she kept putting our ready to eat items on the raw meat, and my mom kept trying to ask her to please not do that, and Hsiao continued to do it. So then my mom just started moving the fruits and stuff Hsiao put on the raw meat to a different area in the cart, but then Hsiao would grab another item off the belt and put it onto the raw meat AGAIN. I’m not sure if she was just having a brain fart or kept doing it on purpose or what.. then after the 4th or 5th item she put on the raw meat with my mom asking with no success for her to stop, my mom again moved it off while Hsiao grabbed another item off the belt and then THREW IT toward my mom/into the cart and yelled “u want to do it yourself then?!?” and stormed off.

I’ve worked bagging groceries before and I’ve had a lot of friends work the same job before too. One of the first things you learn is to never put heavy items on top of eggs and to not put ready to eat items with raw meat. In fact, separate the raw meat from everything else altogether. Even if she didn’t learn this, she should have been more kind about my mom’s request the first time. And most of all, she did not have to throw anything, scream, and then storm off.

Working a job in customer service requires kindness and patience and understanding. If you are incapable of these skills then maybe you might find a job where you do not have to deal with serving other human beings a better fit.

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I also wanted to mention how ridiculous it is how strict Costco is becoming. Especially reading some of the other 1 star reviews. My dad and I are the two cardholders of our household. I live with parents and drive them to Costco all the time. As such, I always bring my card. One time, my mom and I were ready to check out but my dad had wandered off. He got back just in time to pay, he was literally less than a foot away when the cashier turned the card machine around to me and I was like “oh my dads gonna pay hehe” ..she looked at me as if I was stupid and tried to tell me he’s not allowed to pay because it was my membership not his. blah blah blah..I was flabbergasted. I’m clearly very young, shopping with my parents, and it is easily presumable that this man—my father—PAYS for my membership. I also once heard another story where a cashier refused for this woman’s own HUSBAND to pay for their items because it was the wife’s membership that had been scanned..they are married???? They LIVE...