New World Wigram — Local services in Christchurch

I am writing to express my concern about a recent incident that occurred at your Wigram Skies store on Monday, February 27, 2023, at approximately 7:15 PM. During my visit to your store with my four-year-old son, a shelf measuring over 5 meters in length suddenly fell down on one side of the aisle, accompanied by a loud noise. At the time of the incident, my son and I were only a few meters away. While we were not physically harmed, this was a terrifying experience for us for what happen after. I was dismayed to find that there was a delay of almost a minute before any staff members came to check on the situation. Once staff members arrived, they cordoned off the area with cones. However, one of the on-site maintenance staff members began to shout at me when I tried to record the situation on video. He repeatedly told me to put my phone away Go away, put it away, put it away……, and I instinctively pressed the stop button, so you can only catch about 1/4 of the wordings coming from that staff at the very end of the video. However you could have access to the entire footage from the Store’s recording to provide more in detail, as my video didn’t the staff’s appearance.

Right after, I was trying with several attempts to engage him in conversation about his inappropriate behavior to me, I would stop if he could just explain calmly, disappointedly he walked back and look at me with fully of arrogant and ignorance on his face.

Despite my efforts to communicate with the staff member, I found his behaviour to be unprofessional and inappropriate. I believe that his behaviour towards me was unacceptable and did not reflect well on the store or the brand.

Immediately, I brought this matter to the attention of the store manager, who apologised for the staff member’s behaviour and stated that he would address the matter internally. However, I felt that this was not sufficient and felt compelled to bring this matter to your attention.

As a loyal customer of your store, I believe that it is important to ensure the safety of customers and staff, as well as to provide professional and courteous service. I urge you to take appropriate measures to ensure that similar incidents do not occur in the future and that all staff members are trained to handle such situations with the utmost professionalism and respect.

I hope that this staff member can be assisted in learning to behave in a more professional and responsible manner before coming to work to deal with daily incidents. It is important that all employees are trained to handle crises calmly and professionally, and that they understand the impact their behaviour can have on customers, particularly children who may be present.

At the end, I would like to express my hope that the staff member in question will take the time to reflect on his behavior after experiencing this crisis-driven situation on the scene. As a father of two young children, I am concerned about the negative impact that adults' misbehavior can have on young children, and I explained today's incident to my children as best I could.

Here is supporting video accessible through OneDrive link...

I would like to praise a worker at the Wigram New World, called Maree. 2 days ago I had had a stressful morning and was not thinking clearly. I had gone through the self service lane and had scanned a bag then realized I didn't have my club card on me, so graciously Maree scanned a card for me. I then used the card checkout and once I was ready to pay I realized I only had cash. Maree again graciously cancelled that till and moved me over to a cash register. She then rescanned all my items for me. I then left the store without grabbing my change and once again Maree to the rescue, she had come out to the car park and bought my change out to me. She went way above the call of duty to do not only one thing for me, but three things to compensate for me leaving my brain at home. I am so thankful to her and do believe she has the old school work ethic of not only doing what she is paid to do, but also her customer service skills are unbelievable. I enjoy shopping at New World Wigram and Halswell because of the quality of produce at these stores but also because I think New World have the best staff a shopping center can have. Thank you New...

I normally like going here. At the checkout I had a very weird experience that made me uncomfortable. I'm not a sensitive person but this checkout operator was pretty rude for no apparent reason. Seemed unhinged. I went to the check out, 3 staff members were busy chatting amongst themselves, so I unloaded the bits and pieces and waited, got served, paid, then the checkout operator exclaims....'ARE YOU OKAAAY?' not in the 'hi how are you' way, that weirded me out slightly and I said, 'sure, are you okay?', in which her eyes narrowed and replied....'ARE YOU SURE?' By this point I'm thinking maybe she was having a really bad day...or just a fully weird person who thinks its funny to ridicule customers in front her fellow employees....who knows. It was pretty uncomfortable. Also, I purchased a stale ham roll with lumps of butter and some brown lettuce too - $6.99 would you believe. My chickens however liked it, but they're not fussy -...