Kroger — Local services in Hampton

This review is for online ordering and pickup service. Order was placed on July 26, 2020. I generously gave them 2 stars only because the pickup team greeted me, was fast, and polite.

Recommend DO NOT use pickup service. I have shopped at Kroger for past 11 years and will not go back to Kroger again because of Hampton store. Before moving back to Hampton, I shopped at Kroger in Chester Va without any serious issues and if there was an issue, it was resolved immediately.

I have shopped twice in store and not one item was out of stock so obviously, the pickup service is just too lazy to look for all the items. I find it hard to believe that the store is out of 1/3 of the items on my list.

First thing I noticed was there were items I added to my cart that the quantity was changed after I checked out. I ordered 4 jars of Pasta Sauce because they were on sale with $1 off coupon on purchase of 4. They substituted but I only got 2 jars. When I checked my order, only 2 of the 4 items were on my list after checkout. Same thing with the BBQ sauce on sale. I ordered 4 different flavors but only received 3.

I have yet to get a satisfactory pickup order from the Kroger in Hampton. If you order premium brand sale items and have coupons, they will substitute with the far inferior Kroger brand and not give you the coupon. I never had Kroger at any other store substitute Kroger brands for premium label brands until I moved to Hampton. When they substitute and give you the Kroger brand rolls and bread, they are nasty days old ones near expiration. Kroger brand breads are always stale and taste bad so I don't buy them.

I have ordered pickup 4 times at this store and completely dissatisfied each time. I had two pages of out of stock items and one full page of substitutions. This happens every time at this store. And no, I did not order any paper products or cleaners and other items in short supply because of COVID. My shopping list contained common items that were all stocked when I went to Food Lion the next day. I only received two meat items out of 12 items. There was no Oscar Meyer luncheon meat or substitution on my order. The lady who brought the order out said there were no packaged lunch meats in the store so they could not substitute. I ordered beef hot dogs, out of stock and again no substitution. They substituted Kroger Hamburger buns for Pepperidge Farms and gave me buns that were 3 days from expiration. That is another thing this Kroger does to reduce waste. The management has them fill pickup orders with items that are within days of expiration so they don't have to throw them away.

I filled out online complaint each time for this store and have never received a reply...

In the off chance anyone in management reads these, this is to help improve your store. Although understandable that there will always be some expired or bad food (not yet at its expiration date), I've dealt with it 3 times at the new store on Mercury, 2 of them close together so that it really is a hassle to make a special trip for getting a refund. One was a bag of GREEN pepperoni which is nitrate free and kept on the shelf instead of refrigerated. In EVERY other local grocery store, this meat is refrigerator. I brought this to a manager's attention and they decided it doesn't need to be. Okay, but I can't buy that product from you. Adding to that grabbing a large yogurt without reading the expiration date on it (do you read all expiration dates?) Only to get home and it's days past the expiration. Recently, a jar of sauce was off color, luckily I noticed before pouring it over our food as it was RANCID, and well within it's good by date. But, on calling the store and asking about the process to get a refund, the employee was uninterested and literally hung up as soon as she was done answering the question. Like, no "you're welcome, anything else I can do for you?" Or even a "good bye", just dead air... The fuel center had a lady yelling at people and mocking them for not understanding how the lines worked during the "fuel crisis" a while back. Not people cutting lines, older people who were trying to understand where to enter and exit because there were no signs and they were yelled at. So unnecessary. The Starbucks inside the store makes coffee flavored milk, even if you say it had too much cream, they will literally tell you, "oh maybe you can't taste the coffee because you didn't have any sweetener?" I'm not even kidding. After paying for at least 4 bad coffees including remakes, I asked for a refund and realized they don't know what they're doing. As for the pandemic craziness, my Autistic daughter and I were using the self checkout when another customer began harassing us about masks, even though they did not know or ask about our medical situation. While I ignored them, it was wrong of employees to stand by and allow customers to be harassed by other customers, especially children. There was a time when people stood up for decent treatment. Apparently not here and not now. Yes, the area has overall bad customer service at almost any establishment, if you're from another part of the country, you know what I'm talking about. But, it doesn't make it acceptable. It was truly refreshing while traveling to another state recently to again experience friendly, attentive customer service as the rule. We were reminded that it is possible and it feels great. A lot of work to...

On the morning of 03/03/21 I had a very unpleasant service experience. I am a vendor as well as a customer. While trying to obtain assistance from management which is often difficult, I was really taken aback by how I was handled on a professional level by the manager Billie. As a Merchandiser, I'm a hired liason between the store, the customer, and the vendor. There was out of place perishables in the cooler I was there to service and when I asked for assistance apparently Billie was having a bad day and helping out was not on the agenda. He emasculated the employee telling him to "stay there and don't move" while refusing to help me with THEIR store product. I couldn't imagine in the that moment being a man told by another not to move from a spot for any reason other than my life being endangered. What was more alarming, when I ended my service call and returned to the front of the store to thank Chris the customer service mgr. for her help, noone was in the aisle Billie said not to leave from. As a black woman, I was ashamed to be handled in such a disrespectful undeserving way by another black person. I started shopping at this Kroger in particular because I am good friends with the grandma of the black man responsible for architectural design and layout for this store. Unfortunately it's experiences like this that makes glad I have options. Customer service is becoming a cancer in the service industry. Spend your dollars where you are respected and appreciated. At this point, I will go out of my way before I spend my money where respect and common decency doesn't reside. I could've been just as ignorant and left the food out to spoil because it's technically not my responsibility to deal with, but I care about waste and things cause our prices to rise especially when it comes to...