Kroger — Local services in Southaven

I went to Kroger today, Friday, October 20, 23 for 1 item, a pack of cigarettes. As I walked up to the locked case to see if they had my brand, I saw Melesha abruptly leaving from behind the counter to go into the cart area to vacuum the floor at 3:15 PM. I politely asked could she help me with my one item that was locked behind the case. Melesha stated that any cashier could help me. I stated there is only 1 cashier with a line. She said the cashier could help me. There was a lady at the self checkout lane and I asked if she could help me. She stated that Melesha was the only one with the key but would ask her for help. This kind girl went and asked for the key and she was handed a key ring with a copious amount of keys. She was nervous but patient and had to return to Melesha to ask which key out of approximately 30 options. She returned with the key and helped me retrieve what I needed. I wished that I knew her name and management needs to give her Melesha’s job, the upfront manager’s position. While standing at the service desk waiting on Melesha, a taller black lady came by and stated, why is Melesha vacuuming the floor, she should be at the service desk. Melesha finally came back, I gave her my item, she was mad, you could tell that she was mad and snapped at me, ID? I gave her my ID, which failed the first scan, she snapped at me as if to say the scan failure was my fault. She then whipped, scan your card over here and a point. I have NEVER in my 57 years had such horrible, deplorable, rude and disrespectful customer service. Melesha’s behavior reached a level of contempt that I have never seen before in my life! Now I’m a white male that happens to be gay. I wear an earring in my right ear. Was her treatment of me because I was gay or white. I’m also an attorney, Melesha nor Kroger knew this by my appearance. As a business major, I wonder how much money Kroger’s in Southaven, MS profits a year in sales? Then I wonder how much Kroger pays Melesha a year and if Kroger can afford to allow her to cause enough financial distress to their business in order to keep Melesha as upfront store manager. I wonder how long it will take for Kroger to discover the major hits to their bottom line because of Melesha? One thing for certain, I’ll never go there again and I’ll bet anyone a thousand dollars to a donut, I’m not the first person she has been rude to and I’ll guarantee, I want be the last. When you have an employee like Melesha, and you find out the horrendous ways she has treated her customers, Kroger’s customers, people that want to do business with Kroger for years, their parents shops there, everyone in their family shops there, word of mouth spreads fast, really fast with social media. Melesha doesn’t deserve a reprimand, she should be terminated, escorted from the building by security and told to...

I shop here at least a few times a week and have consistently for the last 3 years since I moved out here. Prior to that, I shopped at this Kroger quite frequently as an out of the way “treat” due to what used to be a quality experience. I had even replaced Walmart completely when I first moved over here because I was willing to pay a little more for my groceries if carts actually rolled how they should and I wasn’t treated like an inconvenience. The only reason I didn’t give 1 star is because I still usually have good experiences with the meat department, the deli, pharmacy, and self checkout. However, when checking out with a cashier…. Chilldddd…. (Which isn’t very often since I usually use self checkout unless I have a full basket, tax exempt, or happen to pass an empty cashier lane. I’m always literally so polite to them because I know others aren’t even when they’re being ugly to me.)

In recent months, I’ve experienced scenarios reminiscent of being in Walmart. For example, employees literally in a yelling match with other customers, employees loudly talking ugly about the customers (even when they think they’re being slick, we know… most of us just know you’re still children and chalk it up to you dealing with a lot difficult customers in the retail space. We choose not to react or address it in the moment…. with great restraint.) These have just been the last 3 experiences… I have way more I could add. However, as someone who has worked in customer service from my teens til now…the point is… things like that are getting completely out of hand here. If I’m going to experience Walmart customer service then I’ll just take the majority of my shopping back there until this location can get their situation figured out again.

Will update if things change in the future, but for now this...

Complete and utter incompetence. If I could give zero stars I would! Put in a pick up order on Saturday using the app for pick up on Sunday( knowing that it won't be ready til Monday which is when we wanted to actually get it anyway). Phone call on Sunday them-"order won't be ready until Monday" Us-"that's fine can I pickup about 530?" Them-"yes it will be ready by then" Monday 5pm ”order won't be ready until 7" "Okay see you at 7" 7pm at store for pickup-"sorry it's not ready" -"I'll wait if it won't be long" 745- "sorry it won't be ready until tomorrow, we are short staffed" Spent 45 mins on the phone Tuesday (all on hold waiting to talk to someone, never got anyone who could say yes or no)to make sure it would be ready when we got off work to pick it up. Tuesday 503pm showed up to get order. A order was loaded in our car glanced at a few of the bags looked right. Got home, This is not our order! Returned to store to give back the 5 bags of stuff that was not ours. Spent the next 2hrs trying to find a manager with the lady at the customer service desk. All I wanted was my groceries or my $245.10 back. No one at this store could this apparently. After 3hrs I guess I made enough of a fuss that they were able to get me some groceries. My take away from this is that apparently being a manager at Kroger is super easy. You don't have to be reachable. You don't have to actually be at the store for your shift. You don't have to train people on how to handle a problem. You don't have to do anything! Here I am working 50hr weeks and fixing things in below freezing temps.Sign me up for that easy money! GET BETTER!!!!!!!!!! ITS NOT LIKE THERE ARE A LOT OF OPTIONS FOR OTHER PLACES TO GO. IF THERE...