BED BATH AND WAAAAAY BEYOND

I use Bed Bath and Beyond for so many errands. (Moving forward, abbreviated to BB&B, for succinctness, and to avoid confusion with BBB, Better Business Bureau). Mostly, I use the Beyond. We don’t need Bed, Bath so often, but cleaning items, kitchen items, drugstore items—BB&B has them, and they generally have decent prices and coupons.

We have a BB&B conveniently located 5 minutes from our house. However, customer service is abominable. Constantly. This sort of cancels out the geographic convenience. When it generally takes more than 20 minutes just to get through checkout, it may be worth jumping in the car to drive to the next BB&B. Other disgruntled customers and I have started what could possibly become lifelong relationships commiserating with each other. I’m a little worn out, so I’ve done a little cheerleading (with brief instruction) to get other customers to go up the ladder to rectify the situations. Hey—I can’t do it all.

The biggest problem—The cashiers are generally in slow motion, with no oversight by management. And although I like the coupons, when a customer has a gazillion of them, and the cashier scans them in slow motion, the customer eye rolling game starts. I’ve also watched customers standing at Customer Service forever, trying to return an item. Handy Hint—if you give the cashier the card that was used to purchase the item, they can scan that card and find the purchase so that they can document for return, even if you don’t have a receipt. Another Handy Hint—if you’re paying cash, it may be a good idea to hold onto the receipt for a little while until you decide if you like what you bought. Put it beside the item or anywhere else where where it can be easily found. I do this especially for sunscreen and hair care. I buy La Roche Posay sunscreens. Haircare—suffice it to say that the older I get, the more exotic the products necessary to make me look less like a cartoon figure who stuck a finger in a light socket. Since these items are expensive, if I have the right coupons—store, manufacturer, etc., I can get the products for a decent price. So, I stock up.

What to do about the awful wait times at my local BB&B? The best option would be to call a Regional Manager or the Executive office, or even just a general Customer Service number to get to the right person so that they can get some oversight going and hopefully, train staff to do better. Did I do that? No. Why not? Because sometimes, I have other things to do, and it just isn’t worth my time. Will this be my ongoing persona? Of course not. Remember, I’m the Maurinator. But for now, I’m jumping on the highway to the next BB&B, or shopping elsewhere. Until something moves me to go upward to find a fix. Or, maybe a fix happened because someone—maybe one of you—spoke up.

I hope that I’m not disappointing anyone. But, if I am, sorry—sometimes, I have to pick my battles and preserve my energy for the bigger stuff..

SPEAK UP TO ACCOMPLISH CHANGE. IF IT’S JUST NOT WORTH IT, DON’T COMPLAIN—JUST FIND ANOTHER RESOURCE AND ENCOURAGE SOMEONE ELSE TO SPEAK UP