Today, myself and other customers of ASDA in Hounslow experienced something v ery silly and annoying.

As I approached the tills with my 5 items I noticed signs in front of them saying "Trolleys Only". I moved down the tills until I found two which were empty. The lady operators were busy chatting. I approached them to pay ignoring the sign as I thought being empty they would take my basket of items.

Not at all! They both said the management had instructed them to only take trolleys even if they were doing nothing (like they were!) The irony was that next to these two tills was a hand basket till with several people queuing! What nonsense!

We were told to head towards the hand basket tills near the self-service area but there were queues here too! I used the self-service and walked off flabbagasted.

The ladies on the tills should be crying out for customers. Too much spare time on their hands and they will be replaced by machines!!

A fellow irate customer stumbled upon the manager and gave him a right earful which was deserved for this silly idea. Maybe its ok on a busy Saturday but not a quiet Thursday afternoon.

Anyway, if anyone from ASDA is reading this, THIS IS A COMPLAINT!

If you also experience this sillyness let us know on this thread!

Have experienced the same today...let my views on the situation be known but they couldnt care less....so i will be emailing head office later today...as its bloody madness... either they want the custom or they dont!!

Ok ...here's the reply i received from head office today


Good Morning,

I was very sorry to learn of the poor service you recently experienced during your visit to our Hounslow store.

We recognise that providing legendary customer service is vital to our business and retaining the custom and loyalty of our customers. I cannot apologise enough, that this clearly didn't happen on your last visit.

I have forwarded your comments on to Nathan Newark, the store manager so he can rebrief his service colleagues and managers. It is clear that we did not deal with your request as well as we should have done. I am confident the same mistake will not be made again.

However, at the moment the store is trialling a new trolley only checkout and queuing system, I will ask the store manager to brief colleagues to make customers aware of the trial.

Thank you for taking the time to bring this to my attention.

Yours Sincerely,

Suhayl Loonat
ASDA service team

I was just looking for a Firework display in Hounslow when i stumbled onto this thread and had to register to voice my anger over this situation.

Last week, Thurs to be exact i just finished my work out in the gym and popped into Asda to get a couple of bits for dinner on the way to collect my daughter from her friends house. I had 5 items, i was very tired and wanted to be out very quickly as it was getting very dark and i still had to collect my daughter. At firstI went to the self check outs and the que's was very long (atleast 15 people in front of each one) also the cigarette kiosks was full, so i went to the tills, packed also. Then i noticed 3 tills was totally empty and they was talking to each other over the tills. I thought excellant can finally get home and have a much needed rest, NO! The lady didn't even move her head to look at me or stop her convo, just pointed to a sign that said "trollys only" i was to tired to respond so went to another one who was fiddling with bags. I asked as you wasn't busy could i just put my items through? She replied nicely sorry manager has said trollys only.

I thought thats it im going to the source! I found a manager and brought him to the empty tills (by this time 5 tills was empty) i said to him can i pay here? He pointed towards the end of the tills and i assumed another one had just opened so i walked down. When i got to the front i said where? He said at the self checkout. I couldn't believe he had sent me to pay there when i had just been there and was really tired and was being sent all around the store when so many check outs was empty. I said to him its packed, it will take atleast 15 mins to pay and i need to collect my daughter. He said then you can go to the other end of the store where its baskets only but the que's are longer! I said to him all those tills are empty why cant i pay there? and he just brushed me off with "trollys only" So i said if this is how you treat your customers who are not spending a trolly full of shopping then i will walk out and not come back to this store when i have a trolly full of shopping to do?! He didnt answer so i dropped my basket at his feet and walked out, going to a more sensible store who allows their shoppers to pay for a handfull of items at their trolly only sections SAINSBURYS!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say i WONT be going back to Asda-EVER. The way the Manager behaved was very un proffesional and un caring and has no thought for the customers, sending them around the store to que for ages detouring past the empty check outs. Shame on Asda, they made a lot of money out of me as i use the Gym almost every day and pop into asda b4 the gym, spending atleast £10 a time. then again when i leave to pick up bits for dinner and a drink THEN my weekly shop.

I have sent ASDA customer services a link to this thread so they can read the growing frustration at the actions of the managers at the Hounslow store.

They arent interested in what the customer wants... seems to me their customer service policy needs to be re written

I emailed Asda customer services and this is part of the reply..

...I have forwarded your comments on to Nathan Newark, the store manager so he can rebrief his service colleagues and managers. It is clear that we did not deal with your request as well as we should have done. I am confident the same mistake will not be made again.

...quite clearly his respoce has been to carry on upsetting customers and paying staff to sit on their arses doing nothing but chat to each other!

I've never in my life come across such pathetic management the bloke needs sacking for coming up with such a stupid idea

AND I HOPE HE READS THIS!!!!!!! INFACT I HOPE HE HAS THE DECENCY TO JOIN UP AND REPLY !!!!!!!!!

I got an update from a very polite lady at ASDA Customer Services:

Thank you for your message.

I've spoken to our store manager about your experience with our checkout system, and he has explained that this is a trial we are running at the moment in this particular store. We will continue to implement this for the time being, as we are seeing large improvements in our service as a whole.

In this store we have a large number of customers who buy small amounts and only need baskets, as you have mentioned. Previously, whenever there were queues of customers with baskets, we have taken colleagues from different departments to reduce these queues. This is causing problems because although these queues disappear very quickly - unlike when customers have trolleys full of shopping - a lot of time and resources are used moving colleagues around. The idea for this new trial is to encourage our customers to use the self-service checkouts, in order to improve the speed and efficiency of our service in general.

The big success is that total queue time for all customers has reduced, colleague productivity has vastly improved, and colleagues from other departments have been free to do their own jobs, e.g. make sure we have stock on our shelves. Our store has significantly lowered its costs recently, yet significantly improved operationally, due to the relief on other departments. This will give the store a larger budget to improve other services for our customers going forward.

The downside is that our trolley only tills have caused some customer complaints, such as yours. I can understand that when there are queues of customers with baskets, this is a frustrating situation. However, our self-service checkouts and basket checkouts have queues which tend to move very quickly, and we do believe that the majority of customers are benefiting. We will be reviewing how this goes over the next few weeks, and we will take any necessary action if the problems start to outweigh the benefits.

I hope this helps to explain our actions, and please let me know if you have any further queries.

I happy to report on my latest visit to ASDA (today) that the "Trolley Only" signs seemed to have been removed.

Let's hope it was a victory for commonsense that started here!