Do ALDI Staff Lack Training?

OzyBe on 20/02/2025 - 19:14
Last edited 20/02/2025 - 23:28 by 1 other user

I spend lots of money at Aldi, so I think this qualifies me to ask the question (or make the criticism), do Aldi staff lack training? Or are there other factors at play? (eg Do they employ a certain type of person or is there a culture of not being motivated with regards to customer service?)

I had to return a whipper snipper as it stopped working completely. I was reasonably happy with the unit when it did work, but the manufacturer said they do not do repairs, and the only option is to return the unit to Aldi for a refund.

I line up at a checkout (with shopping trolley containing all the components & attachments), and when I get there, the checkout lady looks at the docket for about 2 minutes, before talking into her headpiece to call her supervisor, as she said she cannot process a refund greater than $100 on her own. (The total was $149). The lady has been working there for about 3 years, but I can work with that.

So she asked me to move out of the way, and then I wait 5 minutes for the supervisor to arrive. She has to call him a second time to get him to actually arrive.

When he arrives, I give him the purchase receipt. He looks at it and asks when I purchased it. As odd as this sounded, I went along with this, took the receipt back from him, and read the purchase date from the receipt to him. (out of interest, the date was 12/1/2023, and beneath this the warranty was shown as being 5 years). I read the date to him wondering why he could not read this himself???

He then leaves for the office with my receipt and closes the door - I wait for 5 minutes. He comes out and says on this occasion they will do a refund. This is puzzling to me, as he says this like he is doing me a favor. What other option was there?

The supervisor walks off. I then have to wait to get to a cashier again, seems I lost my place in the queue.

The checkout lady is unable to process the refund, so she has to ask another checkout lady who also does not know, so they have to call the supervisor back.

It was eventually sorted out, but what a terrible experience.

I am tempted to make a complaint, but I don't think this would achieve anything.

I have to say, it is unlikely this would happen at Coles or Woolworths or Bunnings. This seems to be unique to Aldi.

Sure they don't always drop the ball, and there are staff members that would have some working knowledge, but this is not the first time I have experienced issues with refunds.

Regularly I have been told that a product did not come in or has sold out, and I then find it out there is stock in store or that there is stock in their store room. I am not sure if this is a result of their skill set or care factor.

Home & Garden Line Trimmer

Related Stores

ALDI
ALDI

Comments

  • R4 on 21/02/2025 - 15:52
    +1

    No, that hasn't been my experience. All of the interactions that I've had with Aldi staff when it comes to returns have been positive. Most of the staff I've dealt with have been friendly and courteous - same as with staff at Colesworth. Saying that, you're always going to get some kind of cnut in a retail organisation - as you will in any organisation. After a bit of hassle, you got the desired outcome - I'd call that a win. Move on.

  • jasiano on 21/02/2025 - 16:37
    +1

    buys gardening power tool from a grocery store. Takes it back to grocery store when it's faulty, speaks to the manager who authorises a refund, one of the staff members needs assistance to process it properly but it gets done….

    The next step in that process is obviously post on OzB to complain about the whole thing :/

  • tabitha731 on 21/02/2025 - 16:52
    -1

    It has absolutely nothing with lack of training… more to do with the fact you feel you were inconvenienced by the cashier having to call her supervisor to do a refund authorisation over a certain amount. Its probably the only item you have ever returned? Any retail assistant regardless of Aldi or any grocery store, can only refund items to a certain $ amount, it’s a company policy, not an employee responsibility or accountability.

  • outlander on 21/02/2025 - 17:00
    +1

    You're getting a lot of shit, but I think you have right to be a little annoyed.

    They do it on purpose. They do not want you returning stuff. They like to promise all this stuff.. "5 year warranty! Easy returns!" because its easy to promise things, and cheap if nobody ever calls you on it. And when time is money, most people don't bother.

    But it's not the staff, they are just mindless pawns for the most part. Personally I just mentally disconnect whenever I have to go through these types of situations, and accept it will take as long as it takes. If you feel like you have been wronged, you just make up for it later in other ways

    • El cheepo on 21/02/2025 - 19:12
      +1

      But it's not the staff

      That is literally all the OP is whinging about.

      (Despite the fact he got a refund)

  • Bravado on 21/02/2025 - 19:02
    +2

    I'm not seeing a great deal of incompetence in what you describe, nor do I see a massive outlay of time for any typical refund process. You wanted a refund which was greater than $100 so the process was more complicated for staff than just immediately raiding the till. In the meantime the staff had to process other customers because as you'd know being an Aldi customer even a slowpoke customer at the checkout can cause customers to pile up and the line start snaking down the isles.

    Consider also they may not get a massive amount of returns because a lot of people simply dump their broken Aldi special buys in the bin when they inevitably fail regardless of the warranty left on the device. Hell, not many people even keep their receipts. It's quite possible the supervisor might have had to contact head office to ask whether the item is a return for repair or a full refund situation. It's a process the staff MUST perform, or they'll be dinged for not following company policy.

    You only had to stand still a little while for a bit to wait, and in the end you got your money back without the pains of having to deal with a lengthy returns process where they send the item back to the manufacturer for analysis before a refund is authorised.

    In the future, consider buying a second-hand high-quality line trimmer instead of a new bargain-basement Aldi product. Other reputable brands hold their value well should you want to sell it, they last for years, and they're extremely repairable.

  • TEER3X on 21/02/2025 - 19:05

    I spend lots of money at Aldi, so I think this qualifies me…

    You're buying the wrong products then. Their ferrex whipper snipper is probably their worst product in terms of reliability.

    Easily the #1 ranking of most complained about product (volume is also a factor obviously).

    Source, I worked for a 3rd party call centre that handled aldi product complaints/issues.

  • SuperMid on 21/02/2025 - 19:18
    +1

    Op lines up at mcdonalds, is asked to wait in the waiting bay, proceeds to email the global ceo claiming all mcdonalds staff are now incompetent.

  • Parentheses on 21/02/2025 - 21:57
    +3

    The intersection of people who are cheapskates and the people who complain when they receive what they pay for on this site never ceases to amaze me - nothing wrong with seeking a bargain, but if you buy from the Temus of the world you need to approach it with the mind of someone who bought cheap Chinese crap, not a quality product. This mismatch of expectations appears to leave people living absolutely miserable lives - can you imagine being so impotent as to cry a corporate complaint into the wind? Buying garden power tools from a discount grocery store is only a tiny step up from buying one out of a meth-heads van - if it works at all, pat yourself on the back for an unexpected windfall.

    1) ALDI staff are trained to make ALDI money
    2) You, so annoyed with the service you've received in the past, still go back and spend more money on things nobody in their right mind would be buying from ALDI
    3) Therefore, their training is impeccable
    4) Your comment about her years of working there having anything to do with the policies about refund limits tells anybody who knows anything about retail that you've never worked in anything remotely similar even if your complaint didn't

    • EBC on 22/02/2025 - 11:17
      +1

      The fact that OP knows how long the cashier has been working there is a huge red flag of how this interaction went.

      Sometime between being told I need to get manager to process the refund and the manager coming the cashier was at best condescendingly asked how long they have had their job.

  • apey2000 on 21/02/2025 - 21:57
    +1

    L O L

  • magicpelgrave on 21/02/2025 - 23:54
    +5

    At no point in your rambling, incoherent post were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

  • franz87 on 22/02/2025 - 01:35
    +3

    I used to work in retail for years, and folks like OP are one big reason why most customers facing retail workers hate their jobs

    • Protractor on 22/02/2025 - 10:58

      I think you have hit the nail on the head. Serial whinging has created a culture of fear and revolt in the retail worker space. A damned if you do and / don't scenario. This OP got what they needed and still sought to further compound their entitled viewpoint.
      If we want staff to respond appropriately we need to know the rules of the room, and the OP has more than enough experience to simply wait. Maybe, just maybe they have a history of so many warranty returns, that the particular store see a pattern that does exist.

  • MrFrugalSpend on 22/02/2025 - 08:03

    OP you did well. I had worse experience with a whipper snipper refund a while back … I didn't get it. I rang the support line, was told not to take it into the store because it was large/bulky and they said they would send out the parts i needed, i.e. to fix an engine on a petrol whipper snipper - A sure sign it was a known fault to have fix packages to send out to apparently fix myself. Then I had to chase the parts because they didn't arrive at first, I believe they thought I was making it up because they claimed they'd sent them out and were reluctant to send again so i think they made a file note on me. Eventually I got them and it was relatively simple but as there was a design fault, the fix lasted all of about a month or two before the same thing happened. So I complained and they somehow decided because I had been sent the parts according to them twice, but in reality once, my warranty claim rights were over - it didn't permanently fix the problem, but this apparently became my fault and despite many follow ups they just stopped returning my enquiries!
    In store said I had to talk to the support line, support line said I had to send an email, they correlated that back to my previous enquiry and just went radio silence.

    ….What a great trick, sell a cheap / faulty product, get people to work on it themselves at your request, somehow note down they are a problem, then basically can avoid the warranty!

    • Protractor on 22/02/2025 - 10:15

      Change your username to MrPrudentSpend and see if your luck improves?

  • mirridon on 22/02/2025 - 10:03
    +1

    Yeah, sorry OP, but this definitely has a boomer mentality to it. You've had a bad experience and now you want to file a complaint, okay. If you really feel like you need to, go ahead, but you'll probably affect some poor person’s job. They likely make minimum wage, but I'm just assuming here. But sure, go ahead and file that complaint and let them have a chat with someone higher up for about an hour about how this is not acceptable etc. Or, maybe just have a bit of patience, and this bad experience might just be a one off and leave it at that. Is it really worth all this time posting online, and yet complaining about the time it took?

    I'm not sure if it's generational, I'm not going to stereotype a generation, but there seems to be a lot of people that priortise their own needs and desires over consideration for others, beyond reasonability. Working in retail sales for over 10 years, I've seen and experienced it. I don’t mean this as a broad generalization, and I know it’s not exclusive to any one group.

    • Protractor on 22/02/2025 - 10:13

      It's definitely not a universal boomer thing. Start noting other commonalities, because it's not a traditional 'Aussie' trait.

  • Dreamcast on 22/02/2025 - 10:10

    You're the definition of an over thinker.

  • Fimbulvetr on 22/02/2025 - 10:41

    I'll add my two cents, but I have never worked at Aldi. I've worked in customer service environments, from the perspective of staff and staff management.

    • It has never seemed to me that Aldi's business model thrives on customer experience. In fact it seems that pre-existing brand loyalty, FOMO bargain deals and being -different- to the Australian supermarket giants is relatively enough.

    • I'm far removed from public customer service now, but when I was there, there's zero accountability for a situation you described. Aldi's probably far more concerned with making sure they're not making themselves subject to a lawsuit. There could also be no incentive to keep customer feedback in check past a certain point.

    • Finally, I do think you should let this experience inform what is important to you as the customer. Will you continue to shop at this particular Aldi? Have you already provided reasonable feedback?

    I don't really think theres a customer gotcha moment here in your story, but public customer service is horrible. You see customers who can say what they want, think they deserve what they want and no contract holds them to any kind of standard. This doesn't foster an environment where staff will go the extra mile to support an individual with 7 glaring customers behind them.

    Personally I'd feel more comfortable buying expensive goods like that from a retailer which has a dedicated support route for warranty.

  • DMFD on 22/02/2025 - 10:51

    What Would Google Say?

  • Trying2SaveABuck on 22/02/2025 - 11:32

    Aldi staff are no more or less competent then Woolworths or Coles staff imho

    I also worked at both Woolworth and Coles in my youth you got about 1 hour of on site training and do a online 3 hour training slode show which im sure everyone just keeps clicking next on

    It isnt exactly intense training

  • DBBROS on 22/02/2025 - 12:44

    I lost my receipt. They just asked for the proof of transaction and I showed my bank details. Refunded the money straight away

  • Mattpezz77 on 22/02/2025 - 12:56
    +1

    Let me explain as a former employee.
    Firstly we get a lot of training.
    There are a few issues here.
    One is that also employees are pushed hard to be productive as possible. A refund is literally the opposite of productivity so it’s not high priority for them to sort it out and is why you are asked to wait to the side so that other people can be served whilst the refund is sorted. The manager would have been sorting out so much stuff that they were probably balancing 4 crates of produce in their arms when the call came through so they would have needed some time to get up. Or some other Karen was complaining that Aldi doesn’t sell more range of products.

    Two aldi offers a 60 day change of mind refund which can be processed instore and quickly. Refunds for warranty purposes take more time and paper work to actually sort out as they need to be shipped back to where they came and so the store can get the money back for the product.

    The time it took for you to get your refund is not that bad, considering how long the full process can take for a warranty return it sounds like the manager was saving you some waiting time.

    Other places make you take up the warranty with the actual brand which can be a lot more painful to deal with. Think you needed some perspective on the matter and realise that Aldi employees were working to help you here.

    Lastly take your Karen attitude to another grocery store, staff at Aldi deal with 100 people like you a day, they will not be sad if one goes elsewhere, it will be doing them a favour. Imagine wanting to complain because your 2 year old whipper snipper isn’t working and you got a refund. Chances are you didn’t care for it properly and hence why it doesn’t work, I could be wrong but this was the case with 90% of returns when I was here. They looked like someone ran over them with a car

    • thedevil1987 on 22/02/2025 - 20:56

      It will would literally 5 minutes to process the refund and send the customer off. Everything else can be done later. This is why Aldi is on the decline.

  • justgooddeals on 22/02/2025 - 19:36

    Without Aldi-

    Coles and Woolworths would be twice as expensive.

    It forces the other bastards to at least try to be competitive with their prices.

    The staff are generally doing hard job well, in my experience.

    Too many Karen’s these days!

  • thedevil1987 on 22/02/2025 - 20:53

    Aldi staff dont know how to use the self serve checkouts

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