Auto Zone Corporate Office
123 S. Front Street
Memphis, TN 38103
Aug. 4, 2012
To any/all concerned personnel:
Question: Why is the phone at every Auto Zone store the deity, which always takes precedence over customers who take the time to drive to the store and walk into the store to get personal service?
The store in Inverness, Florida (915 W. Main St.) is notorious for it. Simple example (as always happens): Friday, Aug. 3, 2012, aprx. 11 a.m.: Five customers are waiting in the line cordoned off by upright/horizontal bars. Four Zone associates are behind the counter, but two of them are in back, ignoring the waiting customers. (Evidently, they are “Stock” personnel. Don’t know, but they always ignore the line of customers who always have to wait ad infinitum ad nauseam. The sales’ personnel are always seemingly befuddled by every request, have no idea where items are, take forever to find them in the computer, and always interrupt customers’ transactions by answering phones. ) Why can’t the stock personnel answer the phones and allow the sales’ associates at the counter to give priority to the walk-in customers?
The phone is the deity. What makes it so? What is written in Auto Zone’s procedural policy handbook that makes the phone the almighty Allah that must be instantly answered at all costs? What is the obsession with the phone and why does it always take priority over customers who take the time to drive to the store (in my case 22 miles round-trip) to order, to inquire, or purchase items?
If I am at the counter and the transaction is in progress, why is it always interrupted by my sales’ associate answering the phone, distracting him from what he is doing? Are not sales’ personnel instructed to give 100% undivided, uninterrupted attention to the in-store customer until the transaction is completed and accurate? Is this not the mandated personal and professional courtesy that should be shown to every customer?
Additionally, why does not every Auto Zone store have an automated answering device (as all other chain-conglomerates do): “Thank you for calling Auto Zone. All our associates are busy. Please stay on the line and your call will be answered in the order in which it was received.”
If Auto Zone Corporate Headquarters is against automated answering machines, then let all employees at every store be instructed that customers who take the time to drive to and are waiting in the store have priority over phone calls. Let every sales’ associate very quickly pick up the phone, and politely ask the calling customer on the line to please wait since all sales’ associates are busy with many customers in the store – or simply request that the calling customer call back.
Our club members discussed this at our last meeting during the coffee break and more often than not, the members said that they were finding themselves avoiding Auto Zone (because of its constant hassle, with no sales’ associate being visibly disturbed by it at any time) and patronizing its competitor, Advanced Auto Parts, just a few blocks south of Auto Zone. However, according to one customer complaint (see below), Advanced and Auto Zone are the same company. (Don’t know. Moot point.)
Are you also aware that Auto Zone in Inverness, Florida is not listed in the Century-Link Yellow Pages 2012 edition? The one in Crystal River, FL is, but not the one in Inverness. It is listed in the white-pages-business section (in the middle of the phone book), but newcomers to Citrus County are not aware of any white page-business-section in the middle of the phone book. It looks like the only Auto Zone store in Citrus County is way over on the west side of the county, namely, Crystal River, but not Inverness (east side of the county).
I also must ask: Why do you not give your fax number and/or e-mail address any place on the Net where your corporate headquarters' links are listed?
Has any Auto Zone corporate personnel taken the time to read customer comments -- and serious, bitter complaints (which should be addressed and published on the same page) -- at the following link?: http://ecorporateoffices.com/AutozoneInc-1936
I look forward to a detailed response (via USPS or e-mail) to all of the above at your earliest convenience.
Sincerely,
Wm. J. Kearns, 10566 E. Rabbit Ln., Floral City, FL 34436
WK:wk
cc/file
wjk43@earthlink.net
