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My opinion is the treatment you received is very much dependent on the particular store. I'd imagine there are other stores that do the same, and some that are quite responsive. The only time I've bought a Walmart battery and let them install it was some years ago, but they were immediate with replacing the old one. I'm not making excuses for them, just sharing my experience. Corporate Walmart is responding to what we (collectively as a nation) ask from them: lower prices on, well, everything. To provide that something else has to give, and CS is one of the victims. For quite a few years now I've been getting my batteries (installed) from Sam's club. I can't remember a time when I had to wait more than a few minutes.
I started with absolutely nothing. Now, thanks to years of hard work, careful planning, and perseverance, I find I still have most of it left.
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(11-05-2022, 07:45 AM)fredhargis Wrote: My opinion is the treatment you received is very much dependent on the particular store. I'd imagine there are other stores that do the same, and some that are quite responsive. The only time I've bought a Walmart battery and let them install it was some years ago, but they were immediate with replacing the old one. I'm not making excuses for them, just sharing my experience. Corporate Walmart is responding to what we (collectively as a nation) ask from them: lower prices on, well, everything. To provide that something else has to give, and CS is one of the victims. For quite a few years now I've been getting my batteries (installed) from Sam's club. I can't remember a time when I had to wait more than a few minutes.
You are probably right. There is another store about 10 miles from this one. My neighbor said that one is so much different that I wouldn't know it was the same chain. We are not in a bad area either. The manager has been there a while and I know a couple people who worked there and they don't have good thoughts about her either. You would think the district manager/or corporate would get involved, but they probably have good sale figures, and that is what "drives the bus".
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Iffin I had the choice, I wouldn't want a Walmart employee installing my car battery.
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I grew up in Northwest Arkansas, even had some neighbors that had Sam Waltons personal phone number.
As I moved around to Kansas City, then Norfolk I noticed that Walmart was very different in different places.
When Sam was alive the NWA stores had good customer service but as you got further away, and as Walmart got bigger both caused customer service to drop off.
As mentioned the goal at Walmart has always been lowest price.
They are very good at achieving that goal most of the time. Nobody has asked them to balance that with quality, most of us have just bought into the cheap disposable society where it’s cheaper to buy another disposable item at Walmart than it is to buy a part to repair something.
Now the competition had largely vanished. Amazon is largely the same business model with a different delivery method.
Duke
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(11-05-2022, 08:40 PM)Snipe Hunter Wrote: Iffin I had the choice, I wouldn't want a Walmart employee installing my car battery.
It's about as basic a job on a car as it gets.
If the WalMart has a service center, I'd wager the chances of you getting a good or bad tech is no better or worse than your chances at pepboys, autozone, advance, or o'reilly. If it doesn't, you're not getting your battery installed by them anyway.
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(11-09-2022, 09:14 AM)Cabinet Monkey Wrote: It's about as basic a job on a car as it gets.
If the WalMart has a service center, I'd wager the chances of you getting a good or bad tech is no better or worse than your chances at pepboys, autozone, advance, or o'reilly. If it doesn't, you're not getting your battery installed by them anyway.
And Walmart records the techs so if something isn't right you can request to see the video
