Tip...If It's a Valid Complaint, Make It

A few weeks ago while I was at Wal-Mart, I got into a little accident. As a pulled into the parking lot, the cart stalls were overflowing with carts, past the metal stopper on the ground. I left the girls in the car to get a cart from one of the overflowing cart stalls and as I pulled the cart out, 3 carts started rolling away towards the cars in front of it. I went after the 1st cart, retrieved it, and parked it back into the overflowing cart stall. As I pushed the cart in, about 6 or 7 carts, stuck together, started rolling away towards the car in front of it. I went to stop the carts by jumping in front of it and the carts knocked me down and ran over me. A lady, drove by, stuck her head out the window and said, "I saw carts flying and I was waiting for you to go down." I told her I did go down. So she went into Wal-Mart to complain about the carts. When I got myself together and the girls in a cart, I also went in to make a complaint. None of the associates behind the Customer Service desk asked me if I wanted to file an Incident Report, something I was not aware existed. Instead, they told me that another lady already complained and the situation was being taken care of. When I went back out, 45 minutes later, after shopping, the carts were all still there. They had not cleared the overflowing cart stalls. Unfortunately, I did not return to the store to complain again.

I was feeling uneasy about the situation because I felt like my complaint was ignored. Some one could have easily gotten injured, especially a little child, like one of my girls, if I had them with me getting a cart. So, I went to the Wal-Mart website and filled out one of the customer feedback forms. In about a day, a manager from Wal-Mart called me and asked me to go back to the store to file an Incident Report. They also gave me the number of their insurance company just in case I was injured. I did have some achiness afterwards, but it went away, so I didn't pursue going to the doctor.

Well, I am so glad I made that complaint because I have gone back to Wal-Mart at least 3 times since filing that report and the cart stalls were either empty or they had employees out in the parking lot collecting the carts. I would like to think that my complaint made a difference and I am now a firm believer that if you have a valid complaint, make it.