Shoppers Drug Mart

Ongoing Poor Customer Service, Issues with Prescriptions, Gift Card Incident January 24, 2021 at 4:11pm (location 2525 Prince Michael Dr, Oak, ON)

Previous Ongoing Issues with this location include the following:

1. Lost, did not file my daughter vaccination prescription, unable to locate it, I had to go to my doctor for new prescription. I did not have my phone messages returned and my request to speak to the owner Bobby Sandhu was ignored. I tried and tried to reach him via phone and email. Therefore, I have no copy of correspondence to attach. John and Monica in Pharmacy were only able to apologize and let me know they had forwarded my messages.

2. I have received prescriptions confirmations via phone then when I go to pick up prescriptions they are not available as they do not have the quantity?

3. Advised me last minute that they could no longer make a compound medication leaving me to go over a week without it (no help offered)

4. One of my medications (birth control) was discontinued - no one contacted me to tell me although I was given a confirmation pickup date, until I went to pick it up leaving me without it for a week (no help offered)

5. This Location never answers their Customer Service line and the wait time for the Pharmacy line is typically 5min or more!

6. Today I attempted to use a Shoppers Drug Mart gift card, they could not apply the $25 card?, the cashier asked another staff member for help, neither could sort it out, they asked my if it was a gift? (not sure what they were implying) and when I expressed my frustration with the location and always having some sort of issue, the cashier simply told me I could "call head office." I asked if there was a manager that could assist and she simply said, "I don't know". Then I asked if she was sure that the $25 had not come off the card with her several attempts at swiping it and she rudely answered "no, the slip would say it!"

I have taken the cashier's advice to contact head office as per her suggestion. She was rude, short & offered no help. She did not make any attempt to assist me (the customer) When I left this location I called the number on the back to verify the card value - it clearly said amount on card was $25. When I got home I tried to call the location and after 4 attempts waiting on hold for Customer Service and one attempt trying to connect with the Pharmacy (all wait time periods were over 4min 19 sec) I finally gave up like many other times and hung up.

I have lived in the area for over 12 years and have read many of the negative reviews on this location. It is unfortunate they are unable to offer better customer service including answering their phones and accurately fill out prescriptions considering it is peoples medication they are handling!

I am a regular, frequent customer at the Shoppers on Prince Michael in Oakville and am normally extremely happy with the customer service representatives. They're happy and helpful. Unfortunately I was recently shocked by the way a service representative I hadn't encountered before dealt with both myself and a friend who was shopping there as well. (I'll only speak to my experience here.). The customer service representative was female, somewhat heavy set with dark hair.

Firstly, I approached (from a social distance) said new to me customer service representative to ask her if she would please do a price check on an item that was in the seasonal clearance area but not priced. Without checking she informed me that the item ‘was just dumped there by someone and not on sale'. As there were multiple units of the same item I questioned this yet she persisted and refused to price check it for me. I decided to take it to the check out with the hope someone would check for me there.

It is notable that the store was not busy at all. Besides myself and my friend there were only four or five other people shopping at the time.

At checkout, there were no representatives on cash but the self checkout was available so I proceeded. (The same customer service representative was putting items on shelves just behind the checkout area adjacent to me). When I scanned the item in question, it was indeed marked down so I bought it. I was glad that I checked myself. I proceeded to self checkout everything that I'd picked out and I paid.

As I was placing my paid items into bags, I noticed that there was a security sticker on the box of Gravol that I'd purchased. Normally this would have been deactivated by customer service but given that I was in self checkout I figured it would ‘beep' when I went to leave the store. I then asked the same customer service representative who didn't help me with pricing if she could please deactivate the item. Without leaving where she was, she told me to ‘read the sign' about how to deactivate it myself. I turned back to the kiosk but couldn't see anything that told me how to deactivate a security sticker. (I wondered to myself why the store would ever post such information since shoplifters would love to know, but I said nothing of this aloud) I then asked the same representative where the sign was and she told me to read the red and white sign above the scanner. This sign didn't tell me how to deactivate the sticker. It read something about the use of scanning being more COVID friendly. I then told the representative that the sign did not tell me how to deactivate my paid item. Finally she left her post, came over to me in a huff, grabbed the box of Gravol from my hand and began aggressively rubbing the box on the edge of the scanner. After she rubbed it back and forth a bunch of times she said ‘there!', dropped the Gravol into my bag, turned on her heels and returned to her post that she'd been clearly reluctant to leave all along.

I understand that these are hard times and I regularly voice my appreciation for all the Shoppers people who have kept stores open and been heroes through this pandemic. I realize that there are challenges with staffing and a host of other problems that employees must deal with. I don't lack empathy for people who find the holiday season everything from exhausting to painful either. I have no idea why this customer service representative was so unhelpful, gruff and condescending to me but it was not what I have come to expect from the team at Shopper's Prince Michael. I hope it won't happen again.

God Bless