H-E-B

Flashback: I moved to texas in 2000 from the east coast. I was immediately astounded by the incredible quality of goods and services at a texas, family-owned grocery chain... H-e-b. Having grown up with the likes of a&p, safeway, kroger and giant, I quickly discovered why those other chains, along with albertsons, just could not compete with h-e-b. These local folks knew what customer service was about and the entire philosophy of their business was keeping the customer happy and coming back.

Sadly, early this year, everything changed at our favorite h-e-b in temple. The store was gutted and re-arranged, the always friendly staff (everyone from manager down to bag boys) disappeared, the wonderful variety of goods was chopped to bare minimum and the h-e-b brands became the dominant goods in the store. As one employee put it, "we are now the poor man's h-e-b."

I consider myself more flexible in the face of change than most, but this change was philosophical just as much as it was physical. Gone are the self-check-out machines, gone are the nice red-shirted floor walkers who could find anything, gone are the intuitive shelf arrangements that support customers that really like to cook, gone are ingredients for creative cooking and gone are management that cares. If it were not for the checkers that smile and try to gloss over the failings of the store, the manager would spend entire days responding to complaints.

What was once an enjoyable experience - grocery shopping at h-e-b on 31st street is now an absolute nightmare. We are forced to live with “mcheb” or “obamafoods” or, in other words the “lowest common denominator grocery.” shoppers can now count on limited variety, no floor customer service, shelf arrangement that defies logic, over-priced meats, employees that have no authority to sell some things and a general lack of knowledge of what the store offers. Hmmmm…maybe that is because it doesn’t offer much.

Whether the change in operations at h-e-b on 31st street is a function of top-down absentee management, a new business model designed by a cold computer, or the manager is an idiot, does not really matter. Customer service and satisfaction at h-e-b is now a dinosaur.