How could Asda meet all of its customer needs?

The company I have chosen to research is ‘Asda’. The self-proclaimed best value food and clothing store became a part of the American firm ‘Wal Mart’ on July 26 1999. ‘Asda’ was formed in 1965. Asda is a retail company that offers a wide range of products from magazines and other paperbacks to electrical goods and miscellaneous products. Their main selling point is the sale of food. Each week Asda Queslett makes around 140,000 from food sales alone.
Asda invests around 170million a year on service to the public. By doing this they intend to improve customer facilities and services so consumers use Asda the company, not just as store but also as diversified multiplex. Already they have connections with life insurance, pet insurance, breakdown cover and sponsorship of such big events as the commonwealth games. As a store Expanding and making Improvements to existing stores to make the day-to-day shop easier for customers Environmentally friendly equipment, devices and transport for goods Community work such as fund raisers and charity events Co-operation with local schools to launch schemes to encourage children to read and interact on the internet
Along the lines of expanding, Asda plan to open over 30 new stores by 2006. Not ordinary stores, but interactive stores. Huge energy efficient stores with computers Internet accessible by customers. This ties in with the fact that well over 92 million homes have the Internet access (usually through ‘PC’s’, but can sometimes come through interactive televisions). Being on the net, Asda can sell their products on the web site and have them delivered to the consumer’s door. ?

The advantages of selling on the net to Asda are they are able to tap into the market of people who can’t get to the stores for whatever reason but instead can just go on the net and order it. At the moment 33% of British households have the Internet. By 2010 they estimate that about 65% of British households will have the internet so in a way, they’re planning for the technology ‘boom’ coming in the not to distant future. Their they can take advantage of the times and the fact that most people would rather click a ‘mouse’ than push a heavy, cumbersome trolley around a congested store. (Than again I’m sure there are a few exceptions).
The Advantages to the customer of Asda selling on the net are: People who are unable to make it to the stores for reasons such as awkward working hours and disability etceteras, but have internet access can just go online and order their shopping Can be more economical especially if you live far from the nearest store or have car with a low petrol mileage as Asda deliver to your door saving valuable petrol The results from the questionnaire on the whole were very good. Asda do cater for almost all needs. The main queries were the toilet cleanliness, the speed of service at the checkout and the manner of staff.
Out of the 90 questionnaires filled in by the public, 12 of them said that the toilets needed some attention. One of them said; “On entering the female toilets once I was overwhelmed by a hideous smell. As I went further I cud see vomit all over a wall and human excrement spraying the cistern of one the toilets.” I have never witnessed such sights and I am sure that was a one-off but it is still an appalling situation to find a public toilet in. In general the toilet facilities need to be regularly checked and cleaned. 22 of the questionnaires said that the time spent at the till was too long. The queues are too long. A lot of the time you see several empty tills which if used could decrease the waiting time. Also there are a lot of new trainee employees that have recently started the job. They can be quite slow. If they only let them work the till when they have had a bit more experience, then that might solve the problem.