I've waited several days to write this review because I struggled with exactly how to write my…read morecomments without adding to the problem and putting a light on the good points of my visit.
I stopped by at 1630 to enquire about an auxiliary battery for my vehicle. I waked in to a line, and I was happy to wait for assistance. The young man who helped me was great, friendly and eager to help. He was not only professional, but also truly engaged in helping me as a customer. It's rare, as a woman, that I go into an auto parts store and be treated like an intelligent capable person, not "just a woman" as other stores tend to do. He gave me advice as to what my problem was and tried to help me make an educated decision as to whether or not my problem was, indeed, the aux battery. In the end, we determined that it might not be the battery after all and he mentioned the only way to really know was to look at the error being thrown and google it. I asked if they had one of those devices and he said yes. But, I meant, "do you have one for purchase", but he grabbed a device and we headed out the door to plug in the code, which we did, and came back to look at what the error could mean on google. Incidentally, it was a right front speed sensor. This is a great review so far, but there are things that were going on in the back ground that I found I could not NOT comment on.
In the back ground, there was a young man helping a customer with parts for an older alternator. It was something that was clearly taking some time and had no small amount of head scratching and troubleshooting. A man I'll assume was the manager stepped in and ended the help by saying to the customer in an incredibly rude tone "You're going to come back after five. We have no time to devote to you in our peak hours for this." It doesn't sound rude writing it, but the tone was not good and the look on his face was less good. He then berated several of his employees, in front of customers. When I left the store, everyone behind the counter was in a state. And, as a customer, I was really appalled that he would 1) Talk to another customer like he did, and 2) Berate his employees in front of customers. Berating employees in front of customers is a hands down no-no. It's unprofessional, reflects poorly on the business as a whole, and gets bad reviews like this one. There were plenty of places behind the counter in the parts where a private word with employees without humiliating them in front of a client who is going to spend money. I've been in management in a retail setting and always strived to discipline without humiliating them. If you can do nothing else, be kind as it costs nothing.
In summary, I give 5 stars to the young man who helped me. He was great, friendly, helpful, and everything I would like an interaction to be. But I cannot ignore what I saw while there, To which I would give negative stars, several, if it were at all possible. As such, I won't be back. I have no intention of supporting a business that is ok with management bullying employees in front of customers. Further, speaking to customers who are eventually going to buy something is bad for business. I take my reviews extremely seriously, trying to be as objective and fair as possible, which is why I waited to review.
