Disaster struck the big supermarket chain with close to 500 stores going offline for over an hour today. Staff were turning staff away and telling customers to leave their trolleys and get out of the stores. Not the best public relations for a company already under pressure from fierce competitors.
The IT issue was an embarrassment that Woolies could ill afford with two new big international supermarket chains set to open in Australia fairly soon. If this is a one off event it will soon be forgotten, but if it happens again the public will easily vote with their feet and head off to their nearest competitor.
In this interview, Alan Pearsall from 3AW, talks to Roger about this issue and other service challenges facing both large and small retailers.
