Readers rush to bury Coles, not to praise, for new customer initiative

When the head of marketing for Coles supermarkets slammed the supermarket industry as "backward" he could not have possibly expected to have raised the ire of so many readers in such a short space of time.

Coles has pledged to make its stores consumer-led as the Wesfarmers-owned chain embarks on a massive reinvention of its brand. 

Marketing director Joe Blundell said Coles was "shifting its attention from dictating to customers to listening to them". It's a hard habit to change when you share domination of the food, petrol, liquor, and variety store segments of Australia. Of course the connection with the entry of Aldi and now Costco (which opens its first Melbourne store on August 17) is far from coincidental. 

What I found remarkable was the response from readers, and how rapidly people rushed to bury Blundell not to praise him:

• The article is time-lined midnight Sunday 3rd - for Monday's paper;
• By 10:58am, there were 94 comments by readers on the website article
• Of those 94 I could find no positive ones;
• Most were scathing and vitriolic towards Coles & Woolworths, who control the segment;
• By 11:28am there were 134 comments -  1.3 comments per minute!

The pent-up frustration surprised even me, as it was intense and beyond the usual roll out of ill-will towards banks, telcos and the two supermarket chains which is daily fare.

• I want to see the same quality of fresh food and meat that can be purchased at somewhere like Castle Hill instead of the rubbish that you sell to us, and I dont want to walk past the fish area gagging on the smell of old fish.
• The first thing they can do is improve the quality and freshness of their vegetables. I am fed up with finding the broccoli is seeded, carrots are woody, cucumbers and zucchini have seeded, cauliflower is brown and old and silver beet and bok choi are limp.
• God help the Masterchef contestants if they were sent to my local Coles to shop for ingredients to produce a quality meal.
• What we want is Aussie fruit and vegies at the best prices without the lies and rip offs.The fact still remains you both price match, upwards not downwards. We are not stupid.
• Can we request "Don't come to our town" or even better "Leave"?
• Here are some other "outside the square" ideas; happy and helpful staff, stocked shelves, good lighting, resonable pricing across all SKU - you idiot! I'll give you ten minutes after the shares drop below $12.00.
• Aussie supermarkets are about 20 years behind those in Europe. Narrow, cluttered aisles, poor range with many low quality products, expensive, long check out queues.I was so shocked when I got off the boat from the UK to find Supermarkets so stupendously expensive here in Australia, alot of the produce, beer and wine we buy in the UK is cheaper there and it has come from here.
• Hopefully there will be plenty of available products at COSTCO as i want to quit going to COLES and WOOLIES. Their duopoly is over!!

And more and more and 1.3 comments per minute accelerating in as people find the article!!

I'm flabergasted enough to say that is is going to take more than social media to fix this lot.

In the meantime Aldi and Costco stand to make huge headway if they develop and deploy effective social media strategies.

Do you think that effective social media planning can assist recover Coles and Woolworth's customer experience debacle?

In any case, it's going to take just a little more than a brand makeover!