ARE YOU BEING WELL-SERVED? IN L.A., IT'S A MIXED BAG.Byline: JULIA M. SCOTT Staff Writer Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. customer service bites, or does it? Depends on who you talk to. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. hundreds of secret shoppers who surveyed 10 major U.S. cities, L.A. was outdone out·do tr.v. out·did , out·done , out·do·ing, out·does To do more or better than in performance or action. See Synonyms at excel. only by the rude capital of the world, New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. . Shoppers who participated in the study reported their experiences to Grass Roots grass roots pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) 1. People or society at a local level rather than at the center of major political activity. Often used with the. 2. The groundwork or source of something. Performance Measurement, a company based in the United Kingdom. Grass Roots weighed the comments to calculate a score for various business sectors. L.A. drugstores bottomed out at 49 out of 100 points. Department stores This is a list of department stores. In the case of department store groups the location of the flagship store is given. This list does not include large specialist stores, which sometimes resemble department stores. were not far behind, receiving just 67 points. Anonymous testers did find exceptions, however. Realtors received 97 points while bartenders racked up 88 points. "What did surprise us was the wide variation of standards in different cities in the U.S.," said Jane Edwards-Hall, general manager of Grass Roots in the United States. "Some of our cities have a lot of catching up to do." L.A. fared much better in a separate study by J.D. Power and Associates in Westlake Village that focused on customer service at department stores. The study compared eight stores in two categories, upscale and midscale, across Atlanta, L.A. and New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . Local upscale merchants such as Nordstrom's and Bloomingdale's were a close second to the top-ranked Atlanta, but could improve their merchandise display. L.A.'s midscale merchants, such as Macy's and Kohl's, however, ranked last. That's partly because customers gave low marks to what they said was the most important part of the shopping experience -- interacting with the sales staff. Midscale department stores could boost their ratings if their salespeople were more courteous, friendly and speedy, the study found. Midscale stores could also improve their standings by updating the stores. Customers surveyed said they wanted more checkout counters, a cleaner store and a better layout and design. "Usually people in coastal areas tend to be very critical," said Michael De Vere Michael De Vere (born 11 December, 1976 in Campbelltown, New South Wales) "originally named Michael Hunt" is an Australian former rugby league footballer, who played for the Brisbane Broncos, the Huddersfield Giants, New South Wales and Australia. , executive director of emerging industries at J.D. Power. But "customers that are shopping in L.A. tend to rate them higher" than at the same stores in New York or Atlanta. J.D. Power looked at thousands of surveys filled out by customers who had shopped at a department store in the past six months. The study focused on customers' sales experience, but also looked into the image shoppers had of each store, and why customers left stores without purchasing anything. julia.scott@dailynews.com (818) 713-3735 |
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