Is this International?

PCCW and HSBC were being attacked when they received the "caring company award." While they might be doing some work to be socially responsible, their act of cutting staff salary and laying off staff did not make many people convinced for how "caring" they are.

Likewise, Park n Shop rebranded some of its supermarkets into "International" a years ago to emphasize that they stock more products from around the world and give customers more choices. I like such concept and am happy with the new look till recently that I realised that the management of the shop is so bad.

Firstly, they always price food wrong or their cashiers' record are not in line with the price update, so I sometimes either pay more or have to spend extra time to speak to the cashiers to get the price right or cancel what I pick up originally. That didn't add up to a good buying experience and you find yourself in an embarrassing situation if the line is long.

Then a customer found the check-out girls can barely speak English and make her feel helpless today. I could help translate a bit since I was waiting for a cashier to cancel some products that I supposed to buy. But I could understand how frustrated that customer was as the cashier looked very clueless and didn't show that she's really helping. I'm sure those check-out girls are at least F3 graduates. That means they should be able to understand some English but things just didn't turn out right. So can these shops be called "International"? I hope companies can do much better in every aspect to live up to what their brand promises convey.

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