Here’s a major reason I intend to remain a loyal Wegman’s shopper. And it has nothing to do with selection, quality or price.
This morning I went to the Manalapan, New Jersey location to pick up a few things for my wife. It was pouring rain.
As I drove in the back of the parking lot, I saw a car stopped in the oncoming lane with its back door open, a man kneeling in toward the seat and a woman standing next to him on the phone. Driving closer, and now at a different angle, I saw there was an older woman in the back seat who appeared to be in serious distress.
I called out to the woman on the phone to ask if she needed help and she told me she was calling 911.
But in a situation like this, every second counts.
So I quickly parked as close to the front entrance as possible, ran inside to the customer service desk, and asked if they had any medical capabilities, because a woman outside might have had a heart attack (which is what it looked like to my untrained eye).
The woman behind the counter called into the back room, behind customer service. A second woman immediately came running out and toward the front door as she asked where the problem was. She barely broke speed as I told her – and was quickly followed by two or three other personnel, also running to the car.
The police and an ambulance came shortly afterwards – no small feat given the weather. But, by that time, the Wegman’s personnel were already there.
If any of them had medical training – or even if they did not – the fact that they got there before the police and ambulance arrived to do whatever they could, might have had significant impact on the outcome of the situation.
(It turned out, I was told, that the woman in distress had just gotten out of the hospital after surgery. Her car had been rear-ended by another vehicle in the rain, which apparently jolted her and caused whatever condition she was now in – which was serious enough for the ambulance to rush her right back to the hospital.)
Would the personnel at any other supermarket have performed this way? I don’t know. But I certainly know Wegman’s did.
That’s another reason – a huge one – to like, appreciate and patronize this store.
