Morrisons customers baffled as store asks them to call manager when stuck in long queues

Customers at a Morrisons store in Edinburgh have been left baffled after a strange sign appeared in the store.The poster featured a photograph of store manager Christopher Milne and was displayed outside the café at the Pilton Drive branch in the capital.

The notice asked customers "queuing behind the line on the floor" to call the store manager on the number provided so that he could open another checkout. It read: "Dear customer, I'm Christopher Milne, your store manager. We are working hard to improve your queueing experience in our store.

"If you are queueing behind the line on the floor, please call me on the below number and we will open another check out for you."

Reacting to the notice, a customer wrote on social media: "Dear Morrisons, You know how you turned a profit of more than £2B last year? Do you know what that means?

"It means that if I'd been alive since the battle of Hastings and had somehow accrued a million pounds a year, I'd still have half of what you made in a year.

"So, it's just a suggestion, but hire more staff.

"Rather than making me phone Christopher Milne and pressing option 9, which sounds like a pain in the a**e, just hire a few more staff. Put more staff on. Get a few more staff. Or team members or whatever you call them these days.

"Yes - it'll trim your profit a bit. But then there will be more staff. And the shop will be better. And more people will have a job," reports the Daily Record.

The post has since gone viral, leaving shoppers divided in opinion about the request.

One customer suggested that instead of relying on unusual systems, the store could simply open another checkout to prevent long queues and keep shoppers happy. Another commented that hiring more staff and improving efficiency could boost profits by making the store more appealing. However, a former employee defended the manager, saying he was the best she'd worked with and that the new system helped solve issues by giving customers a direct line to the right person while protecting staff from aggressive behaviour.

Morrisons said: "This isn't a new initiative - it's something that has been in all our stores for a while now. Customers tell us they like having a way to reach out to store managers directly to raise suggestions and/or provide feedback.

"The poster is one of a number of tools we are using to help our store colleagues improve the queuing experience for our customers. "