Auto parts places have substantially similar pricing, given the broad market for standard replacement items, so they have to compete on customer service. With auto parts, obviously, and Joe Q. Public types like myself, the key thing here is being able to give technical advice on how to do the kinds of jobs somebody like me is trying to do.
In this case, I was just swapping out a bad bulb in one of my headlights, but I had a simple question about the bulb number - my owner's manual, which was in my hand, listed two different bulb model numbers, and for the life of me I couldn't remember which it was, but I remembered getting an answer from another AutoZone store back in California (which I should have written down, mea culpa).
When I first approached the register for help on this, the two employees there, who had been idly talking, parted like I was Moses waving my staff at the Red Sea, and disappeared into the behind the counter stock areas. I made my best guess from memory about the part, and when I got back to the checkout, a third employee (who was calling to the back "hey, is anybody here?") started to ring me up. I asked him can you check for me what the right bulb is for my car? He said, check your owner's manual. I said, it's in my hand, it lists these two bulb numbers. Well, then, he said, how would I know which one it is? Because, I said, I asked at another AutoZone store once and they told me. He shrugged, as if to say, "Go back there and ask them again, why don't you" and told me what my total was.
I did guess correctly (I had a 50% chance of being right) and this time wrote it down, so now I don't have to go back to ANY AutoZone for "answers" to my "questions".
Bonus: I got panhandled twice in the parking lot, once going in, once coming out, by two different persons unaffiliated, as far as I can tell, with the Auto Parts industry. There's another differentiator between different Auto Parts stores, for future reference. read more
