Originally intended to document my experience of DeLorean ownership, focus is often radical and strange, boring and obtuse.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Fortinos Customer Service

$1-off coupons are a better idea than taping Loonies to the packaging.

I experienced some good customer service, and because I was expecting some bad customer service, it made the experience all the more gooder.

Suz and I were grocery shopping last week at a store we usually don't frequent. It was one of those mega Fortino's grocery stores with six billion square feet and two levels. The upper level doesn't have food, but it's still a large, accessible part of the store.

Sarcasm alert: The following single paragraph contains sarcasm, defined as mocking, contemptuous, or ironic language intended to convey scorn or insult.

Being a weekend, the store wisely opened a whopping two checkouts for about two thousand customers, which allowed for the creation of pleasurable long lines weaving throughout the store in a very desirable way. The lines blocked off many undesirable areas and isles preventing customers from buying all sorts of things they didn't really need anyway.

As much as we despise them, Suz and I decided to use the self-checkouts instead, mostly due to my foot pain. We scanned all our items, which took about twice as long as it would have taken a cashier, paid, and left.

When we got home we noticed that two of our products, Maple Leaf Prime Chicken and Shneiders Oh Naturel Chick'n burgers, had $1-off stickers on them. We were supposed to peel them off and scan the bar code on the back right at the checkout to obtain our discount.

That's two bucks! What does two dollars buy? Well, at $1 per litre, we could have bought 2 litres of gasoline for the Insight. That would get us about 60 or 70 kilometres. I could drive to work for almost three weeks on that! I couldn't let those coupons go to waste.

I phoned the store and asked for Customer Service. The manager came on the phone. I explained that these coupons were supposed to be scanned at the register at the time of purchase - and we didn't know that, but a regular cashier would have. She understood completely, agreed with me, and told me to bring the coupons in along with our bill so that she could honour them.

Wow! Three cheers for good customer service!

9 Comments:

Blogger Jerry Bowley said...

I get postal in crowded stores... I wish we had some big 24-hr grocery stores here in Calgary. I swear... I'd actually get up in the middle of the night to shop if it meant being able to do it quickly and in peace!

11:22:00 AM

 
Blogger Monogram Queen said...

Good for some good customer service (for once). I can't like self-checkouts.

11:32:00 AM

 
Blogger Louisiana said...

(yeap, he does) I would love a 24 hr thing too..(walmart and grocery stores), i would have something to do all those hours i cannot sleep and avoid the lines etc...

glad that you had a pleasant experience. there is at least one manager who cares about what customers think.

12:36:00 PM

 
Blogger mmat said...

two dollars can also buy a couple of chocolate bars to dunk in your ice cream. or some bulk chocolate chips to put in your cereal.

1:14:00 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The irony here is that the good cutsomer service was only necessary because of a situation the store created in the first place...

6:53:00 PM

 
Blogger Vengelyne said...

I think I'd be too lazy to drive all the way back there just to get my $2 refund unless I'm doing another round of shopping there... I'm a lazy bum. =D

10:40:00 PM

 
Blogger Unknown said...

You prolly end up spending more than $2 of gas driving ther and back... which i guess was your point.

That coupon shows why french never could beat english as the world's number one language. "Economisez maintenant" doesn't have the same ring and is not economical.

2:55:00 AM

 
Blogger Martini said...

Cuppojoe, you'd love it here. We have numerous 24-hour grocery stores to choose from. I am like you with the postal tendencies. I love shopping at 1 a.m. in a desolate store.

"...and is not economical." HAHAHAHA! SJ, you're awesome.

11:39:00 AM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Three cheers for the moron!

If you don't know how to check yourself out, you should be paying the extra $2.00 for training!

In conclusion, formert cashiers should be the only ones using self serve check outs. You don't see me just driving around on forklifts aI'm not qualified to drive.

Actually, you probably do...

Nevermind.

7:58:00 AM

 

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