Is it me? Do people not read or do I write baldly.

Pepper333

I had something happening to me at Waitrose last week and wrote a letter to Customer Service. I took some time to properly write it, but was left confused by the response I got back.

This is the letter I wrote:

-Last Wednesday, I was at your Cambridge store. After I had scanned my shopping at the self checkout and used my coupons, the till froze. The cashier asked me to scan my shopping again at another till. When scanning my coupon again, it would not let me, as it was already used (at the till that went frozen). The cashier had to do this manually and I had to step aside to give space for her (there was little space because of other customers and trolleys).

As I was holding my wallet and phone together, my phone slipped from my hand on the counter, only 20cm drop. It had hit the top side and when I picked it up, I saw my screen was cracked. "Oh, my screen is broken", I exclaimed. "Did this just happen?" the cashier replied. "This is not your day..." This quite annoyed me. My day went perfectly fine before this happened.

This is the first time in my life I have a cracked screen / broken phone.  I have always been careful. (The phone has got a case and screen protector.)

This coupon scanning is very fiddly. Scanning your Waitrose card, the open phone with slow wi-fi, tap coupon, open coupon etc. And because of the till, frozen, moving a side, caused my phone to slip. 

Who invented this new "Better than ever MyWaitrose" offer? Having my phone fixed will cost me dearly!  Previously you could choose to have 20% of 10 of your favorite products loaded onto the MyWaitrose card and automatically taken off when scanned. 

To wrap up this story: not a happy customer!

Kind regards,

(Removed by Forum Team)

PS: Please do not respond, that I can print out the coupons at home, I know this. I do not have a working printer at the moment, it would  cost ink and paper and still be time consuming and this is still fiddly.

This is the response I got back:

 - Good Afternoon (Removed by Forum Team),

Thanks for getting in touch with us regarding your feedback with the process of claiming vouchers in stores. I can understand your frustration with this matter as it can be challenging to use due to slow internet connection and the need to scan cards. I appreciate that this is not up to the quality of service you have expected and I sincerely apologise for the disappointment it has caused, as well as with the cracked screen of your phone.

Rest assured that I have raised this matter with a detailed explanation of your feedback to our marketing and myWaitrose team for further review. I will see to it that this is taken to high priority so we may take actions on improving our processes and services.

To say sorry for the distress caused on this occasion, I would like to offer you a £10 gift voucher, if you could kindly send us your full name, phone number and postal address, I’ll get this sent out as soon as possible. 

Kind regards, 
--------------
Waitrose Customer Service



 I am kind of baffled  she only mentions "slow internet", while there was a whole lot more going on. As well as "on this occasion..." kind of irritates me.
If Waitrose had got any doubt about my story, there are warning stickers on the tills that everything get recorded. So my story could be easily verified.

English is my second language, so maybe I didn't write it clearly?

What are your thoughts on this?

user1977

It seems a reasonable response to me, not sure what you were expecting?

Brie

Absolutely nothing the matter with the letter/email you wrote.  Completely clear what had happened.

Their response is typical of many customer service people who take their script and then just change a tiny bit to somewhat fit the situation rather than respond directly. 

I had a grump at M&S the other day about the fact they had stopped paper statements and sent me a message to say that I had requested this.  I grumped because I hadn't requested this and need to have paper statements and could they confirm they would send them.  I got back a message telling me how to request paper statements which, while related, didn't actually answer my question.

fyi - the only thing I might add is you may wish to amend your title to "do I write badly" rather than "baldly" which I assume is a simple typo.  Which we all make!

mjm3346

Waitrose not commenting on your being cack handed seems fair enough - No reason for them to change the system when it works better for them/the majority of customers they want to attract

Brie

mjm3346 said:

Waitrose not commenting on your being cack handed seems fair enough - No reason for them to change the system when it works better for them/the majority of customers they want to attract

Does it work better or are we just all sheep that are going along with it??  I really don't want all the different store apps on my phone.  It will slow down other things working as the memory gets more and more clogged up.  And Waitrose did use to have a load of offers and now there are very few and poorly advertised at that.  

turnitround

It is frustrating but Waitrose are not responsible for your cracked screen. I would accept the £10 offered and then just put it down to experience.

HampshireH

What are you asking of them?

The only thing they need to respond to in your letter is below in bold. Everything else is an account of events and whilst unfortunate, dropping your phone isn't Waitrose fault.

Your English is fine. But you haven't actually asked them to do anything other than say who invented the new offer . Their response also seems fine.

Who invented this new "Better than ever MyWaitrose" offer? Having my phone fixed will cost me dearly!  Previously you could choose to have 20% of 10 of your favorite products loaded onto the MyWaitrose card and automatically taken off when scanned

p00hsticks

user1977 said:

It seems a reasonable response to me, not sure what you were expecting?

I'd second this - your letter seems perfectly fine, if a bit wordy (I personally wouldn't have incliuded all the verbatim "Oh! my screen is cracked!" conversation, but that's my preference), but I'm not sure what else you were expecting in reply?

They've said that your detailed feedback has been passed on to others and you've been offered a sweetener.

Perhaps if you had wanted a point by point response to the various issues you mention you may have been better listing them individually -

e.g.  (and I'm not familiar with Waitrose's coupon system so may have some of this wrong)

Could you please explain

- why your tills freeze so frquently ?

- why your internet connection is so slow ?

- why there is so little space to manouvre around the self-checkouts ?

- why is it no longer possible to pre-load my card with my chosen offers before entering the store ?

- why it is so awkward to scan the coupons ?

tripled

You gave some feedback about how fiddly their process is, the problem you had with the freezing till, and that the cashier annoyed you after you broke your phone. They've thanked you for the feedback and given you a goodwill voucher. It's not clear to me (and so perhaps to Waitrose) what else you were looking for?

user1977

p00hsticks said:

user1977 said:

It seems a reasonable response to me, not sure what you were expecting?

Perhaps if you had wanted a point by point response to the various issues you mention you may have been better listing them individually -

e.g.  (and I'm not familiar with Waitrose's coupon system so may have some of this wrong)

Could you please explain

- why your tills freeze so frquently ?

- why your internet connection is so slow ?

- why there is so little space to manouvre around the self-checkouts ?

- why is it no longer possible to pre-load my card with my chosen offers before entering the store ?

- why it is so awkward to scan the coupons ?

And given this is the Consumer Rights forum, it's probably worth pointing out that you don't have a right to have any of those questions answered!

TELLIT01

Nothing wrong either with the OPs comments and explanation of what happened in the store, or in the response from the store.  They mentioned the vouchers, the system problem and the broken phone.  They have also offered a £10 gift voucher as a good will gesture.  I'm not sure what more could be done.

The OP does say that English isn't their first language so maybe something has been lost in their interpretation of the reply.