Sainsbury’s Complaint: Pulling Teeth
Posted
I’m rather quite busy nowadays, especially with my job, commuting and trying to enjoy London, so I don’t always get the time to complain. I have not only a list of complaints to make, but also a folder of complaints to share on my blog.
So I thought I’d be efficient and save up a few for Sainsbury’s, and sent it shortly after they announced their merger with Asda.
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Dear Sainsburys
I am sure that you are currently being overwhelmed with part-time snobs given the proposed merger with Asda, with a flurry of complaints from wannabe Waitrose shoppers that have suddenly just found their passion for ethical consumption, and whose complaint has nothing at all to do with the fact that Asda attracts shoppers from the lower classes.
All I care about is food quality. I am happy to grant you my personal approval for the merger, but please keep your quality at the current levels.
If the quality drops to Asda’s level – I will shop elsewhere.
Gosh, that was all a bit serious, wasn’t it? Did you miss me? It’s been a while since I’ve e-mailed, but I do still love you. Even if you are about to marry someone else.
Though I do have one of those annoying married-couple questions. Well, 4 actually.
Firstly, for my delivery in January (yeah, back when it wasn’t that cold), I had ordered a pack of your excellent fruit-flavoured yoghurts. I was delivered yoghurt, vanilla and toffee yoghurts instead – as a substitution but I sadly didn’t check it. What on earth would possess someone to think banana is a similar replacement for mango and apricot? Or worse, toffee as a replacement for peach?! Surely a different fruit-based yoghurt would make more sense?
Then for my delivery in February, I had some smoked fish but it had to be eaten that day – and my delivery was at something like 9/10pm.
Something similar in March, with pork tenderloin that had to be eaten the same day.
And this month, I ordered two jars of strawberry converse, but one is actually raspberry. I don’t mind raspberry – but you should know that strawberry is kind of different. Similar to ordering a bacon and egg sandwich and receiving an egg sandwich. Good – but not quite all there. A bit like me on a Monday morning.
Toodlepip
James
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Dear James
Thank you for taking the time to get in contact with us at Sainsbury’s
Currently with the merger there are no plans for us to lower the quality or the standard of any deliveries or shops done with Sainsbury’s, the two separate supermarkets will be operating as they usually do now.
If you ever experience any of the issues that you’ve mentioned on future orders such as short dated items, incorrect items or poor substitutions please let us know and we would be more than happy to arrange a refund for you.
Thank you again for taking the time to get in contact with us and we hope your enjoy your day.
Kind regards
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Hi xxxx
How about my past issues that I detailed below (previous e-mail attached)?
Kind regards
James
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[several days later]
Dear xxxx
Is the ignoring of the issues that I originally mentioned part of the new customer service experience that I should expect post-merger?
Regards
James
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Dear James
thank you for taking the time to get in contact with us at Sainsbury’s.
With the points detailed on your email, I’ve made sure to forward them through to the store to ensure management there is aware of these issues and so they can take steps to prevent them from happening again in future.
The substituted yoghurt’s in January, these will have been picked out by the picking system that the drivers and pickers use in store when a product is out of stock, the system itself makes the decision on what is available in store to replace out of stock items with, depending on the stock which is available, the pickers aren’t allowed to deviate from the choice that the system makes.
The short dated products, I’ve reported this to the store to let them know that they have been letting customers down with the short date on products, this allows them to order in a wider range of stock for the coming weeks to avoid such short date products being sent out.
If you could get back in contact with us and let us know if the strawberry converse was marked down as a substitution or if it was just an incorrect item send out, once we know this we would be more than happy to take a further look into this for you.
We would also recommend letting us know of these issues on a case by case basis to allow us to notify the store and sort out any refunds which may be due.
Thank you again for taking the time to get in contact with us and we hop you enjoy your day.
Kind regards
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Hi xxxx
Normally I would e-mail straight away, however I have been exceptionally busy this year.
As far as I can remember, there was no substitution listed for the raspberry jam. I still haven’t eaten any of it, and I have run out of strawberry jam. I have plenty of gravy granules for which I am very happy to use on my toast instead of strawberry jam.
Do I need to e-mail in separately now for each of the issues which was in my complaint?
Kind regards
James
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Dear James
Thank you for taking the time to get in contact with us at Sainsbury’s
I do apologise that this raspberry jam was incorrectly sent out, to cover you for it I’m sending you out an evoucher for £1.25 to be taken off a future online shop, the voucher code is xxxx-xxxx-xxxx and it’s valid for two years so no rush to get it used up.
It’s always recommended to email or call us whenever these issues happen ASAP to allow us to have it fed back to the store, but we do understand that this isn’t always possible due to work and such and would be more than happy to assist once you let us know.
Thank you again for taking the time to get in contact with us and we hope you enjoy your day.
Kind regards
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Dear xxxx
Thank you for refunding the mistaken product from the most recent order.
Does this mean that I still need to open separate complaints for previously extremely short-dated products that I outlined in my original e-mail over a week ago?
Kind regards
James
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Dear James
Thank you for taking the time to email Sainsbury’s, and sorry for the delay in replying to your email.
I can understand your concern over your previous emails and the issues you have raised in them. I know I would want to ensure that they had been dealt with correctly, and I am sorry that you have had a number of issues with dates and incorrect items being sent.
We appreciate any and all feedback, as it allows us to know, how we are doing and were we can improve. After checking your account I can see that xxxx has correctly logged all the issues you have raised to report back to the store for you.
As the haddock, pork and yogurts have not been refunded, however, I am happy to refund these for you now. To do so I have sent you an evoucher for £10.00, which also includes a small gesture of goodwill. The evoucher code is xxxx-xxxx-xxxx, and this will be valid for two years allowing you to use it against a future order.
We appreciate you bringing this to our attention, and I hope you have a nice day.
Kind regards
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The Asda experience has begun.