Whatever happened to customer service?

by Rachel Robson on 07 August 2009  |  5 comments
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This time it’s Sainsbury’s that has incurred my wrath...

Over the past few months, I seem to have moaned an awful lot about Tesco. But today I'm going to have a whinge about Sainsbury's.

I'm not sure how much this has to do with money-saving - but I'm afraid Sainsbury's recently really made my blood boil so I've decided to have a rant.

Last Saturday (1 August) I bought a packet of fresh ravioli which was dated until 23 August. So I kind of figured it would be ok to eat three days later.

However, when I went to take it out of the fridge on Tuesday I made a horrible discovery - the pasta was covered in hairy blue and white mould. Yes, really quite vomit-inducing.

So I went to my local Sainsbury's to return it as I couldn't get down to the larger Sainsbury's I had bought it from. I didn't really think this was too much of a problem, given it was still a Sainsbury's store and the product was from Sainsbury's own Taste the Difference range.

The only possible issue was I didn't have my receipt (there was only so far I was prepared to dig into my kitchen bin to locate it - yes, I know, don't throw your receipts in the bin), but I thought I would see if I could get my money back anyway.

No such luck. The charming (or not so charming) supermarket person (I'm not sure what the PC name is) informed me that because it was a smaller supermarket (in a station) A) they wouldn't stock that particular ravioli and B) even if they did, it wouldn't be the same price. So without a receipt I couldn't get a refund, and because they didn't stock it, I couldn't get an exchange. And that was that. There's the door - see yourself out.

As you can imagine, by now I was feeling a tad irritated. I mean, this wasn't really what I called great customer service. After all, I wasn't just returning the pasta for the sake of it - it was mouldy weeks before its use by date!

So imagine my horror when I later discovered that that particularly store DID stock it after all. And at the same price I had purchased it for. Admittedly I should have checked this before I walked out of the store in a huff and threw the stuff away in the nearest bin (I wasn't going to hold onto it for another week before I could get to the larger store), and believe me I am kicking myself for it now.

That said, surely someone in that store should have checked for me that they definitely didn't stock that product, before informing me that that was the case.

So of course, once again, I decided to write a complaint - and have received £5 on my Nectar card - but this was something I really shouldn't have had to do.

What's more, as I said earlier, this pasta was part of Sainsbury's Taste the Difference range - in other words, far pricier, and supposedly more luxurious, than the bog standard stuff. But the fact that it went off so quickly really does beg the question, is the quality of these luxury ranges really any better than the cheaper ranges? Clearly not.

Now obviously, being a money-saving tips person, I don't frequently splurge on luxury ranges. But this one little incident has certainly opened my eyes up further and I don't think I will be wasting any money on them again. Extra money for poor quality - plus shoddy customer service thrown into the bargain. It just isn't worth it!