To think M&S Sparks card should be aware of its own T&Cs?

[Notmoreantihistamines]

1st world problem, I am fully aware there are local regional and national news far more compelling and worthy than this incident.

Yesterday I selected a Sparks reward, "£5 off all bras".

Today I went to my local store specifically for bras. Before perusing the assorted fripperies I asked the shop assistant to clarify the deal, was it on a specific bra, any bra, all bras bought now or in the 6 day window the offer was available.

She kindly confirmed that all bras would have £5 off, but only in one transaction. I duly filled my basket.

I got to the till, lady at the till also thought the offer was all bras. Scanned first bra, £5 off, second bra, no deduction. She called the supervisor who said try it as a seperate transaction, it might only apply to one per purchase. Till said no, so supervisor concluded the £5 was for only one bra in one transaction.

I bought the basket of several as I had hoped 5 x £5 off the bras I bought would pay for the last one. I spent over £100.

By the time I had paid my parking £3, my marvellous offer saved me £2. .

Irritated by the lack of clarity I called Customer Services. They explained it was only one bra, only one transaction. I took issue with this as that is not what the offer said, or the shop staff said. Unfortunately there was nothing Customer Services could do my arse, ever heard of customer satisfaction.

So more irritated, I went online to have online "chat" with M&S Customer Services. it's a slow day chez antihistamines. The advisor advised if I had done each bra as a seperate transaction then I would have got £5 off each time, this was not what I been told over the phone. Customer Services directly contradicted each other.

Advisor then quoted in online chat (I have a transcript) T&Cs ""Refresh your lingerie drawer....we've got a bra for every outfit....excludes sale and clearance items....valid in store and online...not to be used in conjunction with any other offer.... Valid on presentation of card at till. Offer can be used only once"

This doesn't say only one one item. This says used only once. Bras is plural. In the abscence of clarity what happened to the customer is always right? If there was an offer, why hadn't the staff in the relevant dept all been told the correct details? This is not the shopfloor staffs fault.

This ad campaign is misleading, the staff misinformed, and the Customer Service unsatisfactory.

AIBU to think M&S Sparks card should be aware of it's own T&Cs?

FYI There will be no Daily Mail sad face in the side bar of shame.

I have binned my sparks card and was feeling guilty about the "penny for charity every time you scan your card "
Now I put 10p a visit into a charity tin ! ( and tell the poor staff that I binned my card )

Off all bras would mean to me that every bra was in the offer, not just all t-shirt or all balcony but it should follow that if you buy three you get £15 off..

I am tempted to throw my Sparks card away, go off the consumer grid. They only use the data to sell to other people.

Does anyone understand shwopping? I thought originally, a la Lumley, you gave a bag of clothes, including one M&S item, they gave you £5 voucher to spend in store. Apparently not, you now get 500 Spark points, I don't want those, I can't spend them, stupid bloody waste of time.

Thank you Goingtobeawesome, that was exactly how I interpreted it. £5 of all bras in one transaction.

Apparently they haven't had any problems yet, but the offer only came out yesterday.

Boots card is much better.

Bin The card, be free!

I think the only loyalty card worth having is Boots.

They should add the £5 food voucher at point of sale, but inevitably what happens is not everytime you remember the valid until date. Again it is quite deliberately misleading.

You get to the till thinking you have £5 off, vouchers expired you spend £30 you weren't going to. Next time I will leave the basket of food and walk out.

Single handedly, I will strike at the heart of mass consumerism and consumption, going rogue off their loyalty card scheme, keeping my data safe, under the radar of profiteering multi nationals.

Alternatively I could be easily coerced ( for a light lunch, glass of something fruity and ££ M&S voucher) into going to a focus group for 40yr old plus ladies and TELL M&S what want we want.

We want good quality goods and good customer service. Many of this demographic earn the larger portion of the household salary, or spend the larger portion of the household salary as they are at SAHM/part time/ profligate with family funds.

What we don't want is bells and whistles and shit spark points we don't know what to do with.

I agree that M & S customer service is crap.

My local store has nice food... but that's about it.
The tills are all staffed by middle-aged to elderly staff who all seem half asleep and take forever to scan your items.

I always find that I buy about 8 - 10 fairly standard items but somehow end up £40 down.
And invariably I find that some special deal hasn't activated on the till...and so off I trudge to the customer service desk to wait for another 20 minutes for some practically comatose person to ungraciously work out what the heck went wrong.
Oh and the Sparks card is pants. Who the hell has the time or inclination to go online to activate some random deal like 10% off all houseplants and 20% off cashmere socks? I have had exactly nothing for my trouble of remembering to swipe my Sparks card, what a waste of time!

On reflection, I am so irritated, I am going to write to the store manager and explain the campaign is misleading and staff misinformed.

I am going to write to Head Office. It is disingenuous to suggest the T&Cs are clear when the only way you can get them is by complaining online to Customer Services and even they can't explain the deal.

How hard would it have been to say, "Ah yes, I can see that might be misleading, have vouchers to the equivalent value, and we will edit the campaign tagline" not the stupid "There is nothing I can do, you can always take them back to the store". Appallingly stupid response.

I see your bluff and I raise you.

I will take all £100 plus, bras back to the store and complain loudly and vociferously in the queue. Then I will use the Sparks card for cleaning the grout in my bathroom tiles.

OP I don't understand why you still bought £100 worth of bras even when it became clear at the checkout that the discount only applied to the first.

Good question Bin50.

My lingerie drawer is so in need of refreshing, see up thread reference to the original advert, that if I get run over tomorrow and rescued by emergency services I would die of shame, not my injuries.

My car parking ticket was about to go over 1hr, from £1.80 to the aforementioned £3. I did it haste, then to reflect, not repent, in leisure

So instead I will keep the one with the £5 off, return the others and shop elsewhere in future

I personally would have thought it was £5 off a bra, as it was.

I agree that the Sparks card is a woeful, confusing disappointment.
I like the Waitrose one because of the free coffee. I like the Boots one because it's generous to parents.
I would genuinely be happy with the Sparks card if I got free Percy Pigs for every £100 I spent.

I have no idea what this fecking card is for.

It's a waste of fecking time.

Boots is brilliant.
I never use the vouchers they send out, rarely remember to put them in my purse. But every now and then when I buy a meal deal I try to pay using points, just on the off chance I have enough. I usually do - free lunch!! That's what keeps people happy.

Oh and I recently bought a smiggle pencil case for ds. £13 plus £4.50 p&p. After if placed the order dd told me she wanted one too. I emailed them immediately to ask if I could just add another to the order. They said no, once the order is set it can't be revised. But here's a £5 voucher off your next shop. So I placed another order and was still 50p up even though they'd said no! That's good customer service imo.

I agree about customer service in M&S. They were woefully slow in scanning the customer's shopping ahead of me, then the cashier chatted with the customer about what the customer was doing that evening. I understand it's nice to chat to customers but once they've paid, for God's sake, move on to the next person! As a result I was late picking DD up from school.

Excellent example Stealth, retailers do develop brand loyalty if they deliver on Customer Service. On this occassion M&S fell woefully short of reasonable customer expectations and didn't.

The M&S advert stated one thing, but delivered something else. The staff in store thought it meant something else. It stated £5 off any bras in one transaction but meant £5 off one bra once. That is very different.

It was misleading.

I thought better of M&S. Will walk into store to return the goods, save on the parking costs.

Hepzibar, exactly, what is the Sparks card for? Events are irrelevant

I flipping well refreshed my lingerie drawer last week by buying 6 bras from Marks do I was livid when I saw the £5 of bras Sparks offer. I'm actually a bit relieved it's only £5 of ONE bra as I had read the offer as £5 of each bra.

Marks Sparks card is CRAP as are all their ridiculously complicated and restrictive Bogof type offers. I just want to go into the shop and buy what I want at a reasonable and transparent price.

Grrrrrrr. I'm annoyed just thinking about it.

Does anyone understand shwopping? I thought originally, a la Lumley, you gave a bag of clothes, including one M&S item, they gave you £5 voucher to spend in store

Bring your stuff to Oxfam, tell the lovely volunteer that you have M&S clothes in the bag and they'll give you a £5 voucher BUT it's only valid when you spend £35 or more, and if I remember you have to use it on clothing or homeware, not food.

Get on Twitter, thats the one that gets the best response!

Bah humbug, don't do Twitter. Glad I am not the only one being driven completely mad by stupid rules and T&Cs

I like the 'order and collect at Customer Services' feature of the M&S website.

I have now racked enough so many Sparks points that I qualify for 'M&S experiences!'. The only M&S experience I fancy right now is the 'Being Locked in a Room with three handcuffed M&S Executives and twenty five other irritated M&S shoppers and being allowed free run of my Opinions on the Sparks card'.

I do not like standing waiting at Customer Services behind up to three elderly ladies having their Sparks offers explained to them by a frustrated till assistant who has had to log onto the internet to find their account because they do not have the internet and so have no idea that this fortnight they have 10% off men's dressing gowns and 20% off Autograph spatulas, but still need to make a decision about which three of the five offers they will never use should be applied to their Sparks card.

Also, I was in M&S yesterday and the assistant told me that the reason I had a wifi signal in M&S yet no service is because their wifi is crap and never works. Which doesn't help with the three old ladies at Customer Services. And also explains why I never get ANY wifi service in M&S so find checking any online reviews pointless.

When I did a Chartered Institute of Marketing course in the early 00s I sat a paper where a thinly disguised M&S was the failing, old-fashioned company we had to do forecasting for. I think the Sparks card should be the update case study to represent the brave new world of allegedly customer-centred, social media/online marketing.

" 10% off men's dressing gowns and 20% off Autograph spatulas"
Have you hacked into next weeks offers?

Along with buy gooseberry jam, get 5% off marmalade.