(FB) Supermarket customer service says my job to speak to manager ?

[SerendipityJane]

For 5 weeks running I've been unable to buy a favourite treat from my local (massive !) Sainsburys patisserie. It's not sold out, just "never in".

Usually I'm pretty mellow but after the 5th time straight I thought I'd have a Facebook chat with the Sainsburys team, and at the end of the exchange :

Hi there, thanks for your patience whilst this has been looked into. I'm sorry to have to say that the brownie is still an active item that is sold in our stores so this issue would have to be taken up with the bakery manager directly in store as to why this is no longer available to you. Apologies again that we have to pass this back to you.

AIBU in thinking that complaints to customer services shouldn't be batted back to the customer to resolve in this way ? I know we've already started doing some of their jobs by self-scanning, but is self-customer service the Next Big Thing ?

It would rankle less if I ate more than one cake a week, but I don't. This is genuinely my "cake of the week". Or would be if they had it.

Be curious to hear some views before next weeks Saturday shop.

Daily Mail are quite free to contact me for more details .

Otherwise you will be waiting weeks for customer service to get in touch with the bakery manager (as they will have other complaints in the queue) and it might be someting the bakery manager can tell you instantly. Then you'd be complaining that it was taking too long!
Not my experience, I got home after a very annoying incident in the Sainsbury petrol station. Facebooked their customer service, with half an hour they had spoken to the store, the duty manager had spoken to the petrol station staff and I had an apology on facebook and was asked to call at the customer service desk next time I was in there as there was a voucher waiting for me. The following day the manager phoned to apologise again.

I think your first port of call was to speak to the bakery directly and ask them, but seeing how you've escalated it to customer service, I think they should speak to the bakery and update you.
My experience of asking directly in bakeries though is that they blame the delivery van ' what's out is what we took delivery of not our fault etc.etc…

Yep, Customer Services will be dealing with complaints re slipping on grapes, overcharges for food, rude staff, dirty toilets, people parking in parent/child places etc. Your lack of a fudge brownie will be low priority.

Why did you go to Facebook? Why didn't you just ask in store?

I hope you're able to find a brownie that you like soon.

Thanks to all for taking the time to reply.

Long experience has taught me that the least effective route to complaint resolution in big companies is to start at the shop floor. Quite aside from having to rely on the person I need to speak to being in store when I am, it's the easiest way to be fobbed off. (And it was when I worked for sainsburys as a student 35 years ago ...).

The patisserie in question isn't (yet ?) run by Patisserie Valerie. If it was, they would have in a possible alternative route to hell in the shape of the enormous meringues PV do. (Not the crappy pre-packed nesty things. The ones you need two hands and mouths to eat ).

I guess I'm very fussy about cakes, but there are only two items on the counter that I'd bother with (the other is a Millefieulle ...). As I say this is my only cake a week.

Of course I could make my own. Which really is a snippy answer to anything isn't it. "Why not make your own, you lazy, lazy person you ?". However, good as my baking skills are, I'm not really prepared to spend ages to get a perfect taste for something I would eat one square a week of. And I don't have the huge circle of friends needed to absorb excess cake .

Good point about the possibility if it showing as available when it's been discontinued - another thing I can believe from 35 years ago ...

So it seems a little IABU/IANBU here I guess it's a little chat in person next week.

Once again, many thanks to all for taking the time to wobble a head here.

How exactly do you get to speak to the bakery manager or even the store manager? Everywhere I've complained goes to customer services first then gets escalated and I work in customer services

You go to the bakery and ask to speak to the supervisor.

Or go to customer service desk and ask to speak to the store manager.

If someone says, you need to contact customer service, you say that you did that and they said to speak to the store manager.

Its not that difficult

SM signposted you to the correct person to ask, I think that is ok

Why shouldn't OP ask Customer Services about this?

It's what they're there for.

It might be a simple case of staff miscounting the cakes or possibly missed off a delivery so that the store thinks it has a case in when there are none.
A quick scan of the shelf using the handhelds should find the problem(should also stste if discontinued) but needs to be done instore and cannot be done over the phone.

I wish stores wouldn't discontinue items, even locally, without giving us due notice. They shouldn't be allowed to get us hooked then withdraw the supply. It's cruel. And when I asked in my local Sainsbury's about a vanished item, customer services was exactly who they palmed me off onto.

Angry People in Local Newspapers.....

I do feel your pain OP. I feel rage with stores and coffee shops that only stock soya milk with sugar/sweeteners added.
Looking at you Pret a Manger, M&S, Starbucks (don't like the company or the coffee anyway) and Iceland 😡. If I wanted sugar in my coffee I would add it.

My local Sainsbury’s had my small town in uproar when they made 18 long running staff redundant, closed down the deli & the bakery - replaced the empty spaces with nothing - not giving one iota of a shit about the complaints they got. So I doubt they will care about one person getting pissy about a brownie tbh. Our local only gets business cos it’s the closest for basics - i’m surprised it has survived the last year or so.

I complained to a Tesco aisle manager about the fact they no longer stocked powdered mustard when we live in the sort of rural area where people make their own pickles etc. He went straight off and checked and then confirmed it had been discontinued by that store but he would raise it at the staff meeting. Following week it was back on the shelf!

I thought that was excellent service with no need for CS or FB or even supervisors.

(Since this thread is growing legs )

It might be a simple case of staff miscounting the cakes or possibly missed off a delivery so that the store thinks it has a case in when there are none.

The item in question isn't a shelf item. It's served from the bakery/patisserie counter - you have to ask for it. Asking the person serving yesterday elicited the response that they hadn't been in "for ages". Hence the escalation via FB.

Angry People in Local Newspapers

I'd like to think I'm not moronic enough - posters here are welcome to judge and comment otherwise.

I wish stores wouldn't discontinue items, even locally, without giving us due notice.

They can do what the fuck they want. It's their store, after all. Stock what you want. Don't stock what you don't want to. But please don't pretend you listen to customer feedback (because you don't), and please don't treat customers like idiots with ludicrous tales blaming other people for your own decisions and actions.

Anyway, this thread has steered me into the direction of speaking in store to customer services, and taking it from there. So AIBU has done something !

Angry People in Local Newspapers.....

I thought that too @Hedgehogblues. There was a man today complaining about the lack of Asda value pilchards or something.

I'm not really prepared to spend ages to get a perfect taste for something I would eat one square a week of
YABU for managing to only eat one square a week! You practically qualify as a saint with that self-control. YAalsoBU for ending a sentence with 'of' but I'll put that down to lack of brownie
Had you considered making brownie, eating one square (!) and then flogging the rest in the store to other deprived brownie-lovers? You could make a fortune...

From personal experience, good luck finding anyone at customer services. I've given up on Sainsbury's - fewer staff every time I go there, more empty shelves, awful parking validation system. Wankers.

So this is how pretty much everyone on this website seems to be size 6/8.
They only eat one single square of brownie per week as their 'sweet treats' intake.

It's a bit daft to be writing to Sainsburys about a brownie in the first place

So you buy one brownie a week or, say, 4 every 4 weeks?

Unless lots of other people are buying them, the they wont keep stocking them because one a week sells.

Unless lots of other people are buying them, the they wont keep stocking them because one a week sells.

Clearly you've never experienced ..

"A brownie ? Sorry, not much demand for them. Funny, you're the 10th person this morning to ask."

As I have. With a straight face. Almost as good as the time I bought a fish and mini fish from a chippy, and the woman serving said (again, with a straight face) "Would you like me to mark the large fish so you don't get them mixed up ?"

They probably don’t have the systems/authority to contact the store.
We have a web chat at work but if someone needs calling they can’t physically do it.