Terrible customer service - this time it's TESCO

[wasntlikethisinthegoodolddays]

Totally fed up of bad customer service! What do you make of this?

On 22 May, I bought a reduced meal for 2 at Tesco - a "Finest Chicken in Prosecco sauce". Checked the packet to make sure it was okay to freeze. Went home, put it in the freezer. Sunday night, I moved it from the freezer to the fridge to defrost, with the intention of eating it on Monday night for dinner.

So, Monday night, I look at the back of the pack for cooking instructions, and I notice on the back, in tiny letters it says “not suitable for home freezing”. Very odd, because it says the opposite on the front.

Husband and I decide it's not worth taking a risk and eating it, especially with it being chicken. The local Tesco is only 5 minutes up the road, so a pain in the bum, but I get coat and shoes on and drive up there to take it back.

Fully expected Tesco to be shocked at the conflicting instructions on the packet, but no, the woman on the customer service desk, immediately says they can't take it back because :

It's not fresh.

It's been frozen.

They don’t know if I froze it on the day I bought it.

They don’t know whether I defrosted it properly.

I got it reduced anyway (it was still £4).

The date on it is 22 May, so I didn't buy it recently.

How any of the above is relevant, I don't know. No apologies for the inconvenience. In fact assistant was quite snappy.

I asked assistant if she would be happy with this if she were me, to which she replied that she wouldn’t have brought it back, because she would have realised that SHE had made a mistake!

How is this my mistake? Ah, apparently I should have not taken the sign on the front at face value, and I should have read all of the small print on the back of the packet before purchasing. Hmm.

After arguing my point, I eventually got my £4 back on a gift card. Which didn’t work at the check out. Brilliant.

I'm pretty sure that some people (we have a lot of elderly people here) may have walked away £4 down, which could be quite a chunk of their daily shopping budget.

To be honest there's not a lot the sales assistant could do except apologise and give a refund.
They would have no way of contacting the packaging design team. The store manager wouldn't either.
They could report it to the next level up (area manager) who would in turn have to pass the complaint on to higher.....and would then probably then get lost in a sea of other messages.
@wasntlikethisinthegoodolddays you should send an email to customer services directly.
Keep it simple and factual that there is confusing/incorrect wording on the package.

Edit: missed OP’s image, ignore this post

The ones in the fridge yesterday are like the ones you picture here, so the packaging must have been updated very recently. But if you look at my photos above, you can see what my packet looked like.

OP

Tesco have been good via telelphone re odd complaint when we first started having shopping/online del at our home

You made the fundamental mistake of going back to the local Tesco or any Tesco for that matter. You need to call their customer services and I'm certain you will get a satisfactory resolution!!

HTH

Ah sorry missed your pic! That’s very odd then.

If helpful, I freeze the Charlie Bigham meals even though they say don’t freeze and never has an issue.

This is so pathetic it’s depressing. £4. To actually come on mumsnet to complain about it too. Do something with your life OP 🤦🏼‍♀️

@wasntlikethisinthegoodolddays so it seems the mistake on the packaging was realised and they've changed it.
Issue over.

This isn't true. I used to work for a tesco own brand supplier and complaints was part of my job.

What happens is, the customer goes in and complains (quite rightly in OPs case, that's a serious error on the packaging)

The customer service person logs it on their system, and retains the item/packaging. They refund the customer.

An email is generated that goes to the factory with the complaint details. The factory sends the tesco branch a stamped addressed envelope to send the product back to the factory.

The factory recieved the product and/or packaging and conducts an investigation. This would involve the people who wrote the packaging specification.

An updated spec and packaging reprint would be needed in this case. It sounds like it already happened (most likely because of customer complaints!) as OP says the current products don't have the snowflake flash.

The factory would write to the store with an explanation, or the customer directly if they provided their details.

OP, use the tesco chat bot or write to Tesco Stores Ltd.Welwyn Garden City AL7 1GA U.K and complain both about the product and the service.

I freeze loads of stuff that says don't freeze. If the food is cooked through, freezing it is unlikely to result in food poisoning, although it may not be as enjoyable and the cream could separate. That said, Tesco should have treated you better. I'd raise it with head office because of the conflicting advice on the packet.

Obviously there shouldn't have been any question of you getting a refund. I'm amazed the assistant considered arguing about it a good use of their time - there's an error on the label that made you do something that had the potential to cause harm. The cooked meat could've been frozen before it was put in the meal so shouldn't be frozen again.

I would've taken it back too if I'd noticed and I was going into Tesco anyway. Tesco made a mistake, they needed to put things right for you. Most shop staff would've responded sensibly and reasonably, you were unlucky that you spoke to someone who couldn't apply logic to an out of the ordinary situation.

Probably send the label back to Tesco pointing out the error and no doubt you will get a refund, perhaps also extra as a goodwill gesture, far easier than dealing with the shop

And yet here you are, coming to mumsnet, to comment on a post that you think is pathetic. Do something with your life Emily. 🤔

Thank you, this is really helpful.

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut that sounds good.
I left retail quite a few years ago so my knowledge is a bit out of date 🙂
Where I worked we didn't have access to anything that far up the chain.

A bit harsh but made me 😂

While this is really annoying I agree with previous posters that a quick phone call or email to Tesco Customer services would have been better. They are normally fantastic.

Did you expect the shop assistant to actually take the chicken back from you ?

Really didn't want to risk food poisoning I don't fancy risking it with chicken!

I assume you weren't planning on eating raw??? What an over reaction. I would have eaten it, heated/cooked through properly and sent pics of the label to head office. I agree the wording is incorrect, but that is why you send it to head office!

The customer service was poor, but maybe she couldn't believe you'd drive there, to complain and has numpties to deal with all day long?

Feels like physical supermarkets are under a lot of pressure to cut little costs - asking shop floor staff to do security duties, arguing over small appropriate refunds.

Everyone has to do their job, but this seems to be trickling down into giving incredibly bad service (to the point of being argumentative/aggressive) to customers seen as "easier" and less likely to complain (elderly people, non-white people, solo women).

You'll see shop floor staff congregating to dominate and talk down to a polite female acting normally, but then turning a blind eye if a middle aged bloke or a gang walks out without paying.

(Then wonder why they're losing customers when they argue with and treat regular customers like thieves!).

I do think if you have time and it feels appropriate then voting with your feet/wallet and letting the main company know why they've lost your custom may be appropriate.

(I've started online shopping with one supermarket - the fact that the delivery drivers have been polite and non-surly is a massive incentive to keep on doing this.

I'm British, I don't need or want someone being overly friendly or doffing their cap or American "have a nice day", but there is a point at which customer service is just unacceptable below a certain level).

Yanbu. I'd have complained too. Best to go through social media and don't back down

Poster too lazy to read the OP properly 🍪

Hear hear...ridiculous!

When it says not suitable for home freezing, does that just mean the consistency won’t be the same, it won’t be AS good if coming from frozen? I’ve always frozen things even when they’re labelled not suitable, now I feel like I shouldn’t! I didn’t think it was that serious, especially as I’d only freeze for a weekend or week, not for e.g. 3 months.

OP, I would have eaten it and then just emailed pics of the packaging to customer service, I’d never bother going back to the shop.

I sometimes take bad fruit and veg that has gone off within a day or two of purchase. The Tesco counter staff take it back and issue a refund no problem at all. No stroppiness, no faffing nor arguments. We bought a "Finest" Christmas cake at Christmas - cut into it a couple of weeks later, after Christmas but long before the "best before" date. Nothing actually "wrong" with it as such, but it was dry and tasteless, so I took that back too, again, no problems at all getting it refunded.

I think we're lucky with our Tesco as the staff are mostly very helpful and pleasant and that encourages me to do most of my shopping there. I think customer service is something that spreads - good assistants spread the good attitude so that other staff around them are good too, but the nasty/unhelpful ones spread that nastiness attitude to others around them.

I'm not really asking whether other people would have eaten it, or taken it back or complained etc. The fact is that I did. It's 5 minutes up the road. Yes, I took the whole thing back. If I had just taken the packaging, it may have looked like we had eaten the product. After deciding not to risk eating it, I had to buy something else for dinner anyway.

The issue is how the staff member treated me. She actually said that if she had been the customer, she would not have returned it, as she would have realised that the mistake was hers. How can that be right, when the packaging has an error on it? A simple sorry and a refund would have been great. Not all the arguing and belittling.

I will be complaining. I got her name. She was horrible.

Some of the comments on here!
So now we're not supposed to go into a physical shop to raise an issue with one of the items bought from said shop? Because we might annoy staff, staff are not equipped to deal with such matters or staff simply couldn't care less, there is a shortage of staff and working conditions are terrible?!
Is this turning into don't trouble the NHS with a health concern unless both your arms are falling off and you've had severe headaches for 27 consecutive days , blurred vision for exactly 52 days and you noticed your heart has not been beating for a couple of weeks!
Let's not trouble anyone with our any issues in case we are wasting someone's time or take away their attention from something more important or urgent.

OP you did the right thing. Customer service was appalling here. I'd stop shopping there to be honest. When we all vote with our feet and purses, supermarkets will notice.
As a personal observation, On the rare occasion I go to the nearest large Tesco store, I am always impressed with how helpful staff are.