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.

Assuming she just had enough that day is such a cop out. Yes, most staff are helpful and nice and many customers are awful, but THIS particular staff member does need to be pulled up by management on her customer service.

It was weird. I asked for the Manager. She went and got him. He looked about 12. She carried on dominating the conversation and he said nothing. 😳

Hope it gets sorted op.
I wish someone would start a thread entitled companies that give good customer service.
I can’t do it as I’ve not found any since Covid.

Did you not speak to him, did he not then reply?

Shift leaders don't have to be a certain age, it's a short training course, as you can imagine it's not a job many people want.

Yeah, he just didn't speak. Weird. I got £10 voucher when I raised it on Twitter. Happy with that. Also, the assistant will be spoken to.

Going to twitter and wanting someone "spoken to", along with the manager not wanting to deal with it all sounds like you might want to look at your attitude.

There will likely be body cam audio and video of you as body cams are worn on customer service desk, so they can see the incident either way though.

There's an assistant in our local Sainsbury's with exactly the same attitude. After today I shall be avoiding her unless it's desperate. But I have frozen stuff that says you can't freeze at home - you are cooking it, not eating it cold from the packaging.

We have one of them at our local GP surgery. I just walk in, see her, and walk straight out again if I'm not there for an appointment (vanishing rare these days to get a face to face appointment). I just try again another day and get someone else as most of the others are actually helpful. Same on the phone, if she answers, I just hang up.

And no, it's not just me. I actually know her from a previous job where she was a receptionist (for a very short time as they sacked her). She was awful, rude and unhelpful there too.

I'd love there to be footage. I was not horrible at all, she however was awful. And yes, she does need pulling up on it. You shouldn't roll your eyes at customers and tell them that it's their fault the packaging is wrong. I hope she gets her arse handed to her.

Again it’s not the freezing aspect that’s the problem here it’s the inaccurate labelling.
My dgs is diabetic we have to calculate his insulin by the amount of carbs on a packet. If it’s wrong it could be disastrous. You should have been given a refund and the error should be flagged at a higher level.

Why are you inserting yourself into a conversation that has nothing whatsoever to do with you? I was responding to a very specific point in the poster’s post. If you can’t bother reading the entire quote history, then maybe you shouldn’t be posting.
I addressed the OP elsewhere.