So we had an unfortunate experience at this Safeway last week. But rather than just stew over it, I picked up the phone and gave them a call and asked to speak with the store manager. I'm very pleased to say that the issue was resolved and for that they get 4 stars from me! See below if you want to hear the story:
I sent my husband to the store with my toddler to go pick out some fancy cupcakes for my birthday dinner. We already had a grown up Marble Slab ice cream cake set aside for adults but wanted our daughter to have fun so we thought this was a great idea!
When they came back from Safeway, she handed me a box of 4 beautiful Tinkerbell and Winnie the Pooh cupcakes. I have always been impressed by the selection of children's cupcakes at Safeway: various Disney characters, Sesame street characters, etc. Many times the character's face is actually a ring the child wear after eating the cupcake! They are always quite pretty and VERY reasonably priced at $1.50 a piece. There aren't flavour options like the gourmet cupcake shops - but gorgeous and perfect for a toddler! Also a great idea for birthday parties since they are only $1.50 a piece, come proportioned, and usually come with a party favour in the form of a ring! Anyhoo, she handed me the box of 4 - and I was happy for her - but then she told me she had gotten more. Okay, where are they? She handed me the grocery bag with 3 more cupcakes each placed individually in a plastic square container that WASN'T tall enough to stand the cupcake up in nor small enough around to prevent the cupcakes from rolling all over the place! So the cupcakes had naturally rolled all over the place and Piglet, Winnie, & someone else I can't even recall was decapitated and smushed!
I asked my husband if they had run out of containers or if he had packaged them up like this for some reason and he said that the Bakery clerk did this! He advised that they had originally selected 4 cupcakes which were placed in the APPROPRIATE cupcake packaging but then my daughter kept seeing more cupcakes she wanted and they ended up adding 3 more - but 1 at a time. Well, regardless - even if you were only buying 1 cupcake it shouldn't be given to you in a container not designed for a cupcake! This looked more like a sandwich box!
I fumed for a bit and then decided to call the store and ask to speak with a manager. First, I spoke with customer service who didn't offer any suggestions other than putting me through to the lady who packaged the cupcakes for my husband - Uh, no thanks! So then I spoke with the store manager who apologized and said he would have the bakery manager get back to me asap.
Approximately 15 minutes later, I received a phone call from the Bakery manager apologizing and stating that he spoke with the employee and asked to see what she packaged our cupcakes in. He said he didn't need any further explanation because as soon as he saw the containers he could imagine how the cupcakes looked by the time they got to their final destination. He asked if I would like to come back to the store to replace the cupcakes. We only live a few minutes away so that wasn't a problem. I asked if he wanted me to bring back the 3 decapitated cupcakes or if I should just give them to my toddler (rather than my dinner party guests) and he offered for her to keep them.
Upon arriving at the store, I was greeted by a not too friendly bakery clerk - I figured out later that it was the same one who had packaged the cupcakes earlier. None the less, I had my daughter say "Please" and "Thank you" to the, ahem, "nice cupcake lady." I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had a variety box of 6 character cupcakes waiting all packaged up for us free of charge.
Now, while I wish the cupcakes hadn't been poorly packaged in the first place - it was nice to have the customer service issue corrected promptly and thoughtfully. I stopped on the way out of the store to thank the manager and we took our cupcakes home.
So in the end - I had sent my husband to the store to pick up 4 cupcakes - he came home with 7 - then we got another 6 free of charge - for a total of 13 cupcakes, good lord! We packaged up 4 cupcakes and delivered them to the neighbour girls and went on a car ride to deliver two adorable cupcakes to our nieces who were sick and couldn't come to the dinner party.
Thank you, Safeway, for correcting an unfortunate experience. The least I can do is give you credit where it's due! read more