July 18, 2015
I recently moved from Coppell to Flower Mound and received a nice little envelope from my homeowners association with coupons and "get to know you" offers for the neighborhood. One of them was a coupon for 10% off a grocery bill of $25 or more at my local Tom Thumb.
After about a week of receiving the coupon - I went to Tom Thumb to shop for my new house. This was my first grocery shopping excursion in my new neighborhood. I spent about an hour and got over $250 worth of groceries - 10 times what the coupon's minimum was. When I got to the checkout stand - the cashier said "oh I'm sorry this coupon expired YESTERDAY." I couldn't even see the date on it due to it being in a 5 point birdseed light typeface (that means really small) at the bottom. I asked for the manager - and low and behold the guy bagging my groceries was the "manager on duty."
He reacted like a real jerk in my opinion. Snidely saying that "it has a date on it for a reason." I told him that I just got it - about a week ago - and he said "no, we still won't take it."
My equally snide response was that I hadn't paid for the groceries yet, and that if that was how he was going to be - then they could just keep the groceries and put them back on the shelves themselves. By this time - since there was ONLY ONE cashier working at this busy time of day - there was now a line of 5-7 people behind me, all growing frustrated with the delay. So, I then asked to speak with anyone there above him - and he begrudgingly went somewhere and 4-5 minutes later, a lady with a "special" card key for the register simply came over and swiped it - allowing the cashier to give me the coupon discount. She didn't even say a word. Nothing. Just walked up, swiped the card and then walked away. I don't know who she was - maybe the real store manager? To top that off, the "manager on duty" NEVER returned to finish bagging my groceries or say anything. Some other person finally came over to help me bag the rest of my groceries. Not a single word or apology or anything out of anyone there.
I have a lot of choices in this neighborhood for groceries - and I have to say, I don't think I will ever go back to this Tom Thumb again - and it's the closest of them all to my house.
Companies like Tom Thumb should better train employees like this to know how to handle a situation like this. Think of the economics! Tom Thumb spent money to print that coupon and have it bundled with my new homeowner kit and delivered to me. Their marketing efforts were successful in getting me into the store to buy a bunch of groceries when I am new to the area and searching for mainstay retailers to get established with. This was exactly the golden opportunity Tom Thumb was looking for. And this jerk manager on duty and mystery lady blew it. I spend roughly $500 a month on groceries - sometimes more. That's $6,000 per year which I would think would make me a decent sized customer. Now, because of this manager on duty's actions - I am highly unlikely to ever shop their again. read more