My Consumer Revelation/Revolution

Hi, my name is amanda janaan and I am on my way to becoming a professional complainer. Let me give you an example. I was once in a local supermarket. For those who do not know me personally, let me stop and explain:

I HATE being in the supermarket. I am easily overwhelmed by the design of the store and chaos inherent in grocery shopping. Those problems coupled with the scarcity of employees in general and ones who know what they are talking about, specifically makes food shopping a chore. By the time I get to check out I am usually at the peak of my frustration.

I am also a huge fan of coupons and the coupons that I had for toothpaste made my purchase of 2 tubes FREE and who doesn’t want to get something for free. When I looked at my receipt I saw that I had been charged full price. So, I went to customer service. I saw that I had gotten the wrong size. I went to make the exchange and she tried to charge me. I told her that I had used a coupon and it should be free. She told me some crap about not being able to use my coupon twice. I spoke to who I thought was a manager who repeated this spiel without understanding my point that this was not a new purchase but a correction. Now I am mad because she is referring to my coupon as money they gave me. It was not a store coupon and even so do they think I’m stupid. So I took the next logical step.

I called the 800 number and complained to customer service. They apologized, but reiterated the same story that made me upset in the first place as the guy tried to make me feel grateful that he was putting the money back on my card. The money was nice, but the more he tried to make is seem as though he was doing me a favor by giving me my money back for the correction the more upset I got.

The next day I was still fuming so I wrote an email to corporate. I stated my complaint and after a night of fuming proclaimed I would NEVER shop there again because of how I had been treated. I told them how much I spent a month, a year and how much money they would loose from my family over the next 20 years. I also mentioned that I would no longer buy supplies for my start-up baking business either. By the time I was through they had lost about $100,000 of my business. I complained about the attitude of the woman at the customer service because she was rude and the “manager” because she was dismissive without listening. I then let them know I would be taking my business to their top competitor who was conveniently located across the street and was known for being very customer friendly. As I hit “Submit” I felt great. It was as if a weight had been lifted off my shoulders and the incident melted into the back of my mind. I was, however, determined to keep my promise never to cross their threshold again.

I was totally surprised when my husband told me the store manager called. I later spoke with the assistant manager, who apologized profusely and let me know that the “manager” I spoke with was not a manager at all. She assured me that they wanted my business and offered me some incentives to returning as a customer. I was so taken aback that I accepted.

I have since gone from passive acceptor of random policies to corporate office complainer. I have complained to a children’s store to get them to honor a product exchange coupon. I am currently complaining to my cell phone company for not giving longstanding customers any real benefits. I figure if Ralph Nader can take one complaint and change airline travel forever, I can at least complain and get my bill corrected or my service fixed. I am done paying to be treated like I don’t matter. If I can’t get what I want I will at least ensure that I am treated with respect and that my opinion is known.

Did I mention the coupon that started this was for a whopping $.50?