I have food intolerances so we went looking for a specific brand of frozen food we knew was gluten free. I found three packets. The use-by dates were:
- 19 December 2008
- 11 January 2009
- 24 March 2009.
Today is the 2 August 2009. I looked through the speciality gluten-free frozen section and found almost all of the products in there were past their use-by dates by at least five months, some almost a year out of date.
My partner took a selection of these up to the service counter and informed the manager of what we had found. The Manager's reaction was, to paraphrase "So they are out of date? So what?"
We have had concerns about that particular store before. One of the freezer units is known to be faulty and the ice cream is regularly frozen and thawed repeatedly while still in the store. When I brought the second tub back, I was given a refund by one of the staff without a murmur. She informed me that this happens regularly and all the staff and their families know to buy their ice cream at a different store.
Today was the tipping point for us. We are considering informing the relevant authorities tomorrow of what we found and we have decided never to return to that store. If anyone asks, we will be quite open as to why we have made this decision. As a customer, today's incident and the manager's lack of care or consideration was the tipping for us.
As people earning a wage, we are often on the other end of this scenario. Just about all people who earn a wage have customers. Some deal directly with members of the public. Others have "back room" or support roles for the front counter people. In this case, the front counter staff *are* your customers. For those in IT support, your customers are the rest of the organisation.
How do your customer service skills shape up? How would you have handled today's issue if you were that manager? Would you, as a manager, have allowed the procedures to get to the point where those issues arose? Finally, how would you fix it?
On a smaller level, when dealing with a client who has issues, how do you recognise when the client has reached the tipping point of finally acting; of voting with their feet, of boycotting your store or products or just spreading ill feeling towards you and your section?
How can you determine when the client or customer will let things ride and when they finally make a stand? I have found over the years that it is the body language and the general attitude of the customer service representative that determines the level of the customer's reaction.
We decided today that "enough was enough" because the manager patently did not care that his store was selling out of date and potentially dangerous goods.
How does this relate to your workplace? If your section screwed up, is it really that "weakening of power" for you to apologise and give assurances that steps will be taken to investigate the matter? Is acknowledging a error really going to leave you open to a lawsuit? Is brushing off a client because you don't care about your business really the right thing to do? Is this really how you earn your wages?
Is there any job, where you as the manager are too busy and too important to acknowledge when customers raise issues with you?
A few years ago I worked as a Branch Manager for a public library service in another state. I had regular customers who would bypass their local branch to come to mine. This was a combination of the respective layouts of both buildings and the customer service attitudes displayed by staff in both branches.
In my branch the large print fiction was located near the entrance to the library and all my staff would go out of their way to assist elderly customers in finding the next book in a series or books from authors who write like their favourites etc etc.
In the other building, the large print fiction was held up the back of the building and staff were encouraged to leave the fiction readers to their own devices.
The end result is my large print fiction circulated 200% more than the other branch. I had to go and collect "my" large print back back every couple of months because their customers would borrow the books from my branch but return the items to the closer branch. The returns bin was at the front of the building and there was no staff interaction required.
I'm not an expert in customer service. I've just worked in this sector for long enough that I can recognise where blatant ignoring of customer issues will damage the reputation of your section or your company. Is your ego, your pride, your negligence of your customers, really important enough to let your business suffer?
17 comments:
I'm not defending the manager in any way, what he said and failed to do is unacceptable. That said, he may in fact be powerless to do anything within his organisation. Without the authority to make a decision and the knowledge that he will be supported in the decision he may in fact just be a paper pusher with a managers title.
I have (and still do in a small way) worked in an organisation where I was not allowed to deal with problems in the manner I thought fit, very frustrating.
As a customer service specialist, I find his attitude highly alarming. As a food handler, I'm heading for the hills! What is happening in the store is not only illegal but highly dangerous. Thawing and refreezing icecream is a salmonella breeding ground. Out of date foodstuff is risky - especially 8 month old OOD! If this is a chain, report to head office immediately because the manager's attitude means he should not have that job. He simply doesn't care about anything happening there and heaven knows what the back of store areas look like. If this is an independent store then report to the local public health department before they cause serious illness.
I used to work for one of the worlds largest pizza chains and to comply with public health standards, we had to jump through hoops with regard to food hygiene and store cleanliness. I used to spend a day shift checking and prepping food, throwing anything that was out of date even by one day becaue we could not take any risks.
From there I went out again into corporate world and a large public utility company where the customer was treated well enough. Next stop was insurance and again customer was king and we took the time to help them and explain. Last stop still in insurance but high-end corporate motor with come huge names. This was where the customer service skills came to the force as we dealt with fleet managers, garages, drivers, dealers and everyone could make a difference. It was all about relationships.
If that person can't help, for whatever reason (as opposed to "won't help"), then they should still acknowledge the customer's concern. They can then point them towards whoever *can* help them, if anyone.
If there is a situation where the person who could help is unwilling or has shown a disinclination to in the past, then explaining that ahead of time sets the appropriate expectations. Suggesting other avenues shows that they really do care about the customer, whether or not they are personally able to help them.
I know you wouldn't be aware of it but I was a professional cook for many years before I got into IT. I'm intensely aware of the dangers involved in mistreatment of food.
I agree entirely. Sometimes people are worn down by the system they are constrained by and do not behave in the way they should. I'm not saying it's right and would hope that the situation is corrected no matter how or why it arose.
Call the health department in your town and let them know what you found and how the store responded to your complaint. In the US, that would bring action against the store quickly, since this is clearly a public health issue.
Health department should be call #1. If you have something like our Better Business Bureau, they should be call #2. If the employees find the need to go elsewhere, that's bad....
I hope you have an alternative place to shop???
Yep! For the little things we forgot (ummm cat food) I went to the same franchise of store two suburbs over. This new store has a wider range than the old store and is laid out better etc etc. Definitely finding more GF products there so I'm happy enough for the inconvenience of going that bit further to do the grocery shopping..
I'd definitely report the store in question to whatever health service would oversee grocery stores. It's amazing no one has gotten seriously ill....
Yes, cannot mold grow quickly in out of date food and cause deathly reactions to anyone with a slight mold allergy when they ingest it? Good for you for taking a stand and reporting this issue!!
I wouldn't go back there either and I'd report them to the proper authorities. They have no excuse for what they are doing (and not doing).
We investigated today and discovered that the terms "Use By" and "Best Before" have two different legal meanings here in Australia.
Apparently as the dates are listed as "Best Before" they are legally allowed to sell them after that date.
However given the attitude of the Manager and the previously discovered faulty freezer unit, we still will not be shopping there ever again.
There is absolutely NO WAY he couldn't not do anything. He could have pulled the OOD food immediately. I cannot believe that the health department doesn't already know about this situation. In all of our stores (and I bet yours too) ALL the freezers are required to have a thermometer in plain sight, and the freezers MUST ALL read 0 degrees F at all times.
If this is his attitude regarding frozen food, who's to say that store isn't bleaching their meat and putting OOD meat back as fresh? We had a store that was doing that for about two weeks in the last place we lived. It took two weeks for the health department to catch them without a complaint. (Probably because like me, everyone thought their meat was awful, and didn't buy it, LOL.)
All that being said, I agree with everyone else. I got all my job training in Florida, where the state motto was at one time, literally: Service First. Florida's idiots in charge did understand that Florida was a service industry heavy state. Now that we live in Massachusetts, I am appalled at how people are treated by the government and other large organizations. There are a few exceptions (the law library librarians, for example, and the West Springfield PL librarians, where the large print books are in front and everyone will drop whatever they are doing to help you) but the majority of the people around here don't want to be bothered by their customers, they have work to do. I actually worked for a lawyer who said that once. I didn't stay. LOL
Anyway, I know about going out of your way to shop. I have to do that too! We have one particular branch of a grocery chain literally one mile from us, but we drive about eight miles one way to get to the other one. For these very reasons.
We used to have two local grocery stores. One of them was touted by locals for their wonderful meat. I went there once. The cases were the type that are angled and have channels. This lets fluids run down and out the front. You are supposed to have one type of meat per channel. They had the raw hamburger ABOVE the cooked ham, in the same channel, so the blood from the burger was running down into the lunchmeat. In 14 years, I have never shopped there again. I have been told they cleaned up the store and that doesn't happen anymore, but that kind of disregard for food safety just gags me.
I have a large chain grocery store less than a mile from my house. I hate going there because it is always seems dirty to me. They are always reorganizing it. The staff is very nice and always helpful, but a lot of the other shoppers don't make me feel safe either. I go out of my way to another grocery store about seven miles from our house for everything but meat. We've taken to going to the meat market 10 miles the other direction - cheaper than either of the grocery stores and tons better. Sometimes going out of your way to grocery shop is the way to go.
The first thing that comes to mind is that the manager was already doing a bad job of not having these use-by dates checked. At each and every supermarket where I go I can regularly see staff working their way through the merchandise for that precise reason. Controlling authorities are constantly on their backs for that.
I suppose the bad reaction from this manager came directly down from his lack of controlling the dates or having them controlled. I suppose he's got a higher-up in his back who doesn't want to spend money on staff or even the danger of having to take back too many unused products, which then would generate more costs. This 'Best Before' certainly does have a time limit after the date. Normally you can easily use most frozen products for a month after the use-by date without danger.
But since this is a shop where freezers are so broken that they thaw and re-freeze foods I would also rather go further for my shopping!
As a consequence I'd still inform your health department - more than eight months is not just neglecting, it's more like criminal!
It's hard for me to answer this question because the external customers I deal with are 60-90 days delinquent on your loan. I am not rude, but at that point you can threaten me with anything you want. You signed the loan agreement and you are seriously late...end of story. Now if you try to make your payment and find yourself out of job and call me and work it out...then I will bend over backwards to hel you.
As for my internal customers I go above and beyond to help even staying if I need to. It's just who I am.
As for food though - I won't use it if it's past the sell by date - no if ands or buts
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