Shaw’s’s Hidden Policy

Just when you thought that Staples was the only bad company (actually I have discussed others here), I now introduce Shaw’s to the bad company crowd.

For those of you who don’t know what Shaw’s is, it is a grocery store chain located in the New England/New York area. Up to a few months ago, the chain was owned by the Supervalu chain of stores, but now is independent. Apparently independence has not done the chain well as I describe here.

A couple of weeks ago, I was in the local Shaw’s store where I was purchasing 8 dental products, which each of them had a 55 cent off coupon on the package. After I scanned all the items at the self-serve register, I started scanning my coupons from the packages. Everything was fine for the first 4 items so I continued scanning the remaining coupons.

After I finished scanning all 8 coupons, it required management approval for some reason. So when the woman supervisor scanned her employee card, I noticed that the register only doubled the value of the first 4 coupons and not the last 4.

The woman supervisor told me that it was policy that there was a limit of 4 coupons to be doubled. When I asked where it was stated, she either did not hear me or ignored my question. As she started taking the items off the receipt to void the transaction, the other coupons started doubling themselves over the limit of the 4.

Being irritated over the whole thing, the woman supervisor told me to go to a “regular checkout with my items” and she threw my coupons back at me as if I was to be blamed for the system not to work the way it should.

So off I went to the regular checkout grudgingly. I decided to checkout as 2 transactions my 8 products to eliminate any possible problem. The first transaction went fine, however the second one stopped me in my tracks as my credit card was not accepted because the same amount was in 2 consecutive transactions. I have used my card many times at other places with same amount consecutive transactions with absolutely no problem whatsoever. This is apparently a Shaw’s’s problem and not a credit card issue. After a couple of minutes, the transaction did go through but this embarrassment could have been avoided if the registers were programmed correctly. To insult to injury to all this was that the cashier was sort of rude to me while doing my transaction. This is true of many of the cashiers who work at Shaw’s being rude. This is why I use self-serve registers and recommend anybody with any intelligence to use self-serve when available.

Overall, I was very dissatisfied with my experience this particular day. I filled out a survey on their website expressing my displeasure with how things went. Thankfully, unlike Best Buy, I never received an email asking me to respond to them with either a phone call or an email. Apparently Shaw’s does respect the privacy of their customers unlike companies like Best Buy and Staples.

What is the takeaway from all of this?

First, the woman supervisor was extremely rude to me unjustifiably. She tried to create policy where no existed. Nowhere is there a coupon limit posted in store or located (easily) on their website. Therefore, the policy really does not exist.

I saw this type of event happen many times over the years at Staples. However, unlike Shaw’s, the supervisor was NEVER rude to the customer despite sometimes not satisfying the customer. As far as I am concerned, this woman supervisor should be terminated. Shaw’s is no position anymore to lose customers or have people like me making postings like this explaining how bad the customer is treated.

Shaw’s like Staples is desperate to keep customers, but creating hidden policies that don’t exist is no way to retain customers. Hopefully, Shaw’s unlike Staples will correct their problems and unhide their policies and post them where all can see them.

This is a lesson that both companies could learn from.