Sainsbury’s customer service – a bad joke…

If I could offer you a thought for today, it would be this – don’t try to do Sainsbury’s any favours.

Putting a shopping list together, yesterday, I selected Young’s Coley fillets, 450g @ £7.87 per kg. Price £2.99. Doesn’t take a genius to spot the basic fact that it’s wrong. It should be £3.54.

And no, it’s not a special offer, as you can see from the pic.

So, in the hope of avoiding an argument at the checkout, if their computer actually has the correct price, I pointed out the error to Sainsbury’s (in the event, I didn’t go, I was too ill). All I expected in response was something along the lines of Oh, thanks – we’ll fix it (I mean, most  people are happy to have online mistakes pointed out, as long as you do so civilly). In the event I got this (the sender’s name has been removed). Email texts are in italics, to make them easier to differentiate from my comments:-

Dear Mr Graves

Thank you for your email about our website. I’m sorry that you’ve experienced problems with the pricing of Young’s Coley fillets on our website. I can understand the concern this has caused you.

I’ve spoken with our Website Development Team about this for you. They’ve asked me to request you contact us immediately to discuss this directly with them.

Please call us on 0800 328 1700 and one of my colleagues will be happy to help resolve this issue. Lines are open from 8am to 11.30pm Monday to Friday, 8am to 8.30pm on Saturday and 10am to 6.30pm on Sunday.

We appreciate you taking the time to contact us and hope to hear from you soon.

Kind regards

In response to which I sent:-

Dear Ms….,

This seems to be getting rather out of proportion – I was simply pointing out a website pricing error, and the fact that if it was actually a special offer, it didn’t say so. Either option requires a fix. There’s really nothing to discuss with your IT people on the subject – and to be honest I’m far too ill to get involved – I gave all the product information your website provides.

However, if it’s any help, this is an image of the item

(It’s the image above)

And this is the product URL http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/index.jsp?bmUID=1273054552511

It’s quite simple, 450g @ £7.87 per kg equals £3.54, not £2.99. There’s really nothing more I can add to that.

Regards,

Ron Graves.

Their response was as follows:-

From: Sainsbury’s Online [mailto:sainsburys@mailuk.custhelp.com]

Sent: 05 May 2010 11:29

To: ron…..

Subject: Update Contact Information (Reference: 100504-000328)

Your recent incident update was from an email address not associated

with the incident. In an effort to maintain the security of

information, we cannot update the incident using this email address.

If you are the incident owner and your email address has changed, or

you want to be able to update the incident using this email account,

please update your contact information using the following link, then

resubmit your update.

http://teleperformance-sains.custhelp.com/app/account/profile

I amended my email address (though that link didn’t work), and replied:-

This is getting insane – have you never heard of people having multiple email addresses? ron@…………..  is also my email address.

The link you provided doesn’t work; I can’t log in. It says my details are wrong (they are NOT), or my account has been deactivated (it hasn’t).

So I’ve been to my account on your website, and changed my email address there.

Be advised that my mobile number there is 10 random numbers. I do not give out my mobile number online. Ever.

And by the way, when someone is good enough to notify you of an error on your website, just fix the damn thing, OK? Don’t make a big deal out of it.

Regards,

Ron Graves.

And that, apart, perhaps, from an apology for being total dorks who can’t calculate, should have been the end of it. But no, I got an email identical to their last one instead. In reply to which I sent this:-

What the bloody hell is wrong with you people? I’ve already addressed this problem in my last email.

Now go away.

Ron Graves.

Is that going to be the end of the matter? Well, I’m not taking bets on it, because their customer service department appears, as is so often the case, to be staffed by retards.**

**In fact, another, identical, email arrived as I was about to publish this! While it’s very tempting to tell them to fuck off and die, it’s becoming apparent that either a) it’s at automated email (though there’s no indication that it is), or b) they’re taking the piss. Either way, there is clearly no point in engaging with these losers any further.

The moral of the story, then, should you be assailed by a sudden urge to be helpful where Sainsbury’s are concerned, resist it at all costs, because getting involved would do absolutely nothing for your equanimity. At all.

Later:- Finally dawned on me I could email Sainsbury’s by deleting their reference number from my replies, so I finally got the response I wanted – Thanks, we’ll fix it. It really shouldn’t have been so bloody hard, though.