My supermarket is not the sort of sprawling behemoth implied by the term “chain store”, but it does have several different locations. The particular location where I work has a mismatch between what our circulars say and what our computer system actually does.
For example: this week, there is a two-for-one sale on a certain brand of ice cream. What the circular says: buy one get one free, and you have to buy two. What our system actually does: each item rings up as half off, so you can buy only one and still get the sale.
Today, I have a customer who is buying two tubs of the ice cream that’s on sale. He also has a coupon for a free tub of ice cream, or $5.99, whichever amount is lower. His order is small — only one other item besides those tubs. I ring it all up and follow the usual procedure with this kind of coupon, which involves grabbing a pen to write down the amount it takes off. I read the price aloud to myself in preparation for writing it down.
That’s where the trouble starts.
Customer: “No. No, that’s not right. It’s supposed to be $5.99.”
Me: “Your ice creams rang up as $3.49. It’s giving you one of them for free.”
Customer: “It’s supposed to take off $5.99.”
Me: “Well, they’re $3—”
Customer: “No. The circular says, ‘Buy one, get one free.'”
Me: “That means they’re both half off.”
Customer: “Get me your manager.”
Way ahead of you, sir. Being yelled at freaks me out, so I am only too happy to pass him on to one of my direct supervisors, the bookkeepers. A bookkeeper comes down, rings up the coupon, sees that it took off $3.49, looks at the circular, and says exactly the same things I did.
Customer: “Get the store manager.”
The bookkeeper gets on the intercom and calls the store manager to my register. The bookkeepers all started as cashiers and occasionally come down to work a register if it’s busy. The store managers, as far as I know, have no such history, or if they do, it’s years in the past. When the store manager comes down, it takes him an extra long time just to figure out what is happening. He has to look at the circular, look at the coupon, discuss things with the bookkeeper, etc. He is confused because there is no sign that anything is wrong.
Customer: “It’s supposed to take off $5.99. See, right there.”
Manager: “Yeah, I see it. ‘Up to $5.99.’ Well, the ice cream is ringing up $3.49, and it’s taking off $3.49, so you’re getting one for free.”
Customer: “No. The circular says, ‘Buy one, get one free.'”
Bookkeeper: “That means they’re half off.”
Manager: “Two for $6.98, it says. That’s $3.49 each.”
Customer: “It says, ‘Buy one get one free.'”
Me: *To the manager, who still looks confused* “I think he was expecting one ice cream to ring up at its full price of $6.99, the second one to ring up free because of our sale, and then the coupon to take $5.99 off the first one, so he would get two tubs of ice cream for a dollar.”
The exchange goes on a little while longer. It’s just repetitions of the same. When it becomes clear that the manager is not going to alter our computer system on the spot, the angry guy demands that his entire order be canceled. We return his coupon, he leaves, and the bookkeeper returns the ice cream to the freezers. The manager begins to walk away from my register.
Me: “Hey, [Manager]? What’s up with the circulars? They’re not right. It says that the customers have to buy two, but they don’t. If I ring up a single one, it’s still half off.”
The manager gives the circular another glance.
Manager: “Yeah, the circulars are written for the new system we’re getting soon.”
This would be the new system we’ve been hearing about for six months. That’s approximately when the circulars started saying, “Must buy two,” which implies that at least one location has had this new system in place for months. Why is it taking so long to go around to ten or fewer stores to perform this upgrade?
More importantly, how many more customers like this guy am I going to see before it happens?
