I work in a movie theater. Our digital rewards card accrues points with each purchase that you can exchange for store credit and use like a gift card. In order to use the points, you activate them on either our app or website. You can activate as much or as little as you want in $5 increments. That way, you can choose how much you want to use or save.
The system is quite popular with our regulars since they can do things like buy tickets and then later use the points to get free concessions one day. Or, they can split up their rewards points so that everyone with them saves $5. And activating the points is an easy process that only takes a few seconds; you literally just click on as many “Redeem $5 Rewards” buttons as you want based on how many points you have.
A customer comes in and has me scan his digital rewards card on his phone, and then he orders a large popcorn and a large drink.
Me: “All righty, that will be [total under $20].”
Customer: “I have $100 on my rewards card that you scanned. Use that to cover it.”
I proceed to the checkout screen, but the “Use Rewards” button is not highlighted, meaning there are no activated rewards on his card.
Me: “Hmm, that’s odd. It’s saying you don’t have any activated rewards. Did you activate the rewards on your app?”
Customer: *Immediately annoyed* “Uh, yeah. I activated them. Obviously.”
Me: “Let me go back and rescan your card and try it again.”
I cancel out the order and re-scan his card. The same result. No active rewards.
Me: “It’s still saying you don’t have any active rewards.”
Customer: “But I have $100 in rewards! I come here all the time and have been saving my rewards for over a year!”
Me: “You’re sure you activated the rewards? You do that on the app. They need to be activated in $5 increments in order to use them.”
Customer: “I told you I activated them!”
Me: “Let me look at your account.”
I do a drop-down of his account information. There are indeed $100 worth of points on his card… which have not been activated.
Me: “I’m seeing that you have $100 on your card… but it’s saying they haven’t been activated. You’re absolutely sure you activated them?”
Customer: *Shouting* “I know how the card works! Of course I activated them!”
Just to be safe, I try scanning his card one last time. Once again… there’s $100 worth of points, but it has not been activated.
Me: “Might I suggest seeing if you can activate them now? Maybe it just didn’t go through when you tried before?”
Customer: “I already activated the d*** rewards! I can’t activate them a second time! Use my g**d*** points!”
Me: *Knowing full well he didn’t activate them* “Would you like to speak to a manager? Maybe they can sort this out for you.”
Customer: *Demeaning tone* “Yeah, I’d really appreciate that!”
I gesture the customer to wait at the next register, which is empty, radio a manager, and call up the next customer. A manager arrives about thirty seconds later. They have an intense discussion. After about a minute, I overhear this.
Manager: “I can take your account number and contact our help desk. But again, I’m going to ask one more time… Are you absolutely, positively sure that you activated the rewards? They need to be activated to use them. They can be activated in $5 increments right on the app there.”
Customer: “I activated the motherf****** rewards! How many times do I have to tell you people this?!”
Manager: *Jotting down the card number from the app* “All right, if you’ll wait here, I’ll go call the help desk.”
Customer: “F****** finally! It took you idiots long enough to help me!”
My manager wanders away, chuckling to himself. The customer continues playing with his phone at the empty register. About two minutes later, I hear this.
Customer: “Wait…”
I look over.
Customer: “Hold on… but…”
His eyes go wide. He turns to me and holds up his phone. He’s reached the point activation screen. There are, as expected, twenty “Activate $5 Rewards” buttons.
Customer: *Dumbfounded* “I have to activate my points to use them?”
Me: “Yes… like my manager and I told you repeatedly. You need to activate your points to use them. You told us that you did. Repeatedly.”
Customer: *Turning red* “I… I… I didn’t know I had to activate them…”
Me: “Again, we asked you repeatedly if you activated them and explained that they needed to be activated in $5 increments.”
Customer: *Sheepishly* “Um… can I activate my points and use them?”
Me: “Sure.”
He finally activates $20 worth of rewards, uses them, and walks away with his food. I go over to the manager’s desk.
Me: “Yeah… he didn’t activate the rewards.”
Manager: *Laughing* “I knew it!”
Me: “Did you actually contact the help desk?”
Manager: “Nope. I was just gonna come back in five minutes and tell him that the help desk said that he needed to activate his points. I knew he didn’t. You could just tell from his tone that he didn’t actually understand what we were asking.”
Me: “Yup… pretty much.”
