Bagging a load of nonsense

As I am fully aware of the impending doom that humanity faces by using carrier bags to transport purchased goods from your stores, I am getting rather tired of fighting for a carrier bag every lunch time when I purchase at least 10 items or more for my department’s lunch. Most companies, as mine does, requires a ‘clean desk’ policy, which unfortunately includes stockpiling carrier bags like a tramp. So I am, unfortunately, required to obtain a plastic death bag from you on a regular basis (although, we do only use 1 bag for 3 peoples lunch!)

As much as I enjoy a daily lecture about global warming from someone as qualified as a checkout girl, I don’t particularly enjoy being told that that you ‘don’t have any bags’ when I can clearly see them in view. And I also don’t appreciate being looked at like I’m using said carrier bag for drowning puppies in when I DO insist on one. I personally do not own a pair of clown pants with giant pockets capable of holding 10+ items in them and simply carrying them in my arms isn’t an option as I was only blessed with two of them.

Might I suggest a series of training exercises for your staff in the skilled art of ‘the customer is always right’ or possibly screen your staff for fundamental environmentalists before hiring them? Or possibly offer me an alternative, environmentally sound paper bag? As now, after a year of constant battles I will go elsewhere for my lunch where checkout staff understand their jobs and simply serve me.


Yours sincerely ,


Jon Keddie

Standards flushed down the pan at this store

On Tuesday 12th May I stopped off on my way to work in your Colney Hatch Lane store. It was around quarter to seven in the morning and I just wanted to grab some lunch for the day. As I have a 50 mile journey I thought I would quickly use the customer toilets.... I'm sorry to say I didn't!!

I went into the toilets and I have to say I was very shocked and disappointed with what I was confronted with. The three cubicles and hand washing area were all absolutely filthy to the point they couldn't be used. There was rubbish and toilet roll all over the place but worst of all there was excrement and blood all over the walls and toilet seats. I know the toilets cant be checked every minute of every day but to make matters worse, as I was going in through the female toilet door I passed a member of staff coming out..... (and she wasn't a cleaner!!)

As there were only two checkouts I waited at one and was going to mention it to a member of staff but then a third till was opened... By the time I had listened to the two cashiers shouting and arguing with each other across the four tills between distance them I was running late so I had to leave. They were arguing about the new till opener being too lazy to go to the warehouse to get their own carrier bags and leaving the first till with none. They were shouting to each other to shut up and stop moaning etc etc much to the embarrassment of all the customers.

Up to this point I have never had any reason to even think about complaining about any aspect of Tesco but I was truly shocked by this store..... it also made me think..... if the stores senior management are happy for the customer areas to be like this what must the staff only and food storage areas be like?

Cassandra Paton, Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.

Blood on your shelf, you big disgrace

View complaint letter and photographs sent to Tesco CEO by Ravi here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13965520/Tesco-complaint-letter

Received a very nice letter of apology on behalf of Terry Leahy.

Six weeks on following the letter, the store, Wood Green Express is still a tip, blood on the shelf, rubbish on the floor.

Ravi Vadgama.

Tesco staff give me a headache

Dear Tesco,

I have just been to your new South Road store in Dundee to do my usual weekly shop. As a sufferer of chronic headaches and recently diagnosed IBS I decided to get medication for both of these illnesses at Tesco as the local pharmacy does not open until later in the morning.

I tried to purchase paracetamol and ibuprofen for my headaches and buscopan for my IBS.

At the checkout (where three members of staff were huddled around chatting about Disney holidays) I put my messages through. WHen it came to the medication I ( and the other members of staff that were stilll chatting about holidays) were told that I couldn't purchase more than two types of painkillers.

Confused - I told the girl that there WERE only two types of 'painkillers' - paracetamol and ibuprofen. She said that the buscopan was a painkiller also. Confused, I said it was a muscle relaxant or antispasmodic.

SHe said she would have to ask her supervisor. So the box of Buscopan IBS (oh - it's clearly marked on the box) was shown to the supervisor and the members of staff who had stopped speaking about holidays. She said it was a painkiller. I said it wasn't - she should check the British National Formulary if she wasn't sure.

In the end my IBS meds were put through as a separate transaction - the mind boggles - and I suffered a lot of needless embarassment.

I am a longstanding and good customer of Tesco but this makes me want to shop somewhere else. Shouldn't your staff be taught to deal with these things a lot more sensitively? Why the hell were they allowed to hand about at the tills for so long chatting about personal things? Is there not a canteen for that kind of thing?

Thanks Tesco for making the start of my weekend so crap.

Kind regards,

Joanna Forbes
Clinical Research Nurse

Diet to disaster - Healthy tesco profits

I cannot believe how money grabbing an organisation like Tesco is. I joined their online diet service last Thursday and within an hour of looking at it had realised it didn’t offer the facilities I wanted from it. As they don’t offer a trial period like other sites you have no choice really but to pay the £30 and see what it’s like (rubbish). I immediately called customer service to make them aware of my error and to cancel the service, however they will only cancel the service from the end of the period paid up to. So I have paid a 10 week membership for something I have used for an hour.

After complaining hard, I was told that just one woman can help me – Debbie Mallerman. I emailed her to complain and it has taken exactly a week (and 4 emails) to get any response from her – which looks to be a standard response just refusing to refund.

How can they justify charging someone for a 10 week service when they cancel within an hour of signing up? It is not a lot of money but out of pure principal I am seething and have pledged to boycott Tesco completely – they will lose more than the £30 from me that’s for sure.

I know what you’re saying – its £30! But it is the principal. Tesco probably have a few thousand off me over the year and I feel that a little flexibility is appropriate in order to maintain happy customers. I run a business and would not dream of ostracising a customer in this way. If this is the way Tesco want to work then they will lose me, and I will become a permanent fixture in Sainsburys. The old saying look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves translates well to customers too. I may be just one tiny speck in the Tesco spectrum, but if they upset enough of us, they’ll start to feel the pinch!

Malina Bergeman

Tesco chickens, PR bunch and the credit crunch

Chickens, Hugh and Tesco Poo: The awfully arrogant Tesco spinner
View here: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2126270640859779693&hl=un

You may have seen the second documentary earlier this week by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on Channel Four, highlighting some of the horrifying conditions that cheaper Chickens endure before being slaughtered.

The disgusting PR arrogance from Tesco HQ at Cheshunt was enough to make customers fume at their TV sets. It's labelling is 100% accurate and all its chickens live in harmony... right?

TC has been inundated with comments about the contents of the programme. We'd like to hear more of your views - so why not post your complaints in response to the programme on this post.

Will you be buying Tesco chickens again? Or are you now buying 'free to roam' only? What do you think of Tesco's response?

Here's a selection of complaints received by TC on 31st January 2009:

Dear Sir/Madam,

As a loyal Tesco customer I was extremely dismayed to watch Channel 4's Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's documentary on your treatment of chickens. Not only was I horrified by Tesco's interpretation of the RSCPA standards, and of how far short you fell of actually adhereing to these basic guidelines; but I was angered by the treatment shown to anyone who dares to challenge your practices. I consider this treatment corporate bullying at its most powerful.This behaviour is something that has been highlighted to customers in recent times through several mediums and something which I feel strongly against. Your PR response for this show was arrogant and typical of what one has come to expect from a powerful chain like Tesco's.
As a result of your treatment of us mere mortal customers and small shareholders I have decided that I shall never shop in your store again, choosing stores that treat people with respect and social conscience instead, and I look forward to sharing my views with many others.

Yours Sincerely,
Aoife Kelleher

Gareth said...

Re : Intensive Standard Chickens

Complete corporate arrogance - well just watch Tescos.... people power will win the day and ultimately MAKE you take action because the only thing you understand is ££££££.

Im taking my £5000 p.a shopping business elsewhere and never stepping foot in a Tescos ever again.

Bye Bye.

And another complaint, also received today. Alison sent a duplicate to Sir Terry Leahy:

To Whom it may concern,

Firstly, can I ask why it is so incredibly difficult to find an e-mail address so I can write to you...There is not 1 general contact e-mail on you website.

The reason I am writing is to register my utter disgust at tescos after watching the Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's channel 4 programme about your lack of policy and disgraceful underhand tactics with regards chickens. I must spend at least £300-£400 each month at your various stores, so I am not just a do-good hippy jumping on a band-wagon. Your company makes billions of pounds profit every year, yet you seem to be happy to put basic morals and basic animal welfare below the need to make still more money.

I doubt your'e overly interested in my complaint or my concerns so I will keep it brief.....unless you change your policy and begin to act responsibly, I will no longer shop at your stores. I have written my club card details below so you can confirm this.

With this regard, even in the current economic climate, you have shamefully underestimated public opinion.

Regards

Alison Holden

RECEIVED 15TH FEBRUARY 2009

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Tesco Chicken program

After watching the highly publicised ‘Chickens, Hugh & Tesco Too’ aired on Channel 4 on the 26 January I feel compelled to write to express my disappointment and anger at the way Tesco management have dealt with the matters raised by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.

It was pleasing to see Supermarket chains such as the Co-op and Sainsbury’s respond to Hugh’s request in a timely manner as well as promote their association with the Freedom Food scheme, in which the Co-operative group was the first major retailer to support this initiative and Sainsbury’s launching the freedom food endorsed chicken range.

The programme highlighted how a shareholder of an organisation can have a say in the running of the business in which they own a portion (however small) of a company. It also highlighted the attempts that Tesco took to thwart and obstruct a shareholder in exercising their shareholding rights. As the program highlighted it seemed that Tesco ‘changed the goal posts’ to prevent a resolution being put forward at the Tesco AGM. Chicken package labelling was also highlighted and how the wording used is meaningless and fails to state explicitly how the birds are actually farmed. When queried by Hugh about having accurate labelling stating whether a chicken was reared indoors or outdoors the Tesco representative (the one who appeared on camera) stated ‘We don’t need to patronise our customers like that’. The comment caused quite an outburst at our household and clearly demonstrated a clear lack of understanding on behalf of the company. The comments and attitude displayed by the Tesco representative did not help the cause and proved to strengthen in the viewers mind that the company’s position and attitude on this issue is clearly opposing the increased consumer awareness and understanding of moral and ethical standards of chicken farming. I applaud the Coop in taking steps to introduce their new chicken labelling which is explicit in identifying the environment a chicken is raised. I also am happy to see Sainsbury’s educating the consumer and promoting the ‘Freedom Food’ range and donating a portion of sale price to the Woodland trust. Further from the 5^th of February Salisbury’s have stated in their brochure (see attached) that they will stop selling eggs from caged hens. It would appear that Sainsbury’s are promoting and advancing their freedom food range and strict standards of welfare. On the other hand it would seem, certainly based on the recent television program, that Tesco management have chosen to adopt a different direction.

The program highlighted a range of areas that Tesco management rated poorly in – they are least willing to cooperate with responding to request for interviews for products consumers buy, thwart attempts and change rules for shareholders to put forward resolutions, and, it would appear, do not fully appreciate the gravity that such a program and surrounding publicity can generate and influence a company’s public perception and good will. I do not hold shares in any food producers or companies or associated with any animal welfare organisations. I am a concerned consumer who believes in high standards of welfare for livestock that produces the food we buy. I do believe that Tesco can change the public perception and travel along the path of increasing the welfare of its chickens (through its farmers and suppliers) and chicken labelling as its competitors have or are in the process of doing.

I look forward to hearing from Tesco.

Yours sincerely

A.M.

CREDIT CRUNCH TESCO £££

Does the Credit Crunch affect whether you buy an intensive farmed Chicken or Tesco Finest? Post your response to this blog post for the public. Or even perhaps you've opted for Asda or Morrisons....? Tesco recently announced a loss of revenue due to the launch of their 'discounter' brand...