So my Comm book is telling me that: “A guarentee of satisfaction can increase a product’s value in the mind of consumers . . .” This is in reference to a new brand of cerial.
I don’t get this at all; everything has “If you are not satifyed with this product, return blab blab blab for refund, etc” But who really returns chocolate bars and cerial if they are unhappy with the product? A choclate bar costs at most 1.50, and while cerial costs more, it’s not really worth the hassle to mail a box of cerial to someone for a refund.
The questions:
**Has anyone here returned a box of cerial/chocolate bar for a refund because you weren’t satifyed with it?
**
What on earth is a company going to do if it gets a letter in the mail saying “I didn’t like my coffee crisp, give me my loonie back.”? I would think that they would just ignore the letter, but if that is all they are going to do, why have the guarentee on the package.
Mmm, as long as I’m thinking about Coffee Crisp, is it still in Canada only? (I remember someone a while ago telling me that coffee crisp was only in Canada, but I’ve never thought to ask about it).
and yes, we have called the company when we had a problem with their chocolate bars. I think it was Smarties, they tasted off so we called the company. They sent us a few dollars worth of coupons to buy chocolate bars. There was something else Mom had a problem with that she complained about, I forget which company, but they also sent us coupons.
My parents recently returned a bag of M&Ms that didn’t taste or smell right. They called the freecall number on the bag, the company mailed them out a postage paid reply envelope and some vouchers, so all they had to do was drop the parcel in the mailbox. Not difficult or expensive to return, and they were mostly concerned that there might be other contaminated bags out there that no one knew about.
I once returned a package of snacks that said “If you are not satisfied with this product for any reason, simply return the unused portion to…”
I included an explanatory letter from Mr. Hagbard Celine explaining that the salt came off on my fingers and stung my pee-pee. I received a “thank you for your interest in our product…” form letter and several vouchers in the mail about a month later, and a little junk mail for “Hagbard Celine” periodically after that.
50 years ago when consumerism was just getting started, I’d agree that a company could improve their brand’s perceived value by offering a guarantee of some sort.
Nowadays, those are taken for granted.
So perhaps a better way for your book to say it is: “When all your well-known competitors have some guarantee, not having one yourself will look pretty suspicious to potential customers. And folks don’t try products they’re suspicious about”.
When I was a kid, I returned a chocolate bar in which I had found half a small pink caterpillar (I had eaten the other half) to Nestlé, and got a huge box of chocolates in return.
So a few years later, in hopeful anticipation of the delights I’d receive in return for my complaint, I returned an empty Mars Bar wrapper that I’d found in a bag of ‘fun size’ candies, with a note that said “I don’t call this fun”. I got a postal order for 85p. Serves me right for being a precocious prick.
But this week I returned a cheap-ass €4 umbrella that broke the first time I opened it.
Well, I once wrote to Bigelows about empty packets in the box of tea, about 25% of them were sealed with no bags of tea inside =( and included all the unopened mepty and lonely packets.
They sent me the spiffy wooden box of all their teas, and an apology. About 10 times the amount of tea in on of the grocery store single flavor boxes :eek: I was expecting a coupon for a free box.
But then again, my letter was very friendly and I just pointed out that this batch had fill problems and they might have more complaints, so they should possibly check the machines=) I still buy Bigelow’s teas, other than absolutely fresh loose tea, the packets keep the tea bags very fresh=)
I once sent off a complaint to kraft that their block cheese sold in the ziplock resealable pack wasn’t all that resealable. ( it is actually but it’s more trouble than it’s worth. It’s way easier to find another container to put it in.) Because the package was too small to make the seals close properly.
The convenience store next to my house sells Coffee Crisp.
And not at the astronomical markup you’d expect from something which was probably imported from Canada. Not sure what that’s all about.
I once wrote an email to Uncle Ben’s complaining about a change they had made to their frozen dinners. So they sent me coupons for free frozen dinners. Which didn’t help me because I still didn’t like the dinners after the changes they made, so why would I want to eat more of them? :rolleyes:
Yeah, Safeway has been pimping their new “Rancher’s Reserve” line of meat with “Money-back guarantee, and we’ll replace your cut of meat if you’re not satisfied!” What, I’m supposed to bring some gristly, half-eaten hunk of meat back to the store so you can give me another? Thanks, but it’s easier to start buying my meat at Albertsons or something.
(For the record, every piece of “Rancher’s Reserve” meat I’ve gotten at Safeway has been decidedly sub-par to whatever meat they had before.)
About 4 or 5 tims, I’ve called the toll free number on various packages when the product was less than fresh. Each time I was sent a coupon for a free product.
I have never brought anything back to a food store, or complained that I didn’t prefer the the taste.
Most mfgrs are better prepared to handle complaints via phone.
For various products, I’ve found a great success rate by calling. In about half a dozen cases where I called because a toy or accessory didn’t work, they just sent out a new part or item, and never even wanted the old one.
My mom sent an e-mail to a company to tell them that the package of “lightly salted” potato chips were in fact salted to the point of being disgusting. They were gritty and tasted like pure salt. She got coupons back, I think.
I returned a yogurt once which had mold in it. Normally, I’d just have thrown it away and purchased another but I was supposed to be eating it 5 minutes after buying it.
When Purina changed their dog food (abruptly - there were no announcements or commercials or anything - it just showed up on the store shelf), Dog2U wouldn’t eat it. I called the Purina people and they mailed my dog (yes, the FedEx label was addressed to her) a bag of the old mix so that we could wean her off it and get her used to the new stuff.
Maybe I really ought to write to RCA. I bought a 12 pack of vhs tapes from them, and they screwed up the box design, making it so tight that the only way to get all but two of the tapes out of their boxes was to rip the box open, and boxless tapes aren’t really a good idea. I wonder if they could be talked into sending empty replacement boxes… If I do write to them, suppose I ought to send them one of the boxes as an example of the problem?
After one of the new candybars came out onto the market (can’t recall which one), my mom called Hershey’s to tell them she really liked the candybar. (I believe on the package, it said to call with comments.) Hershey’s sent her lots and lots of coupons for the free candybar.
Is that the stuff that’s supposed to be ‘free range’ and ‘from Australia’? I’ve bought it a few times at the ShopRite around here, and it’s been pretty tasty. I’m curious as to what the USDA grade is (choice or select), but it only says ‘USDA approved’…
Serves me right for being a precocious prick.