Marks & Spencer - good service?

dodger50

Briefly, my son bought a chicken (not cheap @ e13) on Easter Saturday afternoon for use on Easter Sunday. He didn't check the date however and on arriving home he discovered it was "use by" that very day. He immediately returned to the shop to try to exchange or get something with a later date so that it could safely be cooked the following day. I didn't think this would be a problem but the manager refused to entertain him because of company policy. Once you had left the shop it was your own tough luck. I thought this was a bit unfair - this chicken should probably have been discounted anyway with only about 3 hours to go to closing. I emailed customer service and got a similar response.

"We label all our food products clearly with dates so our customers can see how long they can expect a product to last for, and whether it’s suitable for their needs.
Most of our stores also reduce any items that are going to expire at the end of the day, which should help you choose food with an appropriate date.
I am sorry the chicken had to be used by the same day, and I can understand your disappointment.
Thanks again for taking the time to get in touch.
Please be aware that this email is from a ‘no reply’ email address."

Disappointment is a bit of an understatement - the manager said they'd have to bin it if they took it back, instead the customer gets caught for e13 and has to pay the bin charges too!:mad:

Should we have been treated differently?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

May not be great service for you, but they did nothing wrong at all. Their food is always very clearly date labelled.

dodger50

Thanks Srameen, I know they didn't do anything wrong but I just feel that I would have got a more favourable hearing in either Dunnes or Tesco.
They were quite happy for the customer to be at a loss - this means I will never to darken the door of the place again. I feel the manager should have considered the goodwill aspect 0of the tranaction also.

Attol

To be fair if they allowed you to return it what would be there to stop you from buying a new one, heading home and then returning one you had bought a few days earlier? Just need to be careful with labels next time.

looksee

They have to keep food refrigerated. They don't know whether you had bought it and it had been in the car in the sun for a couple of hours. It was dated and it was in date - admittedly by only one day, but that was up to you to check.

And anyway these things do not die on the stroke of midnight. If you had removed the plastic, kept it covered in the fridge and cooked it the following day it would have been ok. While I know you have to be careful with chicken, in the 'olden days' when nothing had sell-by dates you would check it was fresh by smelling it, and if it was a little bit doubtful, wash it in a bowl of cold water with a spoonful of vinegar, then bung it in the oven. No problem.

dodger50

Thanks for your comments.
Obviously it is a case of check the label carefully because once you pay your money your chicken/goose is cooked.
The free range, corn fed, de luxe, use by midnight, expensive bird was back in the shop within 30mins of purchase by the way, so there was no question of a fast one being pulled or even the appearance of one.

Call me stubborn - M&S have lost me and my family as customers.
They may have won the battle of the chicken but they've lost the whole foul war!

mrsbyrne

dunnes or tescos would have reacted the same

amdublin

Your son didn't check the use by date which was clearly labelled.

And because of this (your sns mistake) m&s get the blame because they won't take it back and suffer the loss??? (as they could not refrigerate it after it being unrefrigerated for a half an hour).

Why did your son not cook the chicken and refrigerate for a day or two or pop it straight into the freezer and could then cook whenever he wanted.

I fail to see why you are mad for m&s not suffering €13 loss over your sons error.

amdublin

Ps. Personally I would be mad with my son for being so silly as to buy a chicken with one day left on the use by date not M&S :rolleyes:

JimsAlterEgo

amdublin wrote: »

I fail to see why you are mad for m&s not suffering €13 loss over your sons error.

M&S are now a registered charity, have you not heard.

OP, Buyer beware. Why would they take it back and not be able to sell it?

pleasant Co.

I would have expected them to exchange it, no questions asked, good customer service will earn you a lot more than losing a customer over one 13 euro chicken. Some scruples wouldn't go amiss.

mrsbyrne

Mactard wrote: »

I would have expected them to exchange it, no questions asked, good customer service will earn you a lot more than losing a customer over one 13 euro chicken. Some scruples wouldn't go amiss.

marks and spencer are famous for their customer service which is second to none and they can well afford to lose a customer of this calibre. as another poster implied they did not get were they are today by acting like a registered charity.

pleasant Co.

good grief, less of this "charity" hyperbole!

A customer of this calibre? I don't know enough about them to judge their calibre mrsbyrne

maxer68

Don't M&S have a Display until & Use By date on their poultry? Usually with 2 days between both?

dudara

TBH - I think this is being a little unfair on M&S. He really should have checked the dates before buying.

Having said that, I am a little surprised at M&S' reaction. They do provide excellent customer service - but this was a foodstuff and there was actually nothing wrong with it.

noodler

dodger50 wrote: »

They were quite happy for the customer to be at a loss - this means I will never to darken the door of the place again. .

dodger50 wrote: »

Call me stubborn - M&S have lost me and my family as customers.
They may have won the battle of the chicken but they've lost the whole foul war!

Are you really going to deny yourself M&S food for the rest of your life over this?

I mean really?

I know people want their complaints to be taken seriously but it just seems to unlikely that the number of people who threaten never to shop in 'x' shop again over a percieved injustice very rarely follow through with it.

ejmaztec

The end result in these situations depends a lot on how they're handled. If you go in "guns ablazin'", you get nowhere, and diplomacy (or crawling as it's sometimes called) is key.

Of course, we don't know how the return of the chicken went, or what the "atmosphere" was like.

If it was on it's sell-by date, shouldn't it have been reduced by M&S anyway?

dodger50

ejmaztec wrote: »

The end result in these situations depends a lot on how they're handled. If you go in "guns ablazin'", you get nowhere, and diplomacy (or crawling as it's sometimes called) is key.

Of course, we don't know how the return of the chicken went, or what the "atmosphere" was like.

If it was on it's sell-by date, shouldn't it have been reduced by M&S anyway?

ejmaztec, I can assure you my 17 year old didn't go in with guns cocked. He just asked for a newer chicken and was politely refused. Now if I was there on the other hand . . . who knows!!!!!!

To others, I'm not blaming or accusing M&S of anything as such. Of course Son should have been more vigilant, I'm not arguing that. I just expected them to be a little more flexible given that the dreaded chicken would probably have ended up in the bin a few hours later.

As for giving up M&S for good - no problem. I gave up fags after 25yrs so this will be chicken feed!

ejmaztec

dodger50 wrote: »

ejmaztec, I can assure you my 17 year old didn't go in with guns cocked. He just asked for a newer chicken and was politely refused. Now if I was there on the other hand . . . who knows!!!!!!

To others, I'm not blaming or accusing M&S of anything as such. Of course Son should have been more vigilant, I'm not arguing that. I just expected them to be a little more flexible given that the dreaded chicken would probably have ended up in the bin a few hours later.

As for giving up M&S for good - no problem. I gave up fags after 25yrs so this will be chicken feed!

Ah well, you should have carried out your maternal duties, and you would have had a brand spanking new chicken, instead of sending a boy to do a mother's job.:D

foggy_lad

mrsbyrne wrote: »

marks and spencer are famous for their customer service which is second to none and they can well afford to lose a customer of this calibre. as another poster implied they did not get were they are today by acting like a registered charity.

I on the other hand am far too posh to shop in M&S:D:D

wmpdd3

mrsbyrne wrote: »

dunnes or tescos would have reacted the same

True, once an item has been out of the cold chain for more than 20 mins, its has to be wasted. There is no 'change of mind' for fresh food, once it is bought that's it.

BUT

In Tesco, items with a display until date of that day are reduced, so they'd have a yellow reduced label.

I think anything not sold by the 'display date' is binned at 11pm that day. The only thing sold up until use by is milk and cream, it doesn't have a display until date.

java

If it was me, I would have frozen the chicken and enjoyed it another time and come up with another dinner plan.

I used to do regular mystery shopping in M&S last year (they outsource it). They really take customer service very seriously. I think they handled your case correctly.

Diddler1977

java wrote: »

If it was me, I would have frozen the chicken and enjoyed it another time and come up with another dinner plan.

.

I don't see what the issue is.

Mammy (OP) should have given out to the son for not checking the date on the chicken.

Popped it in to the freezer. Then the next day take it out of the freezer, defrosted it and then cooked it for dinner.

Methinks Mammy is not a Domestic Goddess.

BTW, M&S were completely right in this instance.