You get the idea...

Not-so-Super Market   

After suffering the third case of outrageous incompetence from Tesco in under a year, I sent them a nasty email venting my frustration. Surprisingly, their Customer Service machine leapt into action and turned a catastrophe of public relations into an exceptional customer experience.

Late last October, every man (and some awesome women) in the world were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the new Call of Duty game, "Black Ops". I was no different, so I spotted that Tesco Entertainment were doing a preorder deal which was easily 20% cheaper than its nearest rivals. I put my order in, of course!

The day of the release came, and went. And so did another 5 days. I gave Tesco a call asking "WTF?".

Their policy is that I had to wait for 10 working days, two normal weeks, before they could do anything about it.

So I waited.

COD-Day + 10. It's an intensely frustrating experience watching the rest of the world levelling up while all you can do is play last-year's-game (which is mostly barren or full of kids with gender-ambiguous high-pitched voices who haven't saved up enough pocket money to buy the new game yet). I call Tesco back and they ask if I'd prefer a refund or a replacement.

It is still the best deal in town. "Replacement, please."

Another 10 working days pass. Everybody in the world is now an expert sharpshooter and ranked Major General... I give Tesco a call. This time my answer is, "a refund," on principle. Followed by some expletives.

I ended up getting the game from somewhere else paying £8 more than Tesco were charging (but not delivering). It was the single worst customer experience I'd ever had. They just didn't care. I wasn't even able to pick it up in-store for the same price (which would have sated my rage).

Fast-forward to this week. On Monday night (10th October 2011) I downloaded the Forza Motorsport 4 demo from XBox Live, all 1.3Gb of it. And I loved it. It's an absolutely brilliant game. At the end of the demo an advert is shown, saying "Launched 11th October". The better-half reminds me that that is tomorrow.

Tuesday night after work I head to ASDA and pick up a sandwich (hungry...) before heading up to the Games and DVD department. I trawl every aisle like a single, middle-aged man in a red light district looking for the best value for money. Drooling.

No Forza 4 anywhere.

I head up to the helpdesk.

"Do you have Forza 4 in stock?" I ask.

"Yes, we do."

Pregnant pause, involving lots of looking left and right waiting for more.

"...Can I have one please?"

"Uh, no," said the helpdesk monkey. "We're not allowed to sell it."

"Aren't you a shop?" I ask, astutely. "Isn't that how this works?"

"We do a stock change on Thursday nights, we'll be able to sell it after then."

I throw my sandwich down in disgust. What has the world of supermarkets got against me buying Xbox360 games??!

"I'll get it somewhere else then."

And storm out. In a cloud of red mist.

The next day at work I check the release dates, it turns out I owe the helpdesk monkey an apology: North America gets the game on the 11th, but Europe and the UK has to wait until Friday 14th. Come on, Microsoft! You could have easily set the European downloads to show the European date!! It's the 21st century for Pete's sake...

Friday 14th arrives (yesterday, if you're keeping count) and during my lunchbreak I see both ASDA and Tesco advertising the game on their websites. Fortunately, there are both supermarkets within reasonable driving distance from work. Tesco wants £37.90, compared to ASDA's £34.97. But I'm happy to forego the £2.93p if it means not meeting the helpdesk monkey helpful chappie at ASDA again. It's worth not saving the cash to save face.

After work I head to Tesco on my way home, restrain the skip in my step as I head up to the Games section, and then my heart explodes. The price on the shelf is £44.99.

Angrily, I pick up the box and head to the Tesco helpdesk monkey. I slap it down on the desk and feel entirely stupid asking, "do you price match your own website?"

"No. Tesco Entertainment, Tesco Direct and Tesco are all different organisations."

Really? Let's test that theory.

If I go to http://www.tesco.com, click on "Music Films & Games" and then scroll to the bottom of that page I can see Forza 4 for £37.90. There's no indication (except for the background switching to dark blue) that I'm being redirected to a third party website.

There is literally NO WAY of finding out the shelf-price of Forza 4 in your local Tesco shop. That is completely unfair.

I used some more of my extensive expletive vocabulary, and left.

When I got home I was seething because I'd been let down by Tesco again, I don't care if the first two times were by "Tesco Entertainment", it's the same f***ing company, OK?! I fired up a browser and wrote a snotty email to their customer services department. I wish I'd kept a copy but I didn't, however, I complained that it was impossible to find the shelf-price of Forza 4 on their website, and that the extra journey to Tesco, only to be disappointed was an unnecessary cost that could have been avoided.

I also may have slipped the words "incompetent" and "pathetic" in there too.

Within half an hour I received a voicemail (my phone battery had died) saying that I would get a call the following day to resolve my customer service issues.

I immediately went to ASDA and bought Forza 4, which is an amazingly brilliant game, for £39.97.

Saturday morning, 9.30am, I was awoken by my phone.

Blearily, I answered, it was Tesco Customer Services. They apologised profusely for "all the hassle" I'd had (I assume this includes the first two undelivered Black Ops games from last year, because I included information about this debacle in my email, although it wasn't explicitly mentioned).

They said they agreed completely that it was impossible to ascertain the price of the game in-store. The guy I spoke to let slip that they'd had some complaints because their newspaper advertising also showed the web price only.

I explained that I had already bought the game from ASDA and wasn't expecting to be buying anything from Tesco again in the near future.

To which the customer services rep agreed to give me a gift card paying back the difference between the web prices and the price I actually paid (even though I'd bought it from a competitor), and some money for fuel, and also some money to cover the hassle.

I wasn't expecting anything more than a polite brush-off, so this is a result in my book! Even though I'll have to go into Tesco to use it, I can always just buy the stuff I'd buy anyway. Like Pepsi Max.

Which goes to show, when it comes to customer experience, every little helps...


Update:

As of 2am GMT+1 Sunday 16th October, it is still impossible to get an in-store price for games on Tesco or ASDA's websites.