When does a $14.99 case of beer cost you $16.99?
When the cash register says so and you’re not paying attention.
At Market Basket last week, I saw a chap sling two cases of beer onto the conveyor belt. When each case rang up at $16.99, the attentive customer protested that they were marked at $14.99 on the shelf.
The cashier activated a light to summon a manager. The checkout process stalled as customer and cashier waited for a manager. After a minute, the cashier sent her bagger to check the price in person.
The bagger returned, saying the price was $16.99 each.
As the customer scowled, the manager arrived. He could not leave the area, so the cashier asked him to wait while she scurried to the beer section.
Yup, the customer was right. The sign said $14.99 apiece.
The manager used his authority to adjust the charged amount. The customer left satisfied. Because the cashier and manager had righted the wrong.
How different this might have played out if the customer had not looked at the price he was charged until he got home, or if he never looked.
Even diligent shoppers occasionally overpay. I checked out in a hurry at Rite Aid last week and did not check the receipt until I got home.
It showed I had been charged $9.99 for an item supposedly on sale for $5.99; I could have swallowed the loss (which many a shopper would never have noticed), but I also had been stymied at checkout when a $2.25 coupon had not scanned.
The cashier had told me the vitamin coupon must be for pills only, whereas I was purchasing a liquid form. I pointed out this was a store coupon, so the store should honor it, especially since nothing in the coupon specified the vitamin’s form. But the cashier did not budge, and I bought the vitamin bottle without a discount.
The next day I returned to Rite Aid with my receipt. A smart shopper gives a store a chance to make good on its mistakes.
I asked to speak to a manager. Thus entered Cara, who heard me out as I explained in a calm, polite, and soft-spoken manner (or as soft-spoken as a native New Yorker can get) the overcharge and the coupon failure.
Cara knew at once that the $9.99 item was on sale for $5.99 – that’s a good manager, one who knows the prices in her head.
After examining the coupon, she agreed it should have been applied. When she tried to scan the coupon, it again was rejected, but she was able to override the rejection and enter it by hand.
To make good on the transaction, Cara had to treat it as if I were returning the items, then she would re-sell them to me at the correct price, and with the coupon applied. It helped that I had brought my store card and the items in question, because everything had to be scanned again.
Complicating matters was that the original checkout prices had been reduced by a pro-rated amount because I had used a $6 off coupon for having bought $30 worth of merchandise.
Eventually she determined the return phase came to $17.99 and put $18 on the counter, not wanting to count out all that change.
Cara was so on top of everything that she pointed out the vitamin was part of a Buy One, Get One Free deal, and since – she didn’t even have to check the shelves – the one I bought was the last one in the store, she reduced it to half-price.
Then Cara did the re-purchase phase, which came to $9.68 for the two items. She took a $10 bill from the $18 on the counter, and put down 32 cents in change. There on the counter was $8.32 for me, all because I had given the store a chance to make right, and because Cara is such a good manager.
I returned a penny to avoid being overpaid and left with $8.31 that I otherwise wouldn’t have if I had just swallowed (or never noticed) my loss.
A customer who has a negative experience at a store thinks twice before returning. But thanks to Cara, everything was made right, so I will return.
Folks, before you exit any store, check your receipt.
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