We’ve been around the track a few times since we first started wrestling with Safeway’s latest promotion, which promises personalized discounts via a computerized system that tracks prior purchases.
![[text]](http://ilind.net/images_2010/safeway.jpg)
Safeway calls it “Just for U”. We are still calling it “Not 4 U”.
When I last wrote about it, we had finally managed to get our first discounted items and were feeling like early kinks in the system were being worked out.
Then came another series of shopping trips where expected discounts didn’t ring up at the cash register and we were charged full freight instead.
We weren’t happy campers.
So I called Safeway’s “Customer Care” number and explained the situation. Meda and I both have Safeway club cards. They are registered using our home address and phone number, which, we were told, would link them together.
After a few minutes checking, Mr. Customer Care pronounced that there was a third Safeway card registered to us which is not signed up for the “Just For U” program. This must be what was causing the problem, he said, because when you enter your phone number at checkout, the system must be linking to this old card.
The problem with his theory is that we use our cards to sign in when we check out, not the telephone number.
That set him back a bit, but he bravely told me that all of our cards/accounts had now been linked and this should take care of any remaining problems.
Okay. Time passed. Two more shopping runs to Safeway. And both times we failed to get expected discounts.
Back on the phone to customer care. Didn’t our cards get linked? I thought that meant each card could access the promotional items available to the household.
A different Mr. Customer Care responded. “Yes, your cards are now linked, but you still have separate accounts.”
So?
“So you have to load the specials onto each card separately. And you have to use the Safeway card that has the discount you want loaded onto it.”
Aha. We thought, and I’m sure I was told, that proper linking of our cards/accounts meant that each card would be able to access the same specials. If not, then what does the linking accomplish?
“They’re working on it,” Mr. Customer Care said.
Now we find ourselves shopping at Safeway again just to test the system. We stopped in Kaneohe on the drive home Thursday evening.
This time…this time…we were prepared. We went for the specific discounts. Meda had the good sense to print out her personalized shopping list from Safeway.com listing out the special prices she was registered for. She had the Knudsen cottage cheese and Dannon yogurt. I had the box of small MilkBone dog biscuits (for the smaller dogs on our morning walk). All three items promising discounts.
Meda was first in line. Items were scanned. We look–no discount on either of her items. We show the clerk our printed list. He calls a manager, and a couple respond. There’s a huddle over our list. They recheck the items. Cottage cheese, right size, right brand, check. Yogurt, right size, right brand, check. No one can explain what has happened, but they manually override the system in order to refund the difference.
Meda mentions that I had blogged about “Not 4 U”. They laugh. They’re on Safeway’s front line dealing with the blowback from these problems. And it’s obvious that we’re not the only ones having problems.
I step up with my dog biscuits, and they ring up with the proper discount. Go figure.
So they invite us to walk over to the computer in the front of the store and sit down with a manager to check Meda’s account online. They’re assuming, of course, that we’ve skipped some step, ignored some instruction, or just did something wrong.
Fine. Meda logs on. Gets to her account. Displays her shopping list. There are these items, with promised discounts, prominently displayed. Just for U!
The manager looks, puzzled. Looks again. Expresses surprise. Then shrugs her shoulders. That’s it.
As far as we can tell, there’s no logging of the error, no flagging of the problem for further action.
Time to leave.
Yesterday I called Mr. Customer Care again.
It begins with that fulsome voice. “Well, let’s just take a quick look at your account.” The unstated phrase, hanging in the air, “…and see how you screwed up.”
Accounts are linked. Check.
Items are listed in the personalized discounts. Check.
Items are “grayed out”, indicating they had been “loaded” to Meda’s card and ready to use. Check.
But despite appearing to be ready to use, they didn’t show up on the Safeway side of the system.
Ah, now I’m getting it. There’s a whole separate front end system that runs the Just For U web site, displays discount offers, and then processes the ones that you select.
Then this front end system sends the results to the point-of-sale computer system accessed by each Safeway store.
In Meda’s case, that transfer apparently failed.
Mr. Customer Care has a technical assessment.
“There must have been a hiccup in the system,” he says.
Well, yes!
He says that he has manually transferred these two items so that they will ring up properly on the next purchase.
We’ll see.
I don’t find the hiccup diagnosis reassuring.
Just for U? Not yet!
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Not yet. Not ever. Safeway is the nearest market for me. Since the advent of “Not ever 4 Me,” I avoid Safeways. If you act like sheep, you will be sheared.
You have the patience of Job. I tried the “Just 4 Screw U” thang once. Didn’t like it. Once bitten, twice shy. Never again will I let this corporate torture device lure me in with their “spend an hour, save thirty eight cents” siren song.
Why in the world do you even bother, Ian???? I say, SCREW them… just like they screw us.
I prefer Sack n Save and Foodland.
I shop safeway, foodland. costco.
While at safeway I ignore da ‘Just 4 Screw U’ people, and computers there manned and womaned by the black t shirted MLM/aluminum siding salespeople trying to pull you into the bottomless pit of despair. (I am sure Edgar Allan Poe wrote a lament about them) Waste time, li’dat arready! It don’t exist as it didn’t a year ago. Mainland corporate safeway office came up with this and hired outside con-insultants. And then they have web masters/engineers who create convoluted, overly developed, overly designed web sites for this S&M experiment. and of course, the hapless employees on your aforementioned front lines are the victims of this Marquis de Sade hayride almost as much as we customers are. RUN, do not walk, aWAY not to… this debacle, now!
our food shopping tends to be a mix of Costco, Safeway, Times, and Don Quixote, and now Target
for whatever reason (I think because their HQ is in San Francisco) — the Safeway french bread is the best — italian sausages are also good
so Safeway and Costco cover our 25% european diet — and as we tend to eat 75% local or asian food — Times and Don Quixote cover that
This is another purposeful scam from Safeway. They assume for everyone like you Ian there are a dozen who will just give up and buy the product anyway and another few dozen who don’t even check their receipts- along with those who try to check but are confounded by the fact that, last time I checked, the actual price you paid does not appear on the receipt with any of their “club” promotions. The can get away with it in Hawai`i though because our consumer protection laws are almost nonexistent anything but outright fraud.
Wow, comments are on a roll for this one. Kimo only left out Howl by Allen Ginsberg or some other appropriate “beat” poetry.
Remember, just because a company (or country) is large and successful does not mean they always do everything well. Marketing is a very imprecise skill, they have simply got it wrong, I would bet the corporate bosses know that already.
“I say, SCREW them… just like they screw us.”
well, gigi. that would be impractical; I mean Ian can’t really set up a national food chain supermarket and then make Safeway join its convoluted online game similar to what Safeway has Ian go thru!
Safeway makes me HOWL like Ginsberg. makes me wanna BEAT… them over the head and tellem to hit the road like Kerouac.
Mahalo for reporting your trials. I just won’t go there.
Actually, I’m not anti-Safeway. This “Just for U” thing promises good prices. The dog biscuits I bought were almost half off their current sale price. If they deliver other items like that, I don’t mind going through some hassle.
I also shop at Safeway because it is unionized, and it’s employees aren’t ripped off like they are at some of the other large national chains. I support that, and will go to Safeway as long as they’re generally competitive.
I agree with Jonthebru–This corporation has stumbled on this promotion, or, more likely, their contractor has stumbled. They knew it needed work, thus no national roll out. We’re the test. I’m trying to help them with the test.
That’s how I see it.
What I meant was that I won’t put up with that sort of aggravation – arguing over discounts I should get. I love shopping farmers’ markets for the fresh, superior produce and where I can interact with the farmers. I’ll buy the rest where the prices are posted and I won’t have to check every item on the receipt. I don’t like or have the time to be a test subject. Life is short. I need to go and eat an heirloom tomato, instead.
The entire promotion is working exactly as intended – to make more money for Safeway. It’s no different than those rebate programs that make you jump through hoops just to get a few pennies back. As you discovered, customer care’s job is to make creative excuses to placate you long enough to try again.
Try this next time. Pay for your purchase in cash – with pennies. Give them roughly half the amount you think you owe and let THEM count it. When they realize you’re short, give them another handful and repeat. If they accept it as is, you’ve just gotten yourself a nice discount.
Yes, lets waste everyones time. Your time, the underpaid cashiers time, the time of everyone waiting behind you in line- just because you have a petty personal problem with supermarket loyalty card programs.
Don’t like it? Don’t shop there (and don’t be a baby about it. )
I erred in responding to your sarcasm in-kind. I apologize.
Let me say that you present an interesting perspective. I would encourage you to step out of the character you’ve adopted and spell out specifically where you think In went off track. That would give some substance to sustain a good discussion without the temptation to respond dismissively.
Thanks.
Unfortunately, I forgot my password and when I tried to get another password, it said my email address was already taken. A circle going nowhere.
Fortunately I could use my work email address — I plan to use it tonight so we’ll see what happens . . .
Sounds like Safeway hired the IT crew from where I used to work!
Last night, all worked out fine. (I wonder if everyone’s on board at checkout.)
I think you have to bring the printed out shopping list just in case, although you shouldn’t have to do that.
Yes, although you shouldn’t have to print out your shopping list- it is highly recommended. Because Safeway is a worldwide company and everything is computer based, some things may go wrong. There may be an error in sending the added coupon onto the right card. If phone numbers are shared with multiple cards, the discount might be added to a different card than intended.
So, print out the shopping list. It will help you to not forget what you came to the store for and it will help you with any difficulties while checking out.
Here”s my complaint: I often go shopping right from work, or whenever I get spare time. I don’t have time always to check for new specials. I don’t know how Safeway benefits from adding this online step. They were already tracking what we bought when we used our cards and issued receipt-back coupons supposedly based on that.
I do,however, like the ability to add manufacturer coupons to our cards.