Dominic Sayers » Service Management http://blog.dominicsayers.com Tue, 31 Aug 2010 09:12:13 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 The secret of Tesco's massive profits http://blog.dominicsayers.com/2009/04/21/the-secret-of-tescos-massive-profits/ http://blog.dominicsayers.com/2009/04/21/the-secret-of-tescos-massive-profits/#comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:02:05 +0000 Dominic http://blog.dominicsayers.com/?p=437 I took a reduced item to the till at my local Tesco this morning and they said it had been mispriced. They refused to sell it to me at the price on the yellow sticker even though it would have been straightforward to do so.

I told them this was an offence under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 (barrack room lawyer, me?), but all they did was take the item off me and try to destroy the evidence by defacing the price label with a pen. I considered summoning a constable or making a citizen’s arrest.

This then, is the secret of Tesco’s massive profits. Fraud[1]. The spirit of Lady Shirley lives on!

Footnote: I believe the reason for their refusal lies in Tesco’s IT systems. Doubtless the bar code on the yellow reduced sticker is linked to an actual stock item with a sell-by date. The system would alert management that an item had been reduced before its correct date and the employee responsible would feel the full weight of Sir Terry‘s wrath. Fearful of this, they would rather annoy their customers.

[1] I am not a lawyer. If I was I definitely wouldn’t accuse Tesco of fraud – I’d be too scared of their libel lawyers. Good job nobody reads this.

]]> http://blog.dominicsayers.com/2009/04/21/the-secret-of-tescos-massive-profits/feed/ 0 The customer is your servant http://blog.dominicsayers.com/2009/01/05/the-customer-is-your-servant/ http://blog.dominicsayers.com/2009/01/05/the-customer-is-your-servant/#comments Mon, 05 Jan 2009 16:31:01 +0000 Dominic http://blog.dominicsayers.com/?p=344 Tower Hamlets started a food waste reycling service last year. It was generally a good thing – put your food waste in a biodegradable bag and leave it for them to collect on bin day. From our point of view it meant that the regular bin in the kitchen was less smelly and moist, and also filled up a lot less quickly. A good thing all round, I would have thought.

But we ran out of the biodegradable bags, and no more were delivered. So I called Tower Hamlets to see if they would deliver some more bags for us. No. No, they won’t deliver any more bags. I have to visit a Tower Hamlets One-Stop Shop to collect some more.

Now, a One-Stop Shop is exactly what it says. It handles every sort of customer interaction that a local authority has to deal with. You arrive, and take a ticket, and sit in a waiting room to see a customer service advisor. Last time I had to go (to renew a resident’s parking permit) I waited for an hour although there were only four people ahead of me in the queue.

So I have to queue for an hour to get some more food waste recycling bags.

Yeah right.

I don’t think you’ve thought this one through have you, Tower Hamlets?

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