Dollarama: The Problem of Policy Consistency Between Locations

It was a dollar store. That’s right a dollar.  This whole post is over $1.

My kids were buying stocking stuffers and decided to add a jar of jam for their grandmother.   I told the clerk to put the breakables in one bag — there were also some drinking glasses — and to make sure everything was wrapped in tissue that was made of glass.

It turned out she didn’t.   My younger son went to lay one of the bags on the floor while I paid, with a bit more velocity than he should have, and the jam jar broke.   The rest of the things in that bag were unbreakable and he never expected the jam jars were in there because I had told the woman to put the breakables in one bag.

It turned out that in this store items are bagged according to tax rate. Food items, taxed differently are all put in one bag.    Breakable and unbreakable.   A policy from which they do not waver.  And they don’t wrap food items, even if kids are helping carry the bags.   As for the broken jam jar, they said if we wanted another one we would have to buy it, and before I could stop him, my oldest son ran and got another and handed over some money he had in his pocket.

An ugly store with some pretty ugly policies.   But again, it was only $1.

But I couldn’t get that ugly experience out of my mind, and a few weeks later, while having to make an emergency purchase at another store from the same chain, I was told that (a) there is no policy on sorting items for bagging; breakables should all be wrapped in tissue paper and put in the same bag, and (b) if a customer, even out of their own negligence, drops a package and something breaks, they will replace it, whether it happens in the store, the mall itself, or the parking lot.   What a refreshing difference.

That astounded me.   Same chain.   Two entirely different policies.   Two entirely different approaches to customer services.   Since this store was only about 16km (8 miles) away from the other, I asked for the phone number of an area or district manager.   He never once returned the calls.

The thing is, I was a very regular customer of the local Dollarama store.  They lost me.  It’s been four years, and I still have the receipt for the replacement jar in my wallet as a reminder to never go back.    But worse, I think they ripped off my older son.   And nobody takes advantage of my kids and gets away with it.

So I tell this story to everyone I can.    Because that’s what angry customers do.

And stores like Dollarama will never catch on to that.

If you’re from Dollarama and you’re reading this, you owe my oldest son a dollar.

Our Valentine’s Day Quick Lunch: How to Ruin A Perfect Day

It wasn’t our official anniversary / Valentine’s Day meal, it was just lunch. But our lunch experience at a local downtown coffee shop probably ranks in our top five worst food service experiences, anywhere at any time. Maybe the top three.

My wife ordered a grilled ham and cheese sandwich on multigrain bread. I ordered the egg salad sandwich on multigrain. Across the road at our usual place, each sandwich is a two-to-three minute prospect.

Ten minutes later, we were informed that they were out of multigrain bread. I said that whole wheat would be no problem. Five minutes later, my wife was told they were out of ham. She was not impressed. “Just give me a cheese sandwich,” she said, to my surprise.

I figured they’d bring a muffin or something like that to make it up to her, since they had already taken our money. Her only other option, barring ordering the same as I did, was tuna, and she didn’t want tuna.

Another five minutes and this bulletin came in: They had found another loaf of multigrain bread. Praise be! But that meant that nothing had been started. The egg salad sandwich that finally emerged from the prep area was delivered to a guy at the back who had been there before we arrived. There were numerous people drifting in and out from the back area and wandering behind the counter. [Note to health inspector: And also a dog.]

Later, we commented that it was like a bad Monty Python or Fawlty Towers skit; but only funny when it’s happening to someone else. It was nearly a full thirty minutes before our sandwiches appeared at our table. No apology. No offer of something else to make it up. There were two pathetic carrot cake mini-muffins; I think they were just something special they were doing for Valentine’s Day. My wife found hers inedible.

To the staff people who served us, I really think the whole thing was a big joke. At one point, I said out loud, “This is really, really bad.” I don’t think they thought so. I doubt any of them have ever eaten out anywhere in their lives. They had our money at that point, and they didn’t give a damn what happened to us after that.

There ought to be a law requiring food service people to be licensed. They would have to undergo training before they could pretend to be in a “service” industry. There is absolutely no way that this establishment is going to do any good to an area desperately trying to increase its tourist volume and tourist revenues. It’s going to have a negative impact instead.

They say that people who have a really positive experience tell two or three friends, but people who have a really negative experience will tell ten. Well, only five minutes later, in another shop, I already had a willing listener to my “Don’t go to ******” tale of woe. Nine more to go.