COME ON, COUPON!

Ever wondered what a rainbow tastes like?

No, I am not talking about a packet of skittles… or a literal rainbow.

A few months ago, we were in the supermarket, when we came across a new flavor of ice cream.

Is this what a rainbow tastes like?

The ice cream was called “Krazy Kolors”,  my question was, what exactly did Krazy Kolors taste like? Was it plain vanilla but just multicoloured? Did  it taste like a rainbow? Was there a leprechaun on the marketing team/ quality assurance team, who tasted the ice cream and shouted “This tastes just the the rainbows my mamma used to make!”?   I refused to purchase this ice cream before I knew what it was. Call me crazy, but I think there are a lot of better ice cream flavours out there than just plain vanilla, even if it is multi-coloured. So as I do, I decided to investigate this further.

Pictures were taken of the packaging, whilst in store to gain the contact details of the company and any other relevant information required.

What flavours make up a rainbow?

So it turns out that, this ice cream is made by a company called Golden North. If interested you can check out their website at http://www.goldennorth.com.au/Products_TakeHome.htm

So I sent them out the following email:

A few days later, I received an email from Trevor Pomery, the Sales and Marketing Manager at Golden North.It was unclear whether he was the leprechaun hired to make rainbow flavored ice creme.

Jessica

Thank you for your email regarding Krazy Kolors.

The product is flavoured and not just a vanilla.

It is an English Toffee flavour.

This particular flavour is very appealing to kids, who are the main target market for this product.

I can tell you that it is selling very well in Woolworths so must be liked by those that have tried it.

Regards

Trevor Pomery

This was considered a come on coupon

I was able to determine the flavour of the ice creme, however unfortunately there were no coupons offered to try the ice cream.

I still haven’t tried the flavour, but please let me know if you have and whether it is worth buying.

Have you ever tried something with an obscure flavour? What do you think a rainbow tastes like?

“What are you making for afternoon tea tomorrow?” This was the sentence that promoted my quick dash to the supermarket. As it turns out, I was rostered to bring afternoon tea to work last week, and of course, I had forgotten all about.  My team loves afternoon tea, and if you forget to bring it, we all act as if it is the end of the world. So to save my team from the dooming apocalypse of not eating afternoon tea, I decided the Coles Supermarket was where I would find salvation in the products known as cookies.

Homebrand yet delicious!

Loving a good bargain, if it is on sale I have the need to buy it. It was just my luck that cookies were on sale! I was only buying afternoon tea for my team; it was not as if I have serving tea to the Queen of England. The cookies were the Homebrand Freshly Baked in-store Chocolate Chip Cookies. Yup, they were on sale and Homebrand! Like I said, not the Queen of England. There was the large display indicating that the cookies were $2 a box. So I bought two boxes of cookies and returned home.       Later that night, for some unknown reason I was looking over the supermarket receipt.

$3.49 I think not!

As it turns out, the supermarket had charged me $3.49 a packet instead of $2. I instantly decided to brave the cold and windy night, to return to the supermarket for a refund. At the supermarket, I was served by a lady named Mandy who checked the price of the product. Of course it was still not scanning at $2, so she goes off to check the price on the display. When she returns, she enters the correct details into the computer and hands me $5.

According to the The Australian National Retailers Association:

Code of Practice For Computerised Checkout Systems In Supermarkets 2004

The Item Free Policy If the price displayed at the checkout or on the customer receipt is higher than the shelf price, the customer is entitled to receive that item free of charge. The Shelf Price is the price of an individual item that appears on a shelf label or shelf price label.

The Multiple Purchases Policy Where multiple items bearing identical bar codes, or the same PLU number, are scanned and the scanned price is higher than the shelf price, the customer is entitled to receive the first item scanned free of charge and the remaining items at the lower price (that is, the shelf price).

So the first box of cookies was therefore free and the second box was $2. As there was a free product involved, this was considered a

Just to make the story a little more interesting. I placed the cookies into the car, and went back into the store to take a photo of the display indicating the price of the cookies. Turns out, in the time it had taken me to get to my car and back, Mandy had called what appeared to be her manager and they were standing in front of the cookies.  Although I was unable to hear the specific details of their conversation, they appeared to be discussing the price of the cookies.  All of a sudden, the manager starts to pull out the sign indicating the $2 price.

The sign has been pulled out 95% of the way. (Apologies for the photo quality. I was trying to subtly take it. )

I guess no one else was getting $2 cookies that day. I am unsure what became of  the remaining $2 cookies at the store. But I do know, that they were delicious!

C is for cookie

My boyfriend and I went to Subway about two weeks ago for breakfast. Subway isn’t our usual breakfast choice, however we thought we would try something different, we both ordered the Mega Sandwich. Just for your information, according to Subway the Mega Sandwich should look like this:

The breakfast was not as good as I thought it was going to be. There were two reasons for this: the bacon tasted and appeared undercooked (I like my bacon hot and crispy) and the sausage was cold in places.  Should I have thought about it at the time, I would have taken a photo to illustrate the food. So I attempted to write to subway via subway.com.au, and after a long search discovered that all correspondence to customer service go through one main website subway.com.

Here is the email I sent on the 7th of June:

One day later on the 8th of June (which I am very impressed about), I received a phone call from Nick at Subway. Nick reported that it was his Subway store, and that the store had recently acquired new toaster ovens which both toast and cook at the same time. Nick reported that the reason the meat may have been cold in parts was that their ovens were new and maybe they needed to review the amount of time they needed to cook their food for. Nick apologized that I was unsatisfied with my meal.  He requested that next time I attended Subway, I ask for Nick or Corina and that they would provide me with a free breakfast which they hoped would be more to my liking.

As far as I am concerned, this is a comeon coupon success!

So we are planning to visit Subway next weekend for breakfast. I will update you on the outcome of out free meal.

Can you remember a time in your life, where you purchased that meal, at that restaurant and it was nothing like you thought it would be? Although it sounded delicious on the menu, when the food arrived at your table, the meat was overcooked/undercooked and the meal was cold. You looked disappointingly across the table at your date, who told you not to worry about it. You hear the voice of your grandmother in the back of your head “If you complain in a restaurant and send something back, they will spit in your food”.  Therefore, you sit there in silence, don’t say anything, and eat the part of your meal which is edible. When the waiter later asks you how your meal was, you tell him that it was “ok” but the chicken was not great. He apologizes and hands you the bill for your meal, and you have paid full price for something that was disappointing. You never return to the restaurant, forever plagued by the thought of that disappointing meal.

What would happen if you had the courage to complain about the food?

Granted, at times when you complain, you get nothing in return. The restaurant thanks you for your feedback and that’s the end of the story. On the other hand, sometimes “complaining” or as I prefer to call it “providing feedback” can work in your favour. Imagine providing feedback for the above mentioned meal, and having the restaurant partially (or if you are lucky fully compensate) you for your meal or being invited back to the restaurant for a fully compensated meal. Believe it or not, these things happen… unfortunately they only happen when you say something.

I have been providing written and verbal feedback to companies for a number of years now. I don’t go out of my way to find something to complain about, but I must admit when I receive a meal or product which is not satisfactory or as advertised, my heart begins to race a little, thinking about the possibilities.  There are times when I receive free products in the mail, but occasionally I will get a voucher or coupon for a free meal or product… hence the site name comeon coupon!

And just to top it all off… after complaining to my brother that I did not know how to setup a blog, he made for comeon coupon for free.