Coupon Hell

[EmilyRose1982]

Yesterday my company had an impromptu coupon special--a $2 medium drink. It states on the coupon that you must print it and bring it in, or show us the email on your phone. One offer per person. I, and my team, have been told this means people have to have some form of the coupon--they can't just have heard about it. And, it's one drink per coupon. This leads to the same arguments with customers every damn time.

Three teenage girls walk in, one comes to the counter.
T1: Are you guys still doing the $2 drink?
Me: Yup, if you have the coupon.
T1: Oh.... one second....

She turns to her two friends, and they speak in hushed tones for about five minutes. They come back to me and hold up one phone.

T2: Here, we have it now!
Me: Okay, sure, but we can only do one drink per coupon.
T2: *cat butt face* But it saaaaaaaaaaaaays one per peeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrsoooooon.....
Me: Right, that means ONE drink per person holding ONE coupon.

Sure, I was being a hard ass about it, but they were being little shitheads. They left in a huff.


This other confrontation had me fuming. A family of four Russian-speaking people come in. I ring them up for four drinks. The mother shoves her phone in my face.

M: I have coupon.
Me: Ok, great, but it is only good for one drink.
M: What?!?

The father, a really chill and nice guy, tells her in Russian what I can only assume to be, it's okay, don't worry about it. (They have lots of money based on their car, clothes and the dad's watch). He nods and says OK and hands me his card. But the mother isn't having any of it. They walk over to wait for their drinks, and her finger is flying on her phone. We're in the middle of a crazy rush at that point, and this woman wants to take the time to argue semantics with me.

M: *waving her phone in my face, as I'm making drinks* It says one per person!!!!
Me: Right, that means ONE drink per person with ONE coupon. (The system won't let us ring in multiple coupons)
M: I want to see the manager on duty!!!!
Me: *suppressing a grin* I AM the manager on duty.

She keeps waving her phone, but I just walk away before I give her a major piece of my fury. As I'm at the other bar, she demands my coworker give her my name. She does, and apologizes, saying that we are simply following policy. The family sat in the store for a while, the father and kids looking somewhat embarrassed of their hyper mom.

I know I was in the right, and I did the best I could given the situation, but I refused to engage in a semantics battle with someone whose first language isn't even English. That's an automatic win for me.

I wonder if corporate will hear from her about me... *shrug*

[Slayer]

Geez. Horrible lazy people.

Any time I get those promos, I always print for myself *and* extras (if the site allows multiples to be printed) in case I'm with people that want it, too, but didn't know beforehand. Not that difficult. Even saving on your phone amongst yourselves is easy.

I don't always use them all, but at least I'm not pestering the poor cashiers to go around the rules.

And yeah, I don't doubt she will call that in. Sorry

[MoonCat]

What was the price without the coupon? Surely not enough for any of these people to act like they were being robbed if they had to pay full price..... but, of course, SC's...'nuff said.

[CoffeeMonkey]

At my store, we were SUPPOSED to need to see the coupon, but one phone for the group would suffice, and if they mentioned the deal and didn't have the coupon, we would let it slide. Just another example of inconsistency from store to store.

Now that I'm a customer (translation: they fired my ass, so no more employee discount, and a $2 drink is a good deal), I always have the coupon. I cant print them on my almost-out-of-ink printer, and I don't have a smart phone. But do I bitch? no! and do I whine that I shouldn't have to follow the rules, just because I know they'd let me get away with it? NO! I use the camera on my dumb phone and take a picture of the coupon. boom. Coupon in my phone, I get my drink, and it's a good excuse to go in and pester the people that I liked to work with.

[EmilyRose1982]

I really wish they would not post the coupons on Facebook, and they should definitely change the fine print to "good for one beverage" instead of "one offer per person" which apparently can be interpreted several different ways.

The point of the coupons is to get customers on our email list, but when they post them on FB, it defeats the whole purpose. Silly corporate.

[RealUnimportant]

I hate "print your own" coupons... I've subscribed to the paperless office system for YEARS, and as such I don't have a printer!