Saturday, February 23, 2013

Dude, Really? II

So I received a response from Cella's regarding the chocolate cherries whose texture was the equivalent of a dried out piece of dogcrap.  Susan from customer relations sent me a response and the following explanation for the cherries:

"Please be assured that when the product leaves our plant, it is in the most perfect condition possible.  From your description though, it would seem that after the cherries were shipped, they suffered heat damage.  Temperature is extremely important in maintaining this fine confection.  Unfortunately, we have no control over how our product is stocked and stored once it leaves our facilities."

Again, here are the cherries:




It seems rather strange that a subsidiary of the mighty Tootsie Roll company would have problems informing retailers on how to stock and store their products.  I also found it annoying that I provided the link to the previous post with all of the pictures and it appears they didn't even take the time to look at it.  I did receive a coupon for a free box of the cherries that came accompanied with the following letter written by Janet:

"Please be assured that when the product leaves our plant, it is in the most perfect condition possible.  From your description though, it would seem that after the cherries were shipped, they suffered heat damage.  Temperature is extremely important in maintaining this fine confection.  Unfortunately, we have no control over how our product is stocked and stored once it leaves our facilities.  Nevertheless, they are our product, and they do represent us."

Susan and Janet must be Siamese twins because they apparently thought up the same response word-for-word, save that part about the product representing them.  This actually really annoys me because this tells me that like so many other companies, their customer service is completely a formality and they could really care less about customer satisfaction.  They just assume all issues will quietly go away.

If I had spent more than $1.50 on these then I may be more inclined to create a stink.  But seriously.  What is it about customer service that causes so many companies to struggle?  Hey, buttheads -  your product looks like it just spent the last thousand years mummified in the ass of the Sphynx.  Maybe you should, like, put a little more thought into this?

Seriously, it's amazing.