Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Whole Foods Does Not Have Their Whole Act Together




If anyone has watched South Park lately, you would have seen that Whole Foods became the object of ridicule.  In the end, the store leaves town in the form of a spaceship, possibly returning to the planet it came from.

Sounding negative is not unusual for me.  This time my complaint is about shopping at Whole Foods.  And it is the little things that really bug me. When it comes to Customer Service, I feel that is one area a business should put in some effort.  My following comments relate to the store in the Time Warner Center in NYC. 

After going down an escalator, I land smack in the middle of people going every which way, with or without their shopping carts or baskets.  It's enough to make you want to march right back up the escalator. There is no rhyme or reason in how entering the store is structured and you can have people walk right into you while they are wandering around trying to make some sense of their surroundings.  So one thing that needs to be done is make entering the store more manageable. I should not get stressed in a store which sells products to help you stay healthy. 

Today all I wanted/needed was apples.  I walked over to Customer Service to ask if I could check out with them since all I had was a bag of 4 apples.  The response, in a tone which made me feel she did not give a hoot, was, "I don't have a scale so you will just have to get in line."  She could have at least said she was sorry but unfortunately she has no scale.

They have an express line for 10 items or less.  Two weeks ago I got on that line and the line which was not express, moved much faster.  On my way out I asked Customer Service if that made sense and was told, "It just depends."  Today I went to a non-express line with my bag of 4 apples and again, it moved faster than the express.  I guess people buying their lunch think that they will get out faster on the line meant for small purchases, so the line gets longer than the regular check out line.  There is something wrong with the way that is set up. Maybe they should call it the "Less Item Lane" for people who want to spend even more time in Whole Foods.

Another time I had come in and they were out of a bakery item which was on sale.  I went to Customer Service for a rain check since I didn't think I would get back there before the sale was over.  It took over 20 minutes for Customer Service to get someone who worked there to go back to the bakery to ask about the sale and come back to report the findings and only then was I issued a rain check.  You would think I asking for my lottery winnings and they had to prove my ticket was real.

It's this attitude that makes me wonder why I would go back to shop at Whole Foods.  At least make me feel that you care if I remain a customer.

Friday, December 18, 2015

EBATES, EBATES, EBATES...Have you signed up yet?


Ebates. 

I wrote about it before.

I am getting so much money back especially now, since some companies are offering 10 - 15% back on your purchases.

And you don't need to do anything to earn money back other than going through Ebates to your favorite site and shop.

You can set it up for the magic "E" to show up when you open a website.  Just go to Ebates.com and get it going.  This way you never can forget to attach the "E" to your shopping experience.  When you see the "E" flashing on the website you are shopping on you click it and it creates a shopping ticket for Ebates and then the website you are shopping at reappears. 

Since I started, I have earned close to $400 back.  And if you know my mindset, I love to get money back or at least figure that the items I bought actually cost less when I factor in the "rebate from ebates."

Here is a link, from me to you, to sign up and start shopping:

http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=oNhZNqwVHZaEuvUFeFcbFQ%3D%3D&eeid=28187

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Super Automatic Coffee Machines Are Not Super If They Break Down






I am on my second Super Automatic coffee machine since 2005.  Both had to be sent back to the company for repairs.  Both cost a good deal of money to do so. Both had new issues further down the road.

Someone from a site which sells this type of machine recently told me that if you use these all the time, their life span is about 5-6 years.  I guess that with all the parts in use just to grind beans and make coffee, it makes some sense that things will go wrong, even if you take great care of your machine, as I do. 

Why am I telling you this?  Two weeks ago, I had an issue where the water was not coming out of the machine into my cup, or if the water came out, it came out in places it was not meant to drip from.  I called the manufacturer, and in my case it was Jura Capresso, and as always, they are very forthcoming with advice on troubleshooting. After I tried all of their suggestions, the problem persisted.  I was presented with 2 choices:  I could either send the machine back for repairs or I could trade it in and put the trade in value towards purchasing a new machine from a list of specific models. 

Not too bad, but I was upset thinking of all the money I had spent on purchasing this machine and previously repairing it.

Onto the Internet in search of help.  Did I luck out!

Found a video on YouTube which showed how to take the machine apart and do repairs.  The YouTube channel is PartsGuru USA.   The website is: partsguru.com.

The video was clearly shot and detailed. And an added benefit of being able to open up the machine correctly, was that we were able to clean it, remove mildew build up, flush grinds out of the water tube and make it look almost new again. Could not have done it without this video.

As I scrolled down the video page, I saw how many people were helped by his videos, and how grateful we all are for his help.  He quickly responded to the two questions I asked. If you need the proper tools to do the repairs, he has them.  We were lucky that we had whatever we needed and although it took us a few hours to make sure we did everything correctly, our machine is working again!  

Videos of many well know brands appear on his YouTube channel and many machines are available to purchase on his website. He also does repairs.

I am forever grateful to PartsGuru for what he offers us. Considering the expense of owning these machines, what a coup to at least try to fix it yourself!

Check out:  partsguru.com.