When does customer service NOT work in your benefit?

When too many Karens make a mockery of the industry.

I realize this post is going to come off as me being a Karen, but it's not. I had an incident last night with a call center, because in person, it was just strange. 

Thursday my mother and I had gone to one of the local Dunkin Donuts. There's a deal going on this month where you can get a $2 medium iced coffee as long as you have a registered card (use the app, have a card on file). 

We both have the app and a card on file, but since I have more money on my card, we agreed I'd pay for both coffees (in all honesty, I had $26 and change because I got various denomination cards for the holidays). 

My mother ordered hers first, saying she'd like to do the two dollar medium coffee. She said that I'd be paying for it as one transaction, and then I'd be paying again for my coffee as the second transaction. 

Cashier says sure, not a problem, so my mom orders her coffee with cream only. I pay the $2.13 and receipt pops out. 

It comes to me, and I say I'd also like to do the $2 medium iced coffee and the cashier says sure, no problem. I ask the same - cream only. I go to scan my card and it pops up as $3.51.

I question it, as it had said that for my mother and it went down to $2.13 after my card was scanned. The cashier looked at the computer she was at and said it did go to $2. I asked if it was for both, and she said yes. 

I pointed to my side of the screen and say "it says $3.51 still. I don't understand why it says that if I paid the two dollars?".

Cashier looks at it again, starts struggling and says "well, I don't know how to tell you this" and starts dancing around the subject. "We, um, have the new rewards system. It turns out, uh, your coffee was free. Congrats. You had a enough points, to not pay at all", 

My mother and I looked at each other and I said "seriously? I had enough points on my card to have it automatically deduct a free coffee?" and the cashier, a little antsy, says "yes. It's part of the new rewards".

I asked why the screen showed up as I paid $3.51 and she said it doesn't; it came up as free. She had my order receipt in front of her that popped out and pointed to the line item that said 0.00 (which is what you get when you use a gift card. It is the change due line). 

She went on to say "See? Zero. Free" and started taking the receipt back. I actually grabbed it and my mother's before the cashier could do anything with them. I said to her that it doesn't make sense, but if she says it's free... fine. 

So we get our coffees and leave. In the car, my mother and I were trying to figure it out. As I was driving, I didn't look closely at the receipts. I just shoved them in my pocket. I didn't bother looking at the app for my transaction history because Dunkie's has a habit of taking a couple hours to load the information. 

I didn't think any thing of it the rest of the day. When we got home, I had put the receipts on the dining room table, to be able to go over them with the rest of my receipts from the day, and forgot about them. 

Last night, I was looking them over and my mother's receipt says I paid $2.13 for the coffee and the gift card balance was a little over $24. On my receipt, it said I paid $3.51 and my balance was a little over $20. 

I told my mother that I was totally charged the full price for the coffee and my gift card balance is now down. I then opened my phone to see the transaction history on the app, and sure enough, the app says the same thing. 

My mother questions it. Says to call customer service. So I did.

The automated phone system for Dunkin' Help is programmed to make you not wait for a human being. You go through the prompts to do everything under the sun, only to get back to the main menu and go over the prompts again. I must have been pressing the same numbers for a solid 4 minutes. 

When I finally got a human, I explained what had happened. She repeated part of it to me, and asked for the card information so she can see it on her end. I gave her the member ID that is on the app and she was able to see my account. 

She informs me that she does see my two transactions, and unfortunately, she has to tell me what company policy is. 

Company policy is that when Dunkin Donuts runs these deals, it's one deal per person per day. Because I made two transactions, only one of them was able to be used on the deal. The other was full price because I already used the promotion. 

I said I didn't know there was a one time use deal, and the cashier never said that either. I had told the cashier I was going to do two transactions for the two coffees and the cashier said okay. She then telling me my coffee was free, but obviously it isn't, if I paid $3.51.

The call center repeated it's policy guidelines and that's all that can be done. I said to the person "so there's nothing you're going to do? I'm calling about using a coupon promo and that the cashier didn't stop me from ordering and explain anything, and you are just telling me about policy?"

Call center says "yes". I'm sitting there thinking "what kind of customer service is this? Usually you call with a problem, they try to work with you. They apologize. This person is already hanging up on me because they did their job".

I didn't say all that, but I did ask if it's possible to get a refund on the account, since they can obviously see my transaction history. 

I got a snarky response of "you want a refund?" from the call center, and I said "if that is possible, yes please".

They said they're not allowed to do that, but they can escalate it up to a manager. They would need to put me on hold for a minute. 

I go on hold. 

Call center comes back on to say that they've made notes in the system and have escalated it to management. I should get a call or an email in two days and since they have done their job by informing me of policy, is there anything else I need before we hang up.

I repeated "so you're not going to do anything but escalate the problem and I'm to wait to hear from someone", and they said "correct, unless you want me to cancel everything I just did". I said "no, please keep it escalated". 

Okay. 

I asked what email they had on file, and they said "I'm not allowed to give that out, but I can tell you what provider it is" and she tells me the internet provider registered. I asked "can you also give me the ticket number in case something happens?" and she did. 

It's time to hang up because there's nothing else that can be done. I got a basic answer about something that happened at one of the stores and I have never experienced this type of push off in my life. 

Sure, I've had to call customer service a few times in the past for other incidentals with companies, but this is the first time a call center rep has told me company policy and stuck to it. No apology, no nothing. She tried her hardest to get me off the phone after reading the policy in the first 2 minutes of the call. I don't think that's right. A customer is calling about a problem, even reporting that the cashier was not telling the truth about the program, and the call center's responsibility is to read a line about promotion policy and hang up.

I think it would have been different if I was told in the store that it's one per person per day and I couldn't pay twice. My mother would have definitely used her card and I would have used mine and we wouldn't have had this issue, let alone the casher see I was charged and say "just kidding; it was free. You had points" when I didn't. Last time I 'used points' in the app, I had to physically select the free item in the app. Lots of scrolling and different bar code. I did none of that while ordering and paying this time. 

Now I wait to see if I hear from the local store manager. The response will probably not be what I'm expecting, but I'm going to make damn sure they know what their employees said and did, as charging customers and telling them the coffee was free, is almost like Dunkie's is stealing in a way. You think you paid for it and are told it got zeroed out because it's on the house... well... how else do you explain you feel like you got taken advantage of? 

As much as I don't like going to this particular store, it's close to where I do a lot of my errands. Dunkin Donuts are hard to come by down here, and it seems like every one I've been in, have challenges. I think there was may be one brand new one (several years ago) that actually had a smooth transaction and friendly staff. The other stores I've been into are chaotic as employees don't know what they're doing and give out the wrong orders. I've seen reviews on websites for these stores. It's not positive. 

I've never had problems in New England at the chain. I've been in real sketchy neighborhoods and felt that the service was so much better. Why is it so hard to get a decent cup of coffee around here? Things you're used to, don't exist. It's the weirdest thing. 

At the end of the day, I guess I am going to start frequenting gas stations for my coffee once I get down to zero on the gift card... 

Until I hear something, stay caffeinated. 

Cheers;