We're in week two of a new initiative to bring members back into the store within 7 days. It involves giving members Promotional Cards that are to be used during a five day period the week after they shop with us.
These Promotional Cards are linked to a member account and unlocked using the coupon Barcode printed on a receipt, physical promotional card or digital receipt. They are a targeted offer to members whom marketing folks at Shop Your Way feel will come back and spend more. At Sears, the offer is typically for $6 or $8, while at Kmart the offer is for $6 or $10, good on anything in the store except Lands End, Levis, great price and Deal Flash.
The current week's validity redemption dates for the Promotional Card are 10/10 through 10/15.
In my Kmart store today, we lost more than 100 members' purchases during my shift because the "system was down" according to Shop Your Way. I personally called them on behalf of several members. Their response to the situation was pretty much "Too bad, not our problem, tell the customer to try ito on another day."
Our store manager's hands are tied because the regional and district managers don't want any exceptions, "pushed through coupons" or "make goods" for members.
I can only imagine how many members are annoyed at the malfeasance of our company in constantly luring people into the store to buy and being told we won't honor our own offer. Today alone, I know there are probably thousands of aborted transactions with angry members no longer willing to trust shopping with us.
You won't find member complaints about this week's botched promotional event on facebook because the company isn't interested in transparency -- comments are disabled or deleted or hidden.
What does our store manager think of all this? He suspects it is deliberate. Some bean counter figured out how much promotional spending we will go through and decided to pull the plug, hoping a little bait and switch will result in an increase in sales.
Sad, pathetic and ridiculous.