At the time of writing, Valentine’s Day is close at hand and I’m getting increasingly worried. I have yet to be mailed a heartfelt message from the people I thought had become my new friends: the folks at Safeway. Yes, Safeway.

Look what they’ve done

to my store, Ma

A little background. If I’m out to make a potentially-memorable dinner, I enjoy exploring specialty stores throughout the city or even across the countryside. But if we’re talking about satisfying everyday food needs and I’ve been declared the designated shopper, I just want to hit the supermarket and let my grocery autopilot kick in, guide me up and down the aisles, and get me out of there ASAP.

So when my local Safeway rearranged its shelves from top to bottom and east to west, and did it without providing either a map or staff who knew where anything was any more, my autopilot and I were not pleased.

We were less pleased when Mr. Safeway saw fit to repeat the act a few months later, just as we’d gotten used to the fact that corn was now where coffee used to be and comparing brands of pizza shells now meant a visit to four corners of the store. Again, no map. And no staff who could direct me to anything but the cash desks and exits.

And then they did it again.

That day, as I stood in line at the cash desk (for the last time at this store, I swore to myself), I spotted it. It had probably been there all along but I’d never noticed it.

Maybe I’d never been so afflicted by aisle-rage that, even subconsciously, I would consider it. But that particular day, while the conveyor belt conveyed and the checkout person checked in my purchases and the bagger bagged, I allowed myself to gaze at it ever more intently.

Should I?, I asked myself. Would I?, I asked myself. Yes, I finally answered myself, I would fill out a Customer Comment Card.

And I was immediately rewarded for my daring move. The moment my fingers touched it, a hush fell over the checkout counter. The cashier stopped scanning. The bagger stopped bagging. ‘Is everything OK?’ asked the former. ‘If there’s anything I can do, please…’

Hey, I thought, this is power.

‘Everything’s fine,’ I reassured her, ‘…now.’

As I drove home, I mentally prepared my ratings for the comment card. ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, rate us on convenience’, they’d probably ask. Minus 19! I’d write. ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, rate our selection’, they’d undoubtedly request. Much better, I’d write. Minus 18.

And so I would go until I’d vented a year’s worth of food shopping frustration onto a 6 x 8 card and sent it to their head office. Yes, I’d rant about everything their food store had done that was eating at me inside.

But a funny thing happened on the way to my venting table. I started to feel better about Safeway for having given me the opportunity to complain. (Maybe it’s the same thing that happens to hostages, where they end up liking their captors because they didn’t kill them.)

I ended up calming down to the point where I authored a civilized and rational comment card, complete with helpful suggestions.

And then I waited for Grant M. Hansen, President, Chief Operating Officer, Canada Safeway Limited to reply. He’d surely apologize in writing (he had asked for my mailing address on the card) and, quite probably thank me, I thought. Perhaps he’d have found my remarks so helpful he’d ask for the opportunity to speak with me personally. (After all, he had asked for my phone number, too.) Who knows what kind of gratitude a person in his position would be willing to bestow upon such an insightful customer as yours truly.

Days passed. No reply. Weeks passed. Same. Months passed. Ditto.

I always give full marks to a company that makes it easy for customers to voice their opinions. But I render a failing grade to any operation that does not at least acknowledge a complaint. The whole exercise ultimately becomes counterproductive because the customer not only has a complaint about, in this case, the local store’s high-handed methods but also, now, those of head office.

Of course, in fairness, maybe my comments to Mr. Hansen got lost in the mail en route. Maybe on the same day that the dog ate my homework.

But now for the amazing news…

The store did yet another rearranging, apparently part of a national effort to make Safeway stores consistent across the country. But this time, after only two days of customers and staff alike tearing out their own hair along with that of anyone in reach, the manager put a handwritten sign on the door apologizing for the confusion. Plus, he or she put out a map of where to find things.

Recently, they erected new above-aisle signage and even issued a four-colour explanation/map.

Then, just before Christmas, Safeway sent me a greeting card and voucher for $5 worth of products!** With a single purchase of $25** or more, after deduction of Safeway Club savings and manufacturer coupons. **Excluding tobacco, gift certificate sales, postage stamps, transit passes, event tickets, prescriptions, custom orders floral delivery and electronics.

Nice envelope with a four-colour shot of a Christmas tree ornament. Nice little full-colour greeting card inside. And, of course, the voucher.

The only thing I’d say in criticism of it is the way they handled the envelope. The return address is for an office in California (Why bother? Canada Post won’t return the piece to them in the U.S.) and the postmark is from a community many kilometres from mine. There’s not even the pretence that my local store manager or Mr. Hansen sent it out. But after the way Safeway’s been to me the past couple of years, I don’t want to get picky.

An amazing future?

Another good thing Safeway did recently was dispense with the dispensing of coupon books in favour of their Safeway Club Card. No longer do you have to view, clip and redeem paper coupons; just present your Club Card along with your Air Miles card, credit card and any other pieces of plastic that are adding poundage to your wallet. And voila! Instant savings electronically.

But what’s good news for customers could be even better news for Safeway.

They now have a record of my shopping habits in detail. How much I spend. On what brands. On which days. They can tell if I have a cat (yes), children (yes) or the need for Depends (not yet).

Remember the ‘Twinkies defence’ used by that murderer a few years ago? With Safeway on the stand as a witness, there’d be no question about how many Twinkies the guy quaffed on a regular basis. It would all be part of the record, along with whether he also buys cat food or Depends.

Privacy concerns aside, Safeway can now pick me out as a heavy purchaser of Kraft Peanut Butter and mail me an enticement to buy the Safeway house brand. If they hadn’t promised not to, they could rent my name to 9 Lives who could then shoot down the wisdom of buying Whiskas and extol the virtues of their own cat food.

The possibilities and opportunities for supermarkets are limitless. Thousands of grocery stores in the U.S. and Europe have been using electronic coupons for years. Wise ones have enjoyed success by capitalizing on the target marketing opportunities of mailing special offers to their best customers.

But, as you may have read in the last issue of Strategy DirectResponse, most Canadian food retailers are not exactly at the forefront of DM and are not taking advantage of the potential that is waiting for them. For their sake, and for that of consumers who would rather receive appropriate mail from a supermarket than yet another environment-destroying flyer, I hope that changes.

But right now, what I hope even more is that I’ll someday get a response from Grant M. Hansen, President, Chief Operating Officer, Canada Safeway Limited…or at least a Valentine’s Card from my local Safeway…even if the envelope is from California.

For years, Bob Knight has spent his days creating direct marketing campaigns and his evenings wandering supermarket aisles. But now that he has a map of the store, he has more time to devote to DM. If you’d like him to work on an assignment, call him at (604) 684-6564, write him at Knight & Associates #210-131 Water St., Vancouver, B.C. V6B 4M3 or e-mail him at knights@axionet.com. Valentine’s cards always welcome.