When your change is – KULANG, AGAIN!

UPDATE:  09/01/2014 2:50PM I called The Bistro Group this morning and was able to talk to Je Matias, Marketing for Watami.  I told her what happened and she apologized.  She asked for my name and contact number because the VP for Operations of Watami will call me to apologize.  I just spoke to a certain Rommel and he apologized on behalf of the group.  I accepted.  I told him that my beef wasn’t about the P0.98 but with the manner the situation was handled.  I appreciate that they called me, it shows that they value customer service.  He also mentioned that this wasn’t how they trained their staff to be. ——– I wrote about it before When your change is – KULANG. And I am writing about it again. Yesterday, we had lunch at Watami in Shangri-La Mall’s East Wing.  We had an okay time.  I say okay because the servers were very busy offering their Bistro card.  I know it’s business, but please – when we say no, we mean no. So when it came to pay the bill – I handed them P2,200.00.  When I got back the bill, I was shocked to see that I was missing P0.98.  You may say that I am cheap or feeling or whatever – but my point is, I DO NOT tolerate this kind of shortchanging.  IF the establishment allows us to pay less than the amount expected, then I will eat my words and my conviction.  But that will NEVER ever ever happen. Please see the bill closely and see how much change I was given.

Now, tell me – do I have the right to be ranting about this? You see, in our country – change is actually – how can you say it nicely.  I don’t think there’s a nice word for it – but it sucks big time.  Our country doesn’t have loose change to compensate those one centavo so what is the norm?  Just ignore them?  What?  I spoke to a Landmark Department store supervisor and she told me that cashiers are advised to give out the rounded off change.  But cashiers don’t do this – they pretend not to know and even assume that you don’t care about your change and just hand them to you without telling you they’re short!  And I hate that the most.  Do we hand them less that what is billed to us?  No!  Because they won’t accept it and they will make sure we pay the right amount!  With this, I demand to be given the right change too! I remember in the ICA canteen, the staff told me that there wasn’t enough change and then proceeds to give me candy as change.  I went home and showed my mom, she then tells me never to accept it.  Because like what a fellow mom on IG said – if this was the practice then we too can start paying for things using candy as a currency. When I called the attention of what seemed to be a supervisor – she just told me that she will take my suggestion to the manager and the management.  I mean WTF?!  Her change was short of P0.98!  She could have just given me coins with the amount of P0.95 and that would have been acceptable!  We have 25centavo coins, 10centavo coins and 5centavo coins – don’t they have any?  I didn’t like it that she was nonchalant about it and even had the guts to say ‘Sana po bumalik kayo next time’ ‘I hope you still pratronize us’.  Uh, NO FREAKING WAY! I mean, come on!  When was it okay and acceptable to have kulang na sukli?  These cashiers don’t feel the need to inform us because they’re just employees at the end of the day – but come one, where did you being socially responsible stop?  This may be a small issue of just 98cents, but come one – 98cents multiplied by a hundred transactions will amount to thousands of transactions in a month! If you tell me nicely, that’s another story because you were truthful and honest.  But not informing us and just handing us the change expecting us to understand – hell NO! I have complained about this to DTI but nothing had come out of it.  I remember in my first post that Banco de Oro was also doing the shortchanging – but nothing happened too!  I apologize, but I am very much frustrated by this.  I know there are others who feel the same way, and we all HATE it! You will lose customers with this kind of customer service the Bistro Group! I am sending this post to their Contact Us page.  If anyone is connected to knows anyone who is connected with the Bistro Group – please please let me know, I want them to know what is happening.  What I am doing is creating awareness of this issue of kulang na sukli because I seriously want to know – what is the REAL procedure when faced with this situation.  What are the cashiers trained to do? Any help would be greatly appreciated and I will make sure to credit you on this!  I always give credit where credit is due..