Waitrose has made a major change to its loyalty scheme - and shoppers are not happy.
The supermarket chain's membership programme myWaitrose offers personalised discount vouchers for shoppers each week which gives them money off certain products. Customers receive two vouchers each week every Wednesday and these vouchers needed to be spent either online or in-store before midnight the following Tuesday.
However, the supermarket chain changed its terms and conditions stating that the vouchers would now be delivered "from time to time". The terms now say: "If eligible, the customer may receive vouchers for personalised offers on products from time-to-time."
Waitrose defended this change and told The Mirror that it did not mean customers would stop receiving their money off vouchers and that it was still issuing them in the same way by rewarding customers for regular visits In line with "industry standards". Waitrose said that while the vouchers will typically be issued weekly, there may occasionally be brief windows where customers won't receive updated vouchers.
However, it said that this would be "infrequent" and would only affect a "very small percentage of customers". Waitrose said the delay for customers receiving vouchers would "never exceed" four weeks.
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The supermarket chain told The Mirror this change was brought in last autumn and that it had expanded its eligible period from four weeks to 52 weeks - meaning customers didn't have to shop as often for the personalised vouchers. A Waitrose spokesman told the Mirror: "We haven't changed the frequency of our vouchers; customers still receive these weekly - alongside benefits like daily free hot drinks and exclusive member-only discounts.
"Just like all other supermarkets, our T&Cs simply reflect the fact that there may be brief windows when vouchers don't update. These are very infrequent and only ever impact a very small number of customers, whose vouchers will return very soon."
However, even with its clarification, customers of the upmarket chain voiced their frustration with this change on social media as many had experienced gaps in receiving their personalised vouchers. One X user claimed they had stopped receiving any vouchers at all.
They said: "I don't get any vouchers at all, any more. I complained to customer services, they referred me to IT and I have heard nothing since. Absolutely disgusting and I am now shopping elsewhere." Another said: "@waitrose what’s going on with the personalised vouchers? Third week without them, aren’t these part of the customer loyalty relationship. Not happy!!!."
A third said: "One of the most expensive, if not absolutely the most expensive store and what used to be a small enticer of providing weekly vouchers for popular items, even that has gone. It’s no wonder that Tesco’s has become my go to preferred grocery store. Greedy Waitrose, disappointing."
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