Tesco has outraged many of its loyal
customers by making changes to its Clubcard loyalty scheme with no advanced
warning. This has meant that the value of some rewards offered by the scheme
have dropped substantially.
Shoppers collect points for money
spent with the supermarket giant and are then sent vouchers which can be used
for items such as restaurant meals.
Some vouchers could be used for four
times their actual value, but without warning, most have just changed to three
times their value. Tesco claims this is to "make things easier" but
the move has provoked anger from customers on social media.
Tesco emailed customers on Monday to
tell them of the change, which was introduced immediately. On its website, it
said it was "simplifying" the rewards available so people did not
"have to keep checking whether you're getting two times or four times the
value, depending on which reward you're claiming."
A Tesco spokesperson added: "This
builds on the work we did last year to further help customers, when we
introduced the new contactless Clubcard and made significant improvements to
the Tesco Clubcard app."
While Tesco has promised that any
orders already placed for vouchers would be honoured, it did not give any time
for customers to cash in vouchers which they had been saving.
One Clubcard holder went onto social media
to say he had effectively lost £100 as a direct result of the change. According
to Stephen Ellerington: “As I have £100 in Clubcard coupons that were
'worth' £400 in vouchers yesterday - and are now only worth £300 - I feel
like I have just been a victim of a pickpocket. This is scandalous.”
However Tesco has defended this change.
According to a spokesman: "The vast majority of Clubcard customers redeem
their vouchers at face value, rather than use the rewards scheme, so this
change will only affect a small minority of total Clubcard customers."
But according to Anika Newjoto, editor
of the Shopper Points website: "Making these changes with no
notice stinks. Tesco Clubcard vouchers have a two-year expiry date. Many
shoppers collect them over a longer period to pay for a large transaction."
"Loyalty schemes are meant to
work two ways, not one way. If a shopper gives their business to a store based
on the promise of certain rewards, it is totally unfair for those rewards to be
taken away or reduced in value with absolutely no notice."
Martin Lewis, founder of the Money Saving Expert website, called on Tesco to rethink its decision, describing the move
as "a slap in the face to hundreds of thousands of loyal customers.”
Lewis added: "I call on Tesco to
urgently review its policy to give a window of opportunity to those who've
already saved substantial points, and will lose out by these changes, to still
redeem at the prior value."
Tesco launched Clubcard in 1995 and
within a year, customers were spending 28% more in its stores and 16% less with
its closest rival Sainsbury's, which by then had introduced its own Reward
card.
Sainsbury's moved over to the Nectar card scheme (in conjunction with several other companies) in 2002 and in 2015
it halved the reward points available to its card holders.
Annich McIntosh, the editor of Loyalty Magazine said: "So many different things are happening in loyalty schemes
and the supermarkets are in competition with online companies. Amazon do things
with Prime that is really loyalty but don't call it ‘loyalty’. They are very
clever and tie the customer in to such an extent that they think they can't do
without it. Customer loyalty is at the basis
of all business and that isn't going to change. It's how people persuade you to
be loyal that is up for major change and this could be a very exciting year for
the sector." She added that: "Any change to these programmes causes a
row. When Avios changed a few years ago, there was a furore online, but then
later people were saying it was actually better for them."
To see hundreds more articles click here to visit our archive
To see hundreds more articles click here to visit our archive