Avishek Dasgupta
Kolkata -700014
Contact number -********29
CRM Loyalty Card No.: 200011764175

TIN NUmber: 1********47
Bill No.: 2449
Date: 04/01/2014
Time: 06:55:00 PM

To whom it may concern:

I am a regular customer of Spencers Retail Quest Mall approximately almost a month after its inception. Although I am not a business tycoon buying INR 10,000/- product from your store, I still buy a humble INR 3000/- to INR 4000/- value of product every month from your store at Quest mall. I do a weekly shopping of all required vegetables, fishes, meat worth INR 700/- approx., also a shopping worth INR 1000/- of grocery each month from the Quest Mall Spencers.

Although I stay at Entally Paddapukur, and there are at least 4 local markets nearby to me at a close proximity of 1 -1.5 kilometers (including the Sealdah market, parkcircus market and the Sealdah Big Bazaar), I take out the time and patience to drive the long traffic time at the parkcircus junction and come down to your store every weekend with my wife and kid to meet my weekly shopping requirements.

Please note: The "Spencer's Fish & Meat" section was one of main reasons to go and buy everything else from the store as well. I am a Bengali and fish falls within the staple diet of me and my family.
Now, there is a specific way to cut each variety of fish and a specific standard of size needs to be maintained to get the utmost economic value out of it without destroying the culinary value, which almost every Bengali family is aware of in Kolkata. "We are sentimental to fish"

Please note: During our purchasing fish from the local stores we are in a close proximity of the fish cutter in order to understand the size and direct them to cut properly.

Since, fish is a major part of our regular diet, in order to make it sure that the cuts and sizes are made properly without hurting my pocket or the culinary value, I at first buy my required quantity of fish and then patiently wait for the man cutting the products to finish off with everyone else close to me in the queue and then step inside to the employee cutting my fishes and maintaining a comfortable distance direct the person to work on the fishes I purchased.


Today while I was about to direct the person concerned to cut the fish, another of your employees stepped forward and stopped me from getting inside by literally blocking my way saying it's the store rule that no one should enter the cutting area and even after I explained my dilemma that since I require 25-30 pieces out from the total fish I purchase which is in a budget of 3 types of fish at the max, and since I have myopia I cannot follow from outside the counter which is at least 7 to 9 footsteps away from where I will be standing, he turned a deaf ear to my issue.
On my asking to meet the store supervisor if a situation arises and any of the employees get blamed, the man walked straightaway and came in with another young man whom he claimed to be the customer service supervisor.
This young man without introducing himself to me and not bothering to show even the minimalistic professional courtesy, plainly asked me to come outside and that he cannot let me in to check the fishes that I am buying and have to look at them from outside the counter, which is quite a difficult job for me. Moreover even after my explaining the situation to him, and letting him know that this fish & meat store is my primary reason to come and do all the other associated shopping as a part of an end-to-end customer service experience and understanding the local sentiment that lies while buying fish he should consider this minor issue for me, which will not result in any business loss and neither get the store out of budget.
However, even after my clearly denying to do any further shopping from the store if my basic requirement is not met at such a minor level and as a result Spencer's loosing out a regular customer, the only casual reply that I got was -"I understand that you are one of our deemed customers but I can't help".

Please Note: He was not feeling or empathizing to my issue, but was only giving me a scripted rebuttal.

I felt hurt and disrespected and got completely ****** off with the situation and as a result while I shouted out the situation to my wife, the same Supervisor and the other fish counter sales people were laughing at me in denial to my pain.

Finally while I was walking off another young man introducing himself to be the Marketing Manager stepped in and promised me that he will talk to the Customer Service and handle the situation for me, But, even after his talking to the above mentioned so-called "Customer Service Supervisor" and a bunch of other customer service guys -none of them cam back to us for help and support, instead on of the counter sales men (a middle aged man) came with a big smile in his face requesting us to buy the fish they had cut for us and continue to shop fish from the store by standing outside the counter and directing them, to which we being gentle enough did the same, but the cuts were not at all to our satisfaction, and we returned home without any other shopping of the monthly grocery nor the weekly vegetable purchase.

My humble request to you fine people in the management is to look into the issue and please understand that my meager purchase would also have added to your sales. And you lost a customer today for a very minor issue.

Please Note: When in Rome be a Roman, and when in Kolkata think from the sentimental perspective of a Calcuttan. Please understand the local sentiment.