You can have one, and that's it

[ganimede]

A few days ago I got an email from Costa inviting me to a special event to launch their new Christmas menu on the 4th November from 6-8pm. It promised free samples of their new Christmas range which sounded very good to me so I asked my sister if she was interested in going

Comments

[just_jenn]

Boo. Crumb-size freebies are the worst.
The salted caramel hot cocoa sounds great, though. I think Starbucks sells these seasonally, too.

[ganimede]

It was barely a mouthful. I kept checking in case they came round with more but nope, that was it.

Both our hot chocolates seemed to be the same with just different toppings. Mine had a sort of lattice chocolate decoration on the top and very little in the way of caramel flavour, while my sister had cream and a drizzle of cherry sauce.

I try to avoid Starbucks and patronise the British chains instead like Costa and Caffe Nero but it's not easy in situations like this!

[qwentoozla]

That's not very good customer service, to promise free samples and then only give you one measly sample!

[ganimede]

I know! Although I might have lucky to get that one, apparently another branch was giving out samples to random people on the street rather than the people inside! Considering it was supposed to be a special card-holder event, that's well cheeky.

[greeneyedsadie]

Ugh, getting a crumb sized freebie at something like that is so disrespectful.

[hobbitblue]

That's a bit rubbish to say the least. Complain to Costa's head office - they always want you to give feedback on your experience at places like that, and especially if they've got this great promotional thing which wasn't much of a promotion at all, is this the equivalent of coal in your Christmas stocking for being a naughty child and believing their promo? Grr.

[ganimede]

I did consider it, unfortunately I've been a bit busy these past few days and I think it's possibly a bit too late now. People were complaining on Twitter and the general response seemed to be that it would be brought to the attention of the store manager which is hardly anything really, is it? It was supposed to be a special card-holders event, so not a general sort of promotion really.

[hobbitblue]

At least some folk have been complianing.. i think the twitter/fb complaint thing oftern has more power than you think it would, leastways i've seen direct follow-ups to posts/tweets from the firms involved in some cases, they seem very aware of how fast a reputation can be made or broken via social media.. Fingers crossed they *have* taken note, at least.

[ganimede]

Oh, Twitter and Facebook have a hell of a lot of power these days, it's amazing how fast something can go viral on there and completely ruin a company. I think the big companies are quite aware of that, it always seems to be the little ones that underestimate it and fall foul of it.

[meathiel]

Doesn't sound like much of a promotion at all ... rather on the contrary.

[ganimede]

It was supposed to be a special card-holders event as well, but it seemed like the shop was open to anyone :-/