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Dear JS

Sorry to hear your like-for-like sales fell by 2.8% last quarter, but I think I might be able to help you as to the reasons why - the major one being your total complacency over me, the customer. The above story being another nail in the already over hammered coffin.

Your complacency is the reason that this week I've stopped spending my £120 a week with you and moved to another retailer. It's that reason that means my £131k that I've spent over 21 years of loyalty, the 39 years of food eaten from JS (my mum is a loyal shopper), the memories of my first job (I used to collect trollies/stack shelves as a student for you).....all that is coming to an end, because ultimately, I'm fed up of being treated with the utter contempt that I am.

We're not complacent I hear you cry. We care about our customers. No you don't. You really don't. You care about money, you care about the money your customers spend. You don't care about the customer.

Example: what about the people that are leaving you? £131k. That's a lot of money. I was with Sky for 5 years. £50 a month (compared to the near £500 a month I spend with you). Since I left them this time last year, they've called me 9 times to try and get me back, offering me this, that and the other. If I was leave, which is about to happen, how many calls will I get? None. Same as everyone else. How many offers will I get through the post? None. How do I know this. Because friends & family have already left your shores. Don't you find that odd? Someone who is spending £500 a month suddenly starts spending £0 and you don't even ask the question why? It's beyond odd, that's utter complacency. That's why you're profits are starting to fall.

Example: the quality of fresh food is falling. It doesn't matter what your data says, it has. I've seen mouldy fruit on sale. Your 'ripe and ready to eat' is rarely ripe. Your 'ready to eat fresh fruit salad' has melon in it that is like eating a raw potato. It's not good enough. And don't get me started on the salad leaves. Perhaps the thinking is, 'we can get away with it'? Perhaps you don't care.

Example: Offers designed to deceive. This one was the one that finished me off. I shop on a saturday, every saturday (as your data will tell you). I spend over £100 every saturday. So I was pleased to get an offer saying if I spend £100 or more 5 times in a row I'd get 7000 nectar points (£35). The offer lasted for 4 weeks and 6 days (from a Sunday to a Saturday). Ha ha. Brilliant that isn't it. Not a reward for loyalty at all - in fact a big hard kick in the face. Shows how serious you are about loyalty. Of course, all this was cemented by the fact your halving that reward structure. Loyalty? You don't know the meaning of the word.

Example: A terrible online experience: I should be buying online shouldn't I? Perfect customer for online. After all, I do the big shop every weekend, I'm a busy person and could do without pushing a trolley round the store every saturday morning (especially as that's when all those people filling trollies for people who have ordered online do their shopping blocking the aisles). I do loads of other shopping online - of course I do - it's convenient, it's easy and it saves me time. Why not my groceries? Well I have tried. In fact I've tried 3 times. I was encouraged to do it recently as I noted my nectar card info could be uploaded to my 'favourites' saving me time searching for products on the site. Excellent. I settled down to do the shopping, uploaded my card info and was told 'it takes 48 hours to process your nectar card info'. Really? It's just a load of shopping data? A list of products. I reckon if you gave me the data in an Excel table I could have that back to you in under an hour. I'd wager a computer can probably beat that. The 'moment of truth' had passed. 48hrs later I went back on. No info. I hadn't had an email confirming the data had been uploaded. It hadn't. One week later still nothing so an email to your support team who said (8hrs later) what I wanted wasn't possible. The next day there were all my products I've ever bought in my favourites. Excellent. I still hadn't had an email confirming that had been done. But no option to sort by frequency of purchase - so I spent 30 mins clearing out all the 'one-offs' I had bought. Anyway, a step forward. I'm almost in a position to start buying. But I'll never buy the fresh stuff (see above). So much you could do here, and yet so little has been done. I'm not clear why not?

Example: Being treated like..... Yes, I've passed on the occasional bit of feedback, especially about the mouldy/rock hard fruit - but the response has been bordering on the 'f*ck off, did you not see how much profit we make, people must love us, so you're just a one off'. Maybe, but I'm a one off who spends £120 a week. And where are the people on the shop floor willing to show me where you've moved x too or where I can find x. Nowhere. Just aisles stuffed full of people doing other peoples online shopping who have no idea where anything is. Who are very clearly NOT happy to help.

Anyway, after £131k spent over 21 years, I'm moving on. That shouldn't be happening should it. But it is. I don't expect a phone call (which is lucky).

You wonder why people are moving to the Discounters. I'll tell you this for free - it's not just that they're cheap. It's that we don't get treated like monkeys aimlessly giving you money for increasingly poor food, woeful service and an impression that you couldn't give a toss if we shopped with you or not.

Of course you won't be reading this, because why monitor what the customer says when you've got all that lovely money.

Good luck with those profits.

Vince