Pathetic Mangers and Pathetic Service at Woolworths

I visited 2 separate Woolworths stores on two different occasions two weeks apart. On the 27th of July I visited the Bedfordview Woolworths Food Store. I had 2 vouchers on my "My Difference App" (Woolworths app) Both were 10% off on food items expiring on the 31 July 2025. The voucher SPECIFICALLY said that it CAN be redeemed with other vouchers. At the till I activated my vouchers and proceeded to request to redeem them. ONLY one would redeem & not the other. The tellers tried several times with no luck. I was upset because I had a few things in my trolley. I paid and proceeded to ask to speak to the manager to voice my disappointment. He spoke to me and we discussed the issue. The store manager on duty at the Bedfordview Woolworths Food Store was Chris. He took my details down and assured me that he will investigate further and give me feedback before the expiry date of the voucher. He called and I missed his call because God forbid I am human. I returned his call within 2minutes of the missed call, I was told that Chris had already left for the day. To date (6th August 2025) I have not received any feedback from Chris nor Woolworths regarding this matter. Let's not forget that my voucher of course expired.

On the 2nd occasion visited the Woolworths at Mall of Africa on Saturday, 2nd August 2025. I had a voucher for fashion. Spend R1000 or more and receive R200 off expiring 16 August 2025. I went to the till and all fashion items amounted to the total of R1001.00 so of course I qualify to redeem my voucher. I proceeded to activate my voucher at the till which took over 20 minutes or so because of no signal in the store whether connected to their free Wi-Fi or my own network. Finally after activating it and ready to use, the voucher would not work. I was then told to try at another till because maybe that specific till does not work regarding vouchers. I went to another till, the lady at the till Wisani tried 3 times in different ways. By suspending the sale and re-doing it, cancelling the entire sale and re-scanning each and every fashion item and lastly to cancel voucher activation and re-activate before scanning. I spent no less than an hour in the QUEUE only leave alone the shopping part of it. The manager was called, Noma and she advised that they log a call since the voucher will not work and that I pay in full and I will get refunded the R200 the way I paid. Noma & Wisani advised me that they do not know how long it will take to be resolved in that day so best to pay and they call me to advise. I had to call Noma on Monday 4th August 2025 after 12h30 to find out what was going on, she said she did not have any answers for me. Neo a supervisor calls me, not even allowing the phone to ring but rather a miss call 4th August 2025 17h36. I return the call regardless 17h39, only to be told that he has left or gone for the day. Today the 6th August 2025, still no feedback.

My gripe is how poor customer service Woolworths staff, managers render. Woolworths claims to have this new rewards programme spending so much time on promoting how good it is and how user accessible it is yet staff have been trained to not even remind customers to activate their vouchers. Furthermore why give customers voucher only to tell them it does not work and then further expires unused. I am disappointed to say the least. Managers are pathetic at their jobs. Imagine waiting the entire day to call a customer back, around the time your shift is ending and it is time for you to leave for the day, ONLY to not ever bother to call the customer back at all or return their call. Clearly managers believe they doing customers a favour by simply doing their job, unbothered and merely don't care. I have been a loyal customer to Woolworths for decades and this is the thanks I get to show how valued I truly am.