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Tim Hortons - make sure you count your change

by Steven Hodson on May 28, 2008 · Comments

Tim Hortons Coffee I don’t normally write about things that happen in my personal life mainly because I don’t want to bore my readers away but recently my wife and I had something happen which kinda drove home the fact that even today many brick and mortar businesses have no concept of customer relations.

They like to say they do and they populate static web pages of mission statements about how much they care when in fact very few even seem to grasp the basic principals of not just that the customer is always right but that the customer expects to be treated with respect.

The launching point for this was about two weeks ago when my wife went out in the morning to the corner gas station slash corner store to pick up a couple of things. Along the way she decided to stop at the Tim Hortons (Canadian version of Starbucks for those who don’t know the name) and buy us both a morning cup of French Vanilla. Now being the person she is she also ordered a couple of small regular coffees for the people running the gas station which is something we have both done in the past.

Now unfortunately when she went to pay for the order she found that she only had a very large bill with which to pay for the coffees and as such handed it over to the lady behind the counter. This is where the first of the problems starts as the lady counted the changed to herself and handed the bills and change to my wife who trusting the counter person scrunched it up and put it in her pocket.

From there she went to the gas station and as she was paying for what she wanted there she discovered that she had been short changed by $20.00 at Tim Hortons. Thinking that this had just been a sincere mistake she stopped there on her way back home to see about getting the amount she had been short changed return to her. After explaining the situation to one of the supervisors she was taken in to the back to view the video of when she paid for her purchase. Yes they have top down video surveillance of the cash registers which in a way in this case I would have thought would be a good thing as it showed the counter person counting the change over the till drawer and then handing to my wife.

My wife says that you can see quite plainly that the counter person miscounts the change before handing it to but the supervisor watching the video with her says to my wife that there is nothing wrong you got your change - end of subject. Granted there were to mistakes here with the first being the fact that the counter person contrary to any proper retail experience didn’t count the change directly into (or in front of) my wife’s hand. The second error was my wife’s trusting nature after all you don’t expect the person behind the counter to intentionally short change you.

So she comes home upset and tells me about the incident while we’re having our now very expensive morning coffee. I being the web type person that I am figure no problem I’ll just hop over to the Tim Hortons site, find the customer service email address and fire off an email about the incident and they’ll sure to fix up the problem. Now I will admit that Dawn; the Operations Services Representative for Tim Hortons did reply quite quickly the only problem was that because Tim Hortons is a franchise operation there was nothing that she could do other than to forward my problem on to a local representative - this was the 10 of May.

The following Monday we got a phone call bright and early from said representative who sound like he was on a mobile pone in his car traveling somewhere. After my wife explained the situation to him he assured her that he would look into it and get back to her. We waited for 10 days to hear from him before I said enough was enough and sent another email to Dawn at Tim Hortons telling her exactly how unhappy I was with the situation - this was on the 21st of May.

The following morning bright and early Dawn was phoning us saying how sorry she was over the whole thing and assured my wife that Tim Hortons would make it right and that the franchise owner would be in contact with her. Which admittedly he was but as he talked on the phone with my wife I could tell it wasn’t going well - which it wasn’t. The end result was that he told her that there was nothing he could do for her.

Nothing he could do for her was his solution which as far as I am concern implies that he considered my wife to be nothing more than a liar and that she should just go away. Well as a long time customer of Tim Hortons right across this country this to me is unacceptable from a company - any company. I realize that we will never see any satisfaction from this as the owner of the local franchise doesn’t give a shit and the main office of Tim Hortons says it is out of their hands. I also realize that our measly $20.00 may not amount to a whole hill of beans to a man making a small fortune from coffee and donuts but I can tell you this - no Tim Hortons anywhere is going to get another dime of our money.

Oh and by the way - if you stop in at a Tim Hortons and use a large bill to pay for your purchase make sure to double check your change.

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Tagged as: Tim Hortons

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  • Damn, that's horrible, they could have at least given you a $20 gift card - the cost of coffee at places like Tim Horton's and Starbucks in 90% marketing anyhow.

    I had a similar experience at Food Lion where I used my debit card to get $50 cashback ... but forgot to take the cash. Came back half an hour later and they gave it to me no questions asked.
  • I work at a damn grocery store, and customers who complain about anything are usually greeted with some sort of gift certificate, even if they are dead wrong.
  • Damn man, that really sucks. Godo thing about the web though is that you can let a whole lot of people know about experiences such as this. This blog post will probably end up damaging them in some way or another albeit a small one perhaps. The cashier who miscounted the change, she wasn't blonde by chance?
  • My tells me that she was blond :) but more importantly she feels like she has been ripped off by the whole process.
  • CyndyA
    First, always count your change no matter how large a bill you use!

    Secondly, this is absolutely ridiculous. From what felt like a lifetime in food service of some sort, I can tell you that I have never seen a company that doesn't count the til at the end of the day, if not the end of a shift. They didn't realize that the till was over? Or is the employee skimming?
  • My wife said "thank you very much - I'm glad I'm not the only one asking those questions" :)
  • Also, that location is the training ground for new Tim Horton employees. They train there then get shuffled off to other locations in the area.

    Considering this, they should've been more inclined to admit to a mistake.

    Like mentioned already... they should've at least given you $20 in gift certificates to keep you as customer. It likely costs them less than a dollar in actual product costs to do that.
  • That is pretty ridiculous. I've even been to Tim Hortons (on the way to an outdoor program in Temagami, ON). In my opinion their product range is better than Starbucks.

    But... I paid with small bills. In American currency, no less (I was heading for two months in the wilderness; why would I need money?). Or maybe our trip leader just took care of it... I don't remember.

    The fact that they didn't believe you is pretty ridiculous. As you said, the customer is always right. Basic business philosophy, no?
  • This is more widespread than just TH. I see it everywhere. It has gone from "thank you for buying my stuff" to "thank me for selling this to you." Ridiculous.
  • Grimes
    Because one asshole short changes you Doesnt mean everyone that works at tim hortons is bad... Decide not to go there if you want . Its your descision. However.. It still could of been a accident if your wife payed with a 100 she could of gotten 4 20s, instead of 5 which is actually beliveable and completey possible. Some people are so depressed because they hate there job so much and have been harrased by customoers that they could be acting careless and give you the wrong amount of change. And for the record dont pay with large bills ever...
  • Steve
    Perhaps you should quit your bitching.
    Accidents do happen.
  • I can understand accidents - we all make them them. But when the overhead
    video shows exactly what the employee was doing it was no accident. When the
    owner of the franchise says that there is nothing he can do to rectify the
    situation where it is obvious that the counter person has shortchanged my
    wife - either intentionally or not - when it is quite obvious that she had
    been short changed.
    As for bitching as you call it this is my blog and when someone does
    something like this to my wife I can fucking well bitch all I want. You were
    not on the end of the condescending phone calls .. you were not on the end
    of being told "tough luck"

    The funny thing is that all it would have taken from somebody at Tim Hortons
    was an apology - which we never got.
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