Saving and economizing is essential in today’s rocky times. So, when companies offer and pass savings on to their customers, I take advantage of it. Online coupons and manufacturer rebates are no-brainers. But when it comes to CVS, I’m a mindless zombie always forgetting the $5 or percentage off portion coupon that’s consistently left coiled six times over in a pile somewhere at home.
You come home after a busy day, throw the car keys and dump the reusable bags packed with CVS items on the kitchen table. That’s when the buyer's remorse kicks in. You’ve suddenly discovered the nearly expired CVS coupon, ripped, wrinkled and crumpled, coiled in a basket on the kitchen counter.
Or maybe the efforts and intentions were well and good. You cut your coupon and slipped it in your wallet next to the sparse stack of cash. When you remembered to use it, it became hastily mixed with stashed Starbucks, ShopRite and Costco gas receipts. Expired.
Wouldn’t it be nice if CVS coupons were automatically loaded on to your customer savings card and not at the end of your 2-foot-long receipt? That way, each time a customer made a purchase using their card, their savings would automatically be deducted from the total purchase.
Not sure what your savings are prior to purchases? With your customer savings card, you would know specifically if you had a $5 off, 25% off, or a dollar off on a specific item. The system would mirror your 2-foot-long receipt, except your savings are seen via email, informing the consumer with the appropriate timing of “coupon” usage. Or, instead of printing the long coupons from the "coupon center" located in the CVS stores, check the coupon balance electronically.
It seems in this day and age of technology, it’s a simple and easy way to pass savings on to customers, eliminate the paper waste and more importantly, please the already penny-strapped consumer.
I decided to call CVS’s customer service, not to complain, purely to make a suggestion. After briefly throwing tag words such as “technology,” “waste” and “competitors,” the customer service representative said, “CVS is aware..." and "...is working on it."
"It’s one of our biggest complaints,” I was told, as well as, “It may not be in the next year, but it will happen.”
So, until CVS jumps on the technology bandwagon, keep coiling those 2-foot-long coupons.
