Haagen-Dazs Ice Cream Buffet

It's Official!! A treat u can't miss.. But Read the Haagen Dazs Lie Part 1 & 2 first before going. RM25 nett.. All you can eat at selected outlets!! (Normally it's about RM9 per single scoop. Now multiply that with 22 Scoops of various flavours and pay RM 25!! That's bloody good value! You break even at 2.5 scoops already!) Promo valid until 31st July 04 1. Mont Kiara Plaza (noon-5pm) 2. Sunway Pyramid (noon-5pm) 3. Great Eastern Mall (7pm-10pm) First they said All Week, then they changed their minds to Weekdays only, now they are doing it till a Weekend again. 22 flavours to choose which comes with 8 kinds of toppings. It's ICE CREAM MANIA!!! Sacre Bleu.. There goes the diet.. again!!.. The Haagen Dazs Lie!! We went on Sunday 25th July and discovered that the offer above is valid on WEEKDAYS only. Unfortunately for our group of friends and many other innocent consumers who visited the Haagen Dazs outlets on weekends, most were told that the offer was not valid. The Mont Kiara outlet had marketing flyers they had officially printed, which made NO MENTION of the "Valid on Weekdays only" conditions printed on it. In fact, all the flyers there had it written by pen instead. There was a flyer pasted near the cash register, with a piece of paper pasted on top of the flyer, with the words "On Weekdays Only" written in pencil! Naturally we were utterly dissapointed and furious. We had to fight the withdrawal symptoms from the anticipated sugar craving. Our attempt to convince the manager to give in just to our group also failed despite the obvious false and misleading advertising that felt could be reported to the Ministry of Trade and Consumer Affairs and etc. I wonder, if we took legal action, would we get compensated with a lifetime supply of Ice Cream?? Oooooh... Well, we are attempting to go for it again this week. Probably on Thursday, 29th at Great Eastern Mall, 8pm onwards. To all you Chocolate Fudge, Macademia Nut Brittle, Green Tea, Tiramisu, Coffee, Mango, Strawberries, Banoffee and other lovely lovely flavours.. i'll will be there soon ok. You all will be safe in my stomach in a few more days.. :P The Haagen Dazs Lie - Part 2!!! Deceived and duped again!! Our trip through the mad traffic of Ampang was in vain. The mission of savoring the Ice Cream Buffet was shattered once again by the highly inappropriate, misleading and cruel temptation of their deceitful promotion. I am sure there are hundreds who share my view who are not going down quietly. My dear people at HPL Marketing Sdn. Bhd., your Marketing and Promotions Manager or someone responsible for this massive mess up should be fired without notice. Members of the Press, Ministry of Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs and Consumer Rights Groups, feel free to use the witnessed facts and accounts of this incident. The story goes like this. It was advertised and promoted by HPL Marketing Sdn Bhd, that they were doing a Haagen Dazs Ice Cream Buffet, an all-you-can-eat treat that we could not miss, all for RM 25. It is clearly printed that the promotion was valid till 31st July 2004. It was also clearly stated on their promotional brochure that the outlets being Mont Kiara, Sunway and Great Eastern Mall that this promotion would be at specific times, i.e. Noon till 5pm for the first 2 outlets and 7pm till 10pm for the latter. Now this is what, we poor unsuspecting, more-than-willing-to-pay dedicated customers had to find out the hard way. First incident happened at the Plaza Mont Kiara Outlet on Sunday 25th July 2004 at 4pm. After promoting it to our many many friends, we were viciously turned down at the counter of this clearly advertised treat in a totally unprofessional manner. The promotional brochures were tampered in ballpoint pen with the addition of “Weekdays only” written on it. There was a copy of the brochure pasted near cash register with a piece of white paper plastered over it with the words “Only on weekdays” horrendously scribbled in pencil as if it were done by a 5 year old. Fact 1, no where on the promotional brochure was it written that HPL Marketing had the disclaimer right to change the promotion details at any time to suit their whim and fancy. You have publicly advertised it, you keep your word to it, you take responsibility of the mistake and suffer any consequences and accountability of your employee’s mistake internally, after the promotion, but the show must go on as advertised. This is a direct violation of advertising principles, company ethics and the law. No amount of public apology is going to make up for denying your customers the right to whatever offer that has been made public unless it turns out your product is dangerous for consumption, you have ran out of stock, or the unruly crowd situation was a potential death trap. Our efforts to reason with the outlet manager was simply returned with an apology, “there’s nothing we can do about it”, “it was a last minute change”, “sorry, you have to come back during the weekday” as it was conveniently changed. We still sat there disappointed and still displayed the customer loyalty to Haagen Dazs by purchasing other selections on their menu. Second incident, now armed with the official and makeshift brochure, we revised our notice to inform all our friends by HPL’s sudden change of offer details, rounded up all our friends and followed the timing as indicated on the brochure, “from 7pm – 10pm”. We arrived at the Haagen Dazs outlet in Great Eastern Mall, Jalan Ampang, at around 8.30pm and queued up in line, happy to see that they we serving to customers, with a majority of them coming for refills. So patiently, we stood in line and when our turn came, we were told “sorry, we are not taking any new customers for the buffet”. Some lame reason was given to the effect of we don’t have enough for everyone or we have to save this for those who came earlier. Other unsuspecting new customers were also turned away while the lucky few who came early happily ate away. It wasn’t like there were hundreds of people around or that the Ice Cream was finished. In fact the tubs we still at least half full in most and the least popular flavors were about a quarter empty. Simply unacceptable. The point is, if a paying customer came within the time stated, i.e. even if we came at 9.59pm and wanted your product, you have to serve us. Outlets like Domino’s Pizza and The Chicken Rice shop have a serving time policy which they promise and guarantee to keep to it. There is no point of branding and claiming Haagen Dazs to be “Dedicated to Perfection. Dedicated to You” as your company image, because in this instance and in front of many others, it is clear that you are not living up to your commitment to offer satisfaction as stated in your customer feedback form. There’s no point writing in to you as well as no action will probably be taken to compensate for our efforts to contribute to your profits all these years. You want to compensate me? Give me a lifetime supply of your Ice Cream then maybe i'll maybe just think or consider even of forgiving your blunder. The best part is that a customer asked if they are going to be open this Saturday, 31st July. The staff said “We are, because we advertised that this promotion is till 31st July”. Right. Our friends and other customers have already been deceived. It’s happen to me twice. I wonder what cockamamie excuse they are going to come up with if I start queuing up at 11.30am on 31st July Saturday at Plaza Mont Kiara. “Oh no Sir, we ended yesterday, come back again next year”. Hmmm, should I go with “Once Bitten Twice Shy” or “Third Time is a Charm” or “Send To The Press And Relevant Authorities To Take Legal Action for Misleading Advertising”. Maybe you can check with your friends too if this happened to them. As it says on their brochure. “Let Your Tongue Travel”. It will, indeed, I am sure it will eventually travel all the way to the Ministry and Consumer Rights Groups with the help of the Press. Written by A very disgruntled high strung, severely experiencing creamy sugar cravings withdrawal symptoms consumer. Juuuuuust in case you feel like sending them your rubbish, love letters or your advertising brochures by fax over and over again. Haagen-Dazs c/o HPL Marketing Sdn Bhd Suite 19-06 & 07, 19th Floor, Wisma Zelan No. 1, Jalan Tasik Permaisuri 2, Bandar Tun Razak, 56000 Kuala Lumpur Tel: 03-91739600 Fax: 03-91739266

p.s: Ok ok.. so we did go on the 31st July, got there at 11.45am and patiently waited. Best part.. no one was there, we were first in line, all buckets were new, filled to the brim. We started whacking to our hearts content! Aaah.. it was amazing. All those brain freeze. All those flavours. It was well worth the agony of the previous attempts. We attempted to break the outlet record of 20 scoops but i got to 16 scoops and our friend got to 15 scoops. Could have done more if we could stay longer. Sigh.. we will be back next year. :P