Thursday, October 20, 2005

20/10/05

A rare moment of brilliance occurred today in work, when I looked at the date, and said "oooh, each number in the date is half the previous one!". I then proceeded to work out the previous one (16th August 2004), when the next one will be (Christmas Eve next year) and then told the bowlers .

Kept me occupied for about 3 minutes.

Anyway, the real reason for this post is development in the chocolate stakes. Yesterday, I sent an email to Nestle enquiring about the chocolate bars:-

"Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you enquiring about the production of Nestle's Double Chocolate Bars.

In the past 6 months I have noticed that these chocolate bars are very difficult to find.

I am writing to you to find out if these bars have been discontinued, and if not, where I can get them.

Your help would be most appreciated.

Yours Faithfully.

Rhys Wynne"

To be honest, I've never written an email enquiring about a chocolate bar before, and not sure how to word it. It's not like a CV or covering letters, where there's tons of resources on these things, there's none on "Enquiring with a multi-national confectioner on the wherabouts of a product". However, with the lack of such guide, I think I did pretty well.

Anyway, they must of took my query seriously, as I got a large, lengthy and disgustingly thorough reply today.

"Dear Mr Wynne

Thank you for your recent enquiry via email concerning Nestle Double Chocolate.

We were very sorry to hear of your problems obtaining this product. Unfortunately it is very difficult to provide details of shops stocking our products because only the retailers themselves have this information. For example, although we do supply most of the big supermarket and store chains, goods are often delivered to a central warehouse and it is the retailers who decide which branches are to receive the products. Similarly, many smaller shops tend to buy their stocks from wholesalers or Cash & Carry outlets.

The majority of our products are in full national distribution and if you ask one of the larger supermarkets or at stores such as Woolworths, they may be able to tell you of the nearest branch stocking this particular line. Alternatively, it may be worth asking at a smaller shop where a friendly retailer may be able to help you by ordering an outer (the retail pack) of Nestle Double Chocolate for you when he visits his local Cash & Carry.

One point worth considering is that demand for products can vary from month to month and it may be possible that the most popular lines may sometimes have simply sold out.

Thank you for taking the trouble to write to us, we sincerely hope that you will be successful in obtaining Nestle Double Chocolate in the future.

Kind regards,

Karen Short
Consumer Services
Nestle UK Ltd"

So, even if it's slightly patronising (hell, I've worked in customer services before now, we have a good giggle at people with stupid questions such as this, so I understand) reply, it basically is good news: the chocolate is still being made, and sold. Now it's your turn.

I'm going to look in my Tesco: Local store in town tomorrow, and hopefully that will come up trumps. If you live in the Liverpool area, and do find them on your travels (note: not the Double Cream, which is in blue packaging. I want the Double Chocolate, which is in brown), please let me know. The advice is to check big supermarkets, please do next time you're on your weekly shop. Thank you.