HEB Update

Just wanted to let all of you know that I went up to HEB this morning to have a meeting with the supervisor and some of the managers. I met with some of the managers several days ago and left not feeling like I had any of my questions answered. One of my readers suggested that it might be a good idea to contact someone at a higher level of HEB, so I sent an email off to their corporate office. About 24 hours later, i received a call from our local HEB office asking to meet with me.
I have to say that the thought of meeting with them had me feeling pretty nervous, but once I started talking about coupons, the nervousness left...I guess when you really know what you are talking about it helps you be able to speak up for yourself (and all other coupon shoppers out there. :)
We did not get all my coupon questions resolved today, but I definitely left feeling like I had been heard and that they were going to look into questions that they did not have answers to...They told me that they would call me when they found out the answers to my questions.

Here's some of what we talked about (Most of these questions were taken from emails/comments/questions that I've received from readers)

Internet Coupons that do not scan...This is the best...They will now manually enter internet coupons that do not scan properly!! WOO HOO!! They will not accept internet coupons for FREE items, but if the computer will not ring up the coupon, the cashier can now manually enter it. I could not find this information on their website yet, but they did say that it is now in effect. If you have an issue with a cashier not entering in your coupons, ask to speak to a manager/supervisor.

One of the managers mentioned to me a couple of times that they needed to give their cashiers a little more knowledge about the store's coupon policy, so hopefully we won't run into any cashiers who refuse to accept coupons.

If a coupon exceeds the value of a product, the computer will automatically adjust the price of the coupon down...you'll be able to get a product FREE but no overage.

HEB will NOT price match competitor ads.

If an HEB coupon (yellow) has an M in the box on the lower left side of the coupon, that means it is a manufacturer's coupon and can NOT be combined with an additional manufacturer's coupon, if it has an S in it, this stands for a store coupon and CAN be combined with a manufacturer's coupon. I was told that HEB does not issue many "S" coupons, but you can always be on the lookout for those.

There are no limits to the amount of coupons you can use per day.

If you have a problem with bad produce/meats/products/etc. HEB would like you to bring your receipt AND the product up to the store...if you don't have your receipt, still bring the product up to the store. They will do their best to make things right...issue you new products, store credit, etc.

Things they are still working on finding the answers to:

-Accepting Register Rewards
I showed them a Register Reward and explained that it is a manufacturer's coupon that they should get reimbursed for...they copied one of my register rewards and told me they would contact someone to try to find answers to this.

-Accepting Military Store Coupons
Again, I showed them some of these coupons...they are clearly manufacturer's coupons. They said they would look into this. Evidently, some manufacturer's have deals with specific stores to reimburse them for products, so they wanted to know if that was the case with these coupons. If they start accepting those coupons, it will be wonderful for all of the military families in town!!

-Using a B1G1 FREE coupon with an additional $ off coupon
At first they told me they could not do that because that would be doubling up on coupons. I explained that they consider their yellow in store coupons to be manufacturer's coupons and they allow you to use a dollar off coupon for the item you are purchasing with those, so I didn't see what the difference was to use another manufacturer's B1G1 coupon with a dollar off coupon (only difference I could see was that HEB was printing the B1G1 coupon). They said that made sense and that they would be looking into that as well.

All in all today was a very good trip. All of the people I spoke with were very friendly and seemed to genuinely want to help. I think they understand the benefits of shopping with coupons and want to make it as easy on their customers as possible.

The next time you are at HEB I really encourage you to tell a manager or your cashier how much you appreciate them for taking the time to make couponing easier at their store. The managers could have easily ignored my comments and questions, but instead they took the time to sit down with me and try to understand where I was coming from and try to answer some of my questions. You know sometimes you can talk to people and it's like they aren't even listening...they are thinking of a comeback to prove their point and not listening to yours...I was kind of expecting that experience today, but I have to say that it was nothing like that. They genuinely seemed like they wanted to help and would do what they could to find the answers to our couponing questions.

I really think that if all of us coupon shoppers make an effort to tell them thank you and shop with a smile on our faces that it will make them want to make things easier on us!!
Let me know if you have any other issues/questions about HEB, and I will try to find the answers for you!!