"Start with Staff Training"... One Month Since CU Keeping Coupon Introduction, Initial Issues

Visited CU to participate in eventUndertrained store owners respond "Don't know how to use"

[Asia Economy Reporter Minyoung Cha] "Let's retrain the staff before launching the event." (CU Keeping Coupon Event Participant A)

Convenience store CU, which introduced the 'Keeping Coupon' service for storing giveaway items on the 6th of last month, is facing consumer dissatisfaction due to insufficient training policies in the early stages of implementation. In particular, criticism has been raised that the preparation was so lacking during the event held to increase service awareness that consumers found it difficult to participate.

According to the convenience store industry on the 1st, some consumers experienced difficulties participating in the 'CU Keeping Coupon Issuance Event with Keeping Item Giveaway,' which ran for about three weeks from the service launch day (6th) to the 29th of the same month, due to inadequate training of store owners and staff.

The Keeping Coupon system introduced by CU is a service targeting promotional products that offer additional giveaways, such as buy 2 get 1 free (2+1) or buy 1 get 1 free (1+1). Consumers can purchase items and keep them without taking all the products immediately by using a barcode-attached coupon to store (keep) the items and later pick them up at the same store. The barcode attached to the coupon can be scanned like other coupons. It was also expected to be helpful to store owners when in-store stock was insufficient.

The problem arose at the early stage of service introduction when communication between the headquarters and convenience store owners regarding the Keeping Coupon system was not smooth, yet a nationwide consumer event was held through the official app. During the event, CU gave consumers who received their first Keeping Coupon during the event period a lottery ticket upon verification. Prizes included an air dresser, kimchi refrigerator, coffee machine, chewy macarons, and CU points.

Looking at actual reviews of event participation within the Pocket CU app, criticisms that the event was rushed stand out. Especially on the 27th and 28th, just before the event ended, comments expressing inconvenience were noticeable. One participant said, "They only do keeping if the item is out of stock, so they refused to do it." Another participant said, "I thought the receipt given after buying 2+1 was the Keeping Coupon, but it was a regular receipt with 'stored' handwritten on it." They added, "I purposely used keeping to participate in the event, but it is still more inconvenient than other companies' services." Another participant lamented, "I requested keeping, but they wrote something on the receipt," and "Even after showing the screen because it was not processed, the staff didn’t know and couldn’t do the keeping."

A BGF Retail official, which operates CU, said, "The inconveniences some customers experienced seem to be due to staff being inexperienced with the operation in the early stages of service operation," adding, "We will continuously improve by actively reflecting ongoing guidance, promotion, and feedback from customers and store owners."

In this regard, an industry insider said, "If there are 10,000 store owners, it takes several times the effort to train them on a new system," and added, "Since there are many part-time workers and the stores are basically franchise agencies with contracts with headquarters rather than directly managed stores, it will be difficult to introduce the system uniformly."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.