CEO to the Rescue: Turning a Bad Situation Around

Do you recall my blog from Monday: “The Manischewitz Pie Crust Debacle”? It was the story of the “uncuttable” crust, the result of a faulty product distributed to supermarkets by the company…or so we thought. When my wife wrote a letter of complaint to customer service early Sunday, an automated response said all emails would be answered on Monday. Come end of day Monday, we had still not heard. Not what we have come to expect in the 24/7 internet age.

Then lightning struck on Tuesday morning, when no less than the co-president and CEO, Paul Bensabat, sent the following email:

“First let me apologize profusely for your bad experience with one of our products. I feel horrible that you not only were not pleased with this product but also got embarrassed in front of your friends. If you‘ll allow me, I need to understand in greater details what happened because frankly it is the first time that we are hearing this type of complaint and we need to get to the bottom of it to find out what could be the cause. Would you please be kind enough to give me a phone number where I can call you later today or tomorrow to discuss this matter? I would greatly appreciate it.”

We assume that Monday’s blog — plus my wife’s note — inspired a C-suite officer, the co-president himself, to respond. My wife sent him her number and, true to his word, he called later that afternoon. A turnaround was at hand. The co-chief executive explained that this was the second year that the pie shells were on the market and ours was the first complaint about them. Despite the fact that the shells come ready to use and require no baking, his staff had spent the morning freezing, baking and just leaving them in the oven for close to an hour trying to duplicate our experience of having a shell that was harder than cardboard and impossible to cut.

Mr. Bensabat asked if we still had the original packaging (which we did not) or noted the “best by” date on it (which we also did not). My wife explained that she had purchased the crusts in our local supermarket and that they stocked their Passover products at least six weeks in advance. He explained that they have a shelf life of about nine months and that this year’s batch was baked in October. He further explained that macaroon pie crust products, because of the moisture in them, cannot be kept from one year to the next, which can be done with dry matzo products.

The pie shells, he said, would become hard as a rock if they were left over from Passover 2011 and put back on the shelves this year. It is likely, he asserted, that the supermarket did exactly that. Mr. Bensabat said he intended to send one of his employees to the Stop & Shop, where my wife made her purchase, to ensure that the problem would not happen again.

To make up for this unfortunate and embarrassing experience, Mr. Bensabat is also sending us a basket of their new products and said he “hopes that we will continue to use Manischewitz products in the future.”

We will.

It appears that in this situation, the fault was not Manischewitz’s. Were we jumping to conclusions? How else would we know the ostensible truth had we not written a blog, fired an email to customer service and been lucky enough to have a sensitive CEO engage with his customers. The wonder of communications! The wonder of the internet!

The Manischewitz Pie Crust Debacle

We were invited to a Passover Seder last Friday night, and my wife offered to bring dessert. Aware that there are special foods required for Passover, she dutifully went to the supermarket and bought a Manischewitz pie crust.

Manischewitz is the largest manufacturer of processed kosher food products, as well as matzo, or unleavened bread. Obviously, this would be a safe and reliable source that would toe the line. Everyone in the Jewish community knows of the integrity of Manischewitz.

My wife proudly handed to our hostess the pie she had made – a frozen key lime. She asked the hostess to keep the pie in the freezer during the meal and remove it about 15 minutes before dessert would be served.

The big moment came. The pie was brought to the table, and my wife asked if the hostess would permit her to cut and serve each person a piece. And so she began. But the freaking pie would not cut. So we switched to a serrated knife. We were literally sawing the bloody thing. Meanwhile, the frozen key lime filling was starting to melt. Still, no progress. So we tried a much bigger knife, and it still would not cut. Among the guests, there happened to be a 6’5” former football player who had auditioned for the NFL. So… we handed him the knife (at this point the guests were hysterical!), and he finally gained traction. Hooray! By this time, the frozen lime was soupy lime. I tried a piece. The crust was like chewing cardboard. The label said: coconut macaroon.

My wife pondered the possibility that perhaps the problem was due to freezing the crust. But she had made another pie the following night with a chocolate crust, where no freezing was required. The same thing happened. It would not cut. She had to dump the pie.

I suggested she write Manischewitz online to tell them of the experience. She received an automated email response noting that they were closed and would be open on Monday. I can understand Manischewitz being closed for the holy first two days of Passover, as it relates to the integrity of its position within the Jewish community. That said, as the world’s leading manufacturer of unleavened products, and for the holiday that claims a major part of its sales, shouldn’t there be some channel of interaction available to its thousands of customers once the observance is over at sundown on Sunday? Current status at end of day Monday: No response.