Disbelieving customers win 30 cars
Staff Writer | Friday January 26, 2018 18:15
Inside the giant marquee on the eastern outskirts of Commerce Park, were 30 boxes laden with till slips belonging to customers who had entered the Win-A-Car. The boxes belonged to different suppliers of the retailing giant’s different merchandise.
These included Tastic rice, White Star Maize Meal, Five Roses Tea, Choppies Sugar, Choppies Chill (spices), Yogo Fun and many more. Assisted by invited guests, the Choppies marketing team led by Otsile Marole and Tshegofatso Molosiwa went from box to box, mixing the till slips and then picking one out, which had the names and cell phone number of a customer that had entered the competition.
Luckily, Molosiwa who was tasked with phoning the winning competitor had patience as she persevered even when after five or so calls, the number would still be unavailable.
She even put aside slips whose owners’phones were totally off so that she will keep trying, even into the next day. Thankfully, all the competitors, 30 of them, were reached, with a lot of them expressing incredulity at being told such “good news” that, out of the blue, they had won a brand new Honda Brio.
A lot more did not immediately show their emotions while others suspected a big scam was about to hit them. Choppies chief executive officer, Ottopath Ramachandran tried his luck with a few customers whose phones were either off, or the phones were ringing unanswered. After trying unsuccessfully, he would pass the phone to Molosiwa who would patiently call the numberr until the customer had answered.
It took several minutes to convince some of the competitors that they had won a car. Let alone a brand new one. Alice Nkgwana from Selebi Phikwe at first refused point blank that she was the winner. “What do you mean I have won a car? Noooo! You are playing me April Fool, arent’ you,” she said.
“Are you sure this is not Thato?”a customer from Serowe, whose till slip showed he had bought a polish interrogated Molosiwa, who patiently explained the situation to the customer. Another customer suddenly went quite and some commotion could be heard in the background, only for a family member to come on line to say the customer had collapsed and was a sobbing mess on the ground.
The customer later came on line to really get to the bottom of Molosiwa’s call and it was repeated to him that he had won a brand new Honda Brio. Following the announcement, the 30 lucky customers started making arrangements with the Choppies marketing team to claim their prizes