Energizer batteries and deliberately bad customer service

How to avoid standing behind your product

Since I had nothing better to do on a rainy day, I sat down to replace the battery on my wife’s smart car key. I keep a few spare coin batteries for just such occasions but when I tested the first battery (new, still sealed and good through Oct 2023), it was dead. Likewise so was it’s brother (good through 2024).

Out of curiosity and of course, saving some money (these are $4/ea retail), I went to Energizer’s website looking for a way to report such things (or leaky batteries). Turns out they make it really hard for “customers” to contact them. There is no actual form, just an obscure “Contact Us” buried deep in the site.

I dutifully sent them all the information I could find. Code (poorly stamped) on battery. Battery type. Date on package. Approximate purchase date. One week later (yeah I know COVID is tough) I got this reply via email:

Thank you for contacting Energizer We apologize for the inconvenience that you are experiencing with our product. We would like to resolve this matter for you as quickly as possible.

Please provide us with the following:
· Mailing address & phone number
· Picture of Date printed near the positive terminal of the battery, as they’re Specialty batteries so the date on the package as you mentioned.
· Picture of Manufacturing date embossed on the side of the battery.
· Picture of The made in plant like “made in the USA/Poland” (showing the package )
· Picture of the battery/batteries and receipt

You can reply to this message with the information requested, so that we can take care of the matter.

Be assured that we value you as a customer and want you to know that we continually strive to manufacture only the finest quality products.

Sincerely,
Energizer Consumer Services

Aside from the atrocious grammar, this has a decidedly passive-aggressive tone. Now of course, I could spend a half-hour or more taking photos and pulling all this together for $8 worth of batteries except, yeah, I don’t keep receipts for things like this. I doubt anyone does. So instead I spent my half-hour dashing this important expose of lousy customer service off.

Mondelēz International, Easy Cheese and the right way to handle things.

Do you think Energizer (aka Everready aka Ray-O-Vac) actually values it’s customers? Nahhhh. If they did, they’d treat people who actually got past their already industrial strength web barriers with a little more respect. Heck I’ve had amazing service from Mondelēz International over a bad can of Kraft Easy Cheese. They sent me two coupons for two new cans with an apology (I think the Easy Cheese was maybe $3.29 at the grocery store) AND an appreciation for reporting a possible manufacturing problem!

So here’s the lesson companies. If you actually value your customers and they contact you, treat them with respect. They might just return to you and not write articles like this. Unlike Energizer who has now lost a very frequent battery customer. And yeah, I will be buying more Easy Cheese.