Lost your Nakumatt Smartcard?

I first signed up for Nakumatt’s customer reward scheme in 2003, when it first came out. I was making a big purchase at Nakumatt Mega, when the cashier asked me whether or not I had a Nakumatt Smartcard. Having no clue as to what he was talking about, he told me that a Nakumatt Smartcard was a card that allowed customers to accumulate points with every purchase made at Nakumatt. These points would then one day be redeemable for awards – sort of the way it’s done in a frequent flyer’s program.

At the time, I was not much of a Nakumatt shopper. In those days, Uchumi was my preferred supermarket chain. Still, I knew I would be making a number of big household purchases at Nakumatt in the near future because I was moving into a new home and so decided to sign up.

From then on, I happily presented my Smartcard each time I made purchases at Nakumatt, despite not being sure what kind of awards my points would win me. I figured: better collect points while I waited to find out.

Later that same year, or sometime during the next year, I lost my Nakumatt Smartcard. I didn’t know where I had lost it, but every time the cashier would ask me whether or not I had a Smartcard, I would have to tell him or her that I didn’t have it on me. At first, I thought I might have misplaced it in my new home while moving in, but very soon, I realized that it was truly lost.

This past year, I began to shop a lot at Nakumatt. As I would pay for my purchases, I would often contemplate the number points that I was missing out on by not having my Smartcard. I then began to seriously try to find or replace it.

One day, I asked a cashier what it would take to replace my Smartcard. He told me that I could do so at a cost of 500 KSh. After expressing my lack of willingness to spend that sum, he suggested that I check at the customer service desk at that branch as well as that of the Nakumatt branch, which originally issued my card. This I did to no avail. After looking through piles and piles of cards (I was amazed at the number of lost cards that I saw!), still I could not find my card.

Months passed by. Still unwilling to purchase a new card at 500 Ksh, I one day found myself at the customer service desk at Nakumatt Ukay trying to track down a set of keys that I had misplaced. While I waited for one attendant to find out from someone else about my lost keys, I asked another attendant if by chance he might have my lost Nakumatt Smartcard. He asked for my name and then proceeded to look through another huge stack of lost cards. Lo and behold! My card was finally found…after 3 years.

There you have it! If you’ve lost your Nakumatt Smartcard and don’t know what to do, try inquiring at the customer service desks of any Nakumatt Branch you’ve ever shopped at (I say this because I was not a frequent shopper at Nakumatt Ukay at the time I lost my card). Every time I inquired, each customer service desk would have hundreds of lost cards. Might your card be in one of these huge piles?  Of course, you could go the easier route and replace your card for 500 KSh, but why pay for something that was free in the first place? 🙂

If your card is lost, I wish you swift recovery of it. It took me three years to find mine, so don’t give up hope!

What do you think of Nakumatt’s reward program? Has it been useful to you? Have you ever redeemed your points for something that has been truly worthwhile to you? If so, I would love to hear about it.

Biche

Photo Credit: kenyabuzz.com

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