Today Tonight's undercover investigation has revealed stores accusing customers of theft, instead of honouring refunds, and showing attitude instead of assistance.

While prices are the front-line of the battle between the supermarkets, the big stores are now also offering additional services to get you to shop with them.

Refunds, exchanges, and additional customer service all part of the new approach to getting the customer, but is the reality of shopping different to the image consumers are being sold?

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To put the promises to the test, Today Tonight went undercover, testing sixteen supermarkets: Six Coles, six Woolies, two IGAs and two Aldis.

First stop was Woolworths. The ‘fresh food people’ are at pains to point out their fresh guarantee, and has widely publicised that 'if you’re not happy with their fruit or veges, they'll replace it or offer a refund, and you don't even need a receipt'.

“We have millions of happy customers every week, but where there are exceptions we want to know about, we want to learn from it, and we want to do as good job as we can. We’re not afraid of scrutiny and accountability,” said Simon Berger, from Woolworths.

“If, for whatever reason, you are not happy with the quality of your fruit and veg, we want you to bring it back. We want you to tell us why, and we want to make it right for you,” he added.

Our next stop was ALDI, who's return policy is straight forward - 'if you're not entirely satisfied with an item, you can return it for a full refund, just bring your receipt'.

Over at Coles the policy, clearly shown on the sign, is to escort you not just to the aisle, but to the shelf, if you can't find the product you're looking for.

Steve Koulmar is a retail and marketing analyst from Retail Oasis. He said, “when a customer says 'would you give me a hand to take the groceries to my car', they may look at them and go 'we don't do that', when in reality they've made that promise, because they are not constantly and continually trained.”

Steve says it is just as detrimental to a brand to promote a service and not deliver, than it is to not offer the service at all. “Don't promise what you can't provide would be the way in which businesses should be run, but in a lot of cases they think they can provide more than they actually do,” he said.

So why is it so hit and miss when it comes to implementing company policy? “There is no doubt a lot of the service promises that are made are absolutely marketing spin, and not necessarily an operational spin,” concluded Steve.

Statements from the Supermarkets

• Ritchies Supa IGA

“We at Ritchies Supa IGA strive to be 100 per cent right all day every day. We had one store error in this instance but the majority of the checks honoured our commitments. We want a perfect shopping experience for every customer but we welcome the opportunity to compare our worth and commitment to our pledges. Whilst we are not perfect we will take this sample on board and strive to deliver better results to next customers.”

• Coles

“At Coles we are lifting customer service levels to give our shoppers a better instore experience. We are working hard to ensure our service commitments are delivered consistently across stores, and while we’ve made good progress, there’s always room for improvement. The ‘take me, show me’ promise you tested is part of a broader customer service program that is rolling out across our business, but not all store teams have currently gone through the program.”

• ALDI

"At ALDI, we take great pride in the quality of the fresh produce we sell.

Our fresh produce is delivered daily to store. If it is not up to the high standards our customers expect we will gladly offer an exchange or refund. We do ask that customers return the item with the original receipt, however without a receipt, we may still offer an exchange or refund at our discretion.

This is the case for all grocery items sold at ALDI.

ALDI's refund policy and manufacturers’ warranty are in addition to customers’ statutory rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

ALDI offers a refund and return policy because we stand by the quality of all products sold in our Stores. From time to time a customer may not be completely satisfied with the product they purchased and we believe it is important to ensure they have a product they are pleased with, and that their experience is a positive one.

From time to time the appearance of our fresh produce may not be up to the high standard we expect due to environmental factors, such as frost or heavy rains, which cause blemishes on fruit and vegetables. However, the taste and freshness of the product is not compromised.

When an ALDI store assistant at our Salisbury store was approached by Today Tonight with a pear, he took the bruised fruit from the customer and immediately disposed of it. The store assistant was honest in his assessment and acted immediately to ensure other customers could not purchase the item."

• Woolworths

"We're pleased the fresh guarantee was followed through at all the stores you visited - if it took a little longer in some stores we'll remind our team of the need to be responsive.

Our fresh fruit and veg is excellent - it's the best from Australian farms and we have millions of satisfied customers each week.

The whole point of the fresh guarantee is to make ourselves accountable for our fruit and veg, so if you've found an example or two of where we can do better, we'll happily look at it and learn from it."