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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Is Mothercare's customer service poor or is it just me?

26 replies

BloggingAboutTediousThings · 14/05/2013 08:39

Yesterday I was in my local Mothercare store for the first time as I was looking for a double buggy. We need one in October and I like to do some research so that I can say I found the best buggy for us. Anyway, went into the store and despite several sales assistant seeing me looking for a buggy nobody even asked if I need help. They were standing around chatting. I can get the same service when I order online and just left the store. AIBU to not be surprised that Mothercare tends to be empty when they customer service is so poor?

OP posts:
BabyMakesTheBoobiesGoLeaky · 14/05/2013 08:52

Why didn't you ask for help?

bubblesinthesky · 14/05/2013 09:07

I would find yourself a decent independent baby shop if I were you.

My last few experiences of Mothercare have been appalling. I went in there when I was 7 months pregnant on the hunt for a pram and asked to see a particular carry cot as it was not out on display. Eventaully after a protracted conversation with a colleague she told me I'd need to order it and pay for it and they could deliver it to me in a few weeks. I didn't bother and I've not been back since

DeskPlanner · 14/05/2013 09:15

No, they are the crapest of the crap. Am amazed they haven't gone under.

MyDarlingYoni · 14/05/2013 09:38

Have you told them of your experience.

One of my local ones is very well run, really helpful staff.
However that is a rare example. Often I find it can depend on where the shop is.

I wouldn't have thought any business can afford poor customer service in today's market?

MoaningMingeWhingesAgain · 14/05/2013 09:42

My local store is the same - I have walked out before now when I had gone in intending to buy stuff but been roundly ignored. I think acknowledging customers (not fawning over them or mithering them when they only want to browse) is pretty core customer service that my local store fails on badly. Before you even start on the poor value for money.

My local ELC OTOH is fab, really friendly staff who are happy to help but don't harass you, you wouldn't believe they are part of the same company.

silverangel · 14/05/2013 09:46

They've put ELC into out local Mothercare, I now hate both of them instead of just Mothercare. It's a baby shop and I can't fit my double buggy around the store! And apart from that it's seriously over-priced.

loofet · 14/05/2013 09:46

Tbh I really detest being asked if I need help. I'm just browsing, leave me to it and if I need your help I will ask. I'm sure i'm not alone with that either although maybe I'm just a misanthropic antisocial bastard Grin

If you need help just ask for it, they're not mind readers.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 14/05/2013 09:47

"My local ELC OTOH is fab, really friendly staff who are happy to help but don't harass you, you wouldn't believe they are part of the same company."
This is probably because they most likely have old school ELC staff as management.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 14/05/2013 09:48
Grin
ShlongAndFanjoForTheMammeries · 14/05/2013 09:49

What loofet said, I've never really had an issue with them and most of my baby stuff has come from there.

Hamwidge · 14/05/2013 09:53

I havnt been recently but when I walked into my local mothercare, 4 days after an emergency c-section, needing the smallest premature baby clothes they had, they were brilliant. They got me a chair, brought all the clothes too me, ordered me some to be delivered and gave me a discount!!

Crinkle77 · 14/05/2013 09:57

I hate being approached by the staff when I am shopping. It puts me right off cos I then feel rushed. I prefer to take my time and look at things myself then when I want help I will ask for it.

CuppaSarah · 14/05/2013 09:59

I had the opposite when I looked in there for buggies. I was descended upon by all sales staff. It was overwhelming, like when you step into a car dealership. I had massive demonstrations of the super expensive models and given endless catalouges. I had to ask for time to try them by myself in the end. I think that may have been becuase I'm youngish and was with my Dad, they figured if he was fitting the bill I might go mad and buy a Bugaboo in each colourway or something.

AmazingBouncingFerret · 14/05/2013 10:05

CuppaSarah they probably had the area manager in! Grin

MoaningMingeWhingesAgain · 14/05/2013 10:07

ABF - very restrained - what do you think about ELC?? Grin Only joking, I know you.

It's a bloody shame though. That and when you ask in Mothercare - have you got XYZ and you get a nah, but you can order it for delivery. No shit Sherlock, if I had wanted to wait for it and pay a huge delivery charge, I wouldn't have bothered coming into your shop. It's the massive can't-be-arsedness that gets on my tits.

Unlike their rubbish nursing bras, they don't stay anywhere near my tits.

TwistTee · 14/05/2013 10:10

I totally agree. I bought a maclaren stroller from them. We took it out for its first use after the 28 day period and one of the plastic washers on the side broke and fell off.
I returned it to the store at great discomfort (I also had the baby in his Quinny to manoeuvre), only to be told that they would not replace and I would need to return to the store to pick it up after it has been repaired. Why? It was no fault of mine that it was broken so I can't understand why they would not deliver it to the house, but apparently they don't do that.
So instead, I had to pay for petrol and parking, then lift the silly thing in one arm while pushing my son with the other out the store, up the lift and through the car park.
Thanks mothercare for your shockingly poor service. I will certainly think of you next time I need to make a significant purchase Hmm

Wallison · 14/05/2013 10:12

This is going back a few years now, but I bought a buggy from Mothercare. Just one of the el cheapo folding ones but still it cost £35 or so so it wasn't a small amount of money. The footrest thing snapped within 6 weeks so I took it back. Didn't have a receipt by then unforch (I know, stupid of me) but I had a bank statement showing the money going out to them. They refused to give me a refund stating that I could have bought the buggy anywhere - the shop assistant all but accused me of lying.

I should really have taken it up with head office but instead I just decided never to go in there again, with their snotty staff and their shitty buggies.

CuppaSarah · 14/05/2013 10:13

Amazing, you're probably right! Everyone seemed REALLY jolly even though they were working a saturday. I went with pregnant SIL on a weekday and even though there were two pregnant ladies to flog overpriced sausage nappy bins and webcam baby monitors to, they left us too it.

Wallison · 14/05/2013 10:15

The buggy was one of their own brand products, btw, so I don't see how I could have bought it anywhere else.

Jojobump1986 · 14/05/2013 10:17

I went into my local one the other day just to buy a bra & a pair of sandals for DS. It should only have taken 5 minutes max because I knew what I was looking for. It took nearly twice as long, with DS getting frustrated & wanting to run around purely because a member of staff was insisting on chatting to me about DS & her grandson of a similar age. I was too polite to ask her to leave me alone but you'd have thought she might have noticed that the heavily pregnant lady couldn't manage to hold a conversation while rifling through the bras to find the right size and keep hold of a fidgety toddler!

The time before that I was approached by 3 different staff members in the space of 2 minutes to see if I needed help. I was just trying to pick an outfit for a friend's newborn. I really didn't look lost! It made me wonder if they were playing some kind of odd game! Hmm

Original poster
BloggingAboutTediousThings · 14/05/2013 10:17

I usually don't like being approached by staff either, e.g when I am clothes shopping BUT you are not allowed to try out the buggies without a member of staff by your side. I wanted to see if my toddler fits into the Bugaboo Donkey as it is smaller than the Cameleon I have at the moment and he is quite big for his age. Sorry, but when I am intending to spend nearly £1200 on a pushchair I really expect a better service than being locked at and then just getting ignorance.

OP posts:
CandidaDoyle · 14/05/2013 10:32

I've not forgiven them for the hard sell on photos they tried giving me when I was 5 days post-partum. All I needed was measuring for a nursing bra. Too much to ask apparently.

clarevoyant13 · 30/03/2015 10:44

Mothercare doesn't care.

This old thread needs updating I have had such an appalling time with Mothercare; I bought a faulty BT monitor in 2012. I tried to change it and got endlessly fobbed off by the store (made to buy new batteries etc). They are extremely unhelpful. Eventually I had to take an e-mail from customer services into the store (Watford) before they would exchange it and even then they put up a fight. Then the new monitor developed the same fault so I have been trying, since October last year, to get it changed via customer services. But they are dreadful. Every time I contact them it's someone different and they all give different answers. I thought I was close to getting it sorted (they agreed an exchange and told me to choose a new one) but then it was out of stock. Since it came back in stock they have ignored almost all my messages! I have even resorted to writing to the CEO (twice. He has also ignored me). I just want a new monitor! The one I have barely works. They have agreed i can have one, so what's the problem? Goodness knows. Am so fed up with them. Don't buy anything from them ladies. It's not worth the hassle.

Purplehonesty · 30/03/2015 10:50

Ours is really good. The manager is a man and he cannot do enough for you. He literally runs around the shop helping people - he demos prams and opens things up so you can see them and he seems to have the answer to every question!

So I guess it filters down to his staff who are helpful too, but not quite as nice as him!

BananaLeaf · 30/03/2015 11:21

No they are useless. Went to buy a car seat the other day and they were completely misinformed re the difference between crash testing and a car seat fitting.
They didn't want to fit a car seat in our car (slightly older but with isofix) as they said it hadn't been 'crash tested' in that car.
What the website actually said was that it wasn't on the list of cars that had been pre-checked that it would fit, and to get a professional to check it would fit, which is what I was trying to do! They don't crash test every year of every model of car FGS, they crash test the seat in a test lab! We went to Halford's in the end.
We have also walked round and around in the pram section looking for someone to help, and hunting round the shop but to no avail. You'd think when someone is trying to spend £100's and £100's that you'd make it as easy as possible for them.

Oh just seen this is an old thread. Oh well nothing's changed then. I only go in there as they have costa and if I need to buy small bits I can find myself.