Humiliated by John Lewis staff

[FTMaz]

Hi
okay so I know this will seem very trivial to some but it is playing on my mind because I think I am a very reasonable and polite person and feel I was humiliated for absolutely no reason.

so I bought a jumper from a John Lewis store (Sweaty Beaty brand). The jumper was in the sale for £65. I wore it once and washed it according to the instructions. I put it on yesterday and my Mum commented that it had faded, the jumper is beige but I noticed it had a big white patch where the colour had seemingly ran out of it on the front. As I know John Lewis is known for their customer service I decided I would take it to the store to see if they would offer an exchange, I still had the receipt showing it had been purchased recently.

I went to the womenswear till but the queue was massive (I had my 12 week old baby with me) so I went to a till near the shoes. The girl serving must have been about 17/18. I explained to her what had happened and said I wasn’t sure if I could swap it but thought it was worth an ask. The girl was very polite but said she needed to check with a colleague, fine not a problem. She returned with a colleague who didn’t even acknowledge me. At this point there was a now a queue at the till. They both turned away from me and girl number 2 started whispering and inspecting the jumper. This probably went on for about 10 minutes. Girl number 1 then turned back to me and said something to the effect of I’m really sorry but I need to check with a manager…I assumed girl 2 was a manager but again I said okay. She then called someone on the phone. I continued to wait and at this point my baby started to cry, girl number 1 obviously feeling uncomfortable called again and apologised, again fine as not her fault that baby is crying or that manager is taking a long time. So eventually the manager turns up and calls me ‘sweetheart’ okay a term of endearment but I am a 34 year old professional so odd of her to do. Anyway…she inspects the jumper and says she can’t see the white patch, I said to her I couldn’t either until I went into natural light and my Mum pointed it out. At this point I am starting to feel agitated and embarrassed as there is a queue, my baby is crying and I am basically being told I’m making things up so I say ‘don’t worry about it for the sake of £60 I’ll just have the jumper back,’ she then says to go with her outside the store to natural light to show her the patch…seriously? I reply no it’s fine I’m not dragging my baby outside I’ll just have the jumper back. Again she insists I go outside with her and I again say it’s fine I’ll have the jumper back. She then turns to girl number 1 and says ‘you’ll come with me outside to look won’t you’ so they both then walk off and leave me at the till with my now screaming baby. Sometime later they return with ANOTHER member of staff, so now 4 people have looked at this bloody jumper! The manager says they all agree there is nothing wrong with it. Now I am quite frankly pissed off and humiliated and say ‘ I told you I would take the jumper back but instead I have been standing here whilst 4 people inspect it, I didn’t demand a refund I simply asked if it was possible to do anything such as an exchange.’ She replies there’s nothing wrong with it. So I say (probably wrongly so but I’d had enough) ‘if you go on my account you will see how much money I spend in this store, do you seriously think I would make things up to get back £60?’ She replies again there is nothing wrong with it.

for context I worked in retail for years both before starting university, during and after (the irony is I actually also worked in that John Lewis 😂) I get that it can sometimes be shit and people are rude but I was honestly lovely and feel I was humiliated and spoken to like an idiot.

However I am also overly tired from the sleepless nights….so AIBU to wait to complain to the store?

What do you mean by not as teacher anyway, is that some kind of superior position in education.

loads of people work in retail at one stage in their life, the OP described how she did it as young person- student working in retail, it is not exactly a rare phenomenon!

Ye I can see that about going to another till and completely understood why the first assistant called someone else to help, I just assumed that if you were asking for assistance it would be from someone in a senior role and able to advise. I think I went about it clumsily but that it was also dealt with badly.

By the time that 4 members of staff at our local John Lewis had fannied about like that my car parking fee would be more than half that £60 . Sorry they didn't live up to their usual customer service reputation and it must have been very frustrating.

This caught my eye as I think their "customer service " is terrible. I bought a wool jumper and washed it once, following the instructions to the letter. It was then totally out of shape and bobbly. I think it was about £70.00 which is a lot of money to me at least. They were totally unhelpful.

By the time that 4 members of staff at our local John Lewis had fannied about like that my car parking fee would be more than half that £60

No, it wouldn't.

Why would OP do any of this?

It’s not a particularly way-out post , nor does it have any particularly entertaining or amusing anecdotes. It’s just the sort of tedious incident that happens to most of us from time to time. I think the shop have been a bit slow , op has been a bit crabby , understandably for a sleep deprived mum who has dragged herself ( rather than the baby imo) into the shop and became frustrated as it became clear it was all to no avail.

Where in any of that is evidence she hasn’t worked in education etc etc?

Thank you, I agree with all of this. I wasn’t helpful and neither were they. Maybe we just agree neither I or the store were at our best 😂

Maybe I’m missing something but working in education a pretty normal job, I’d understand if I’d claimed to be something extraordinary or majorly exciting.

I also definitely never said I should have left my baby at home, I take him out and about all the time.

It was rhetorical. Intended to draw your attention to the fact that you are clearly not OK. You are strangely over invested in the thread and being incredibly rude.

😂 I have an older and younger teen, I don’t have to worry about crying babies anymore and I certainly don’t tolerate rude, unwarranted name calling just because some self centred person has had an empathy bypass, like I probably would have done when I had a very young baby.

Why? Why does someone have to take a baby away when they are crying, it is perfectly normal for a young baby to cry, it is implicit in your ridiculous suggestion that she has to go somewhere and then come back? Why does that have to happen? I am not so lacking in empathy that I would stand in a queue watching this whole situation unfold with my first thought being, “what a disturbance this baby is causing to us all”! It is a wonder how anyone manages in public with this kind of self centred outlook!

No not over sensitive. They handled it really badly and I would expect much more from John Lewis!

I worked in retail for a while and even if we didn’t believe a customer we would never make them feel like you did! There’s a professional way of handling it!

She wasn’t being “dragged” outside. She told the retail staff the stain was only visible in daylight, so they suggested to have a look in daylight.

Hormones post birth?...It would be entirely normal to go to natural daylight to show the white patch.

As for them calling you ''Sweetheart''...you are being ridiculously oversensitive there...Would you prefer ''Madam''?

I can't see anything wrong with their customer service?

Pulling the ''I spend XYZ $£ at your store'' is very ill mannered though.
Like you are trying to pull rank.

YWBU. If they couldn't see the patch in the shop lights, they couldn't see it. They didn't just dismiss you or accuse you of trying it on, they offered to come into natural light (which a lot of staff wouldn't) and you refused.

They weren't quick but it's not their fault you had a baby with you and presumably JL can't refund or exchange a jumper that's been washed with no clear fault.

I'm not sure why you're saying you've been humiliated? They sound as though they tried to accommodate you.

Do you just mean they didn't do exactly what you wanted, without question accepting a return? That isn't humiliating you. It's a business. Presumably they have to accept returns in line with Sweaty Betty's policies and were trying to establish the fault.

They were looking for a solution. You backtracked.

I get it though, most UK malls are tiny and have a simple layout, but some are pretty large. The layout of some (like John Lewis in Westfield) means you'd be walking ages, going down escalators, making some turns etc. I'm a fit healthy young woman with no baby and I couldn't be arsed

We’ve covered that last night!

But if that’s the only way they can see it in natural light and you told them the same thing then that’s what they’d want to check?

You then throwing a strop saying it’s only £60 and saying how much you spent in there wasn’t your finest hour either.

I don’t think your customer service was bad at all. You just wanted a straightforward refund with no quibble.

My SIL has a young baby too and I’ve been with her recently to get refunds (for Easter gifts and her birthday in March) both with and without the baby. Just because your baby starts crying and screaming doesn’t mean you’ve been held up or you should get preferential treatment over other customers.

The John Lewis in Westfield is literally out of the shop and down an escalator to the outside part, it’s not that far to go! You are certainly not “walking ages”.

My SIL has got refunds or exchanges there recently and elsewhere and also says if it’s a busy day eg Saturday she’ll either take the baby with another person who can feed/calm him down or will just leave baby at home - Westfield is about a 15 minute drive from their home.

Mind you yesterday we did have a very bored baby in the car (and we had no milk!) on a car journey to view a house to buy, he screamed his head off for 15-20 minutes and nothing at all all 3 of us did in the car could stop or calm him so I do sympathise there!

Some people are unfortunately completely void of empathy. In fairness to the 2 women who were being served at the tills next to me they were lovely and gave me smiles of solidarity.

There seems to an attitude from some people that adults have a right to occupy space and children don’t..simply for acting like children. I have always been that person who smiled at the Mum with the crying child on the plane, helped get the pram off the train etc even before having my own.

I’ve experienced both since being a Mum and been really surprised. One incident that sticks in my head is when my baby was really young I realised the nappies I bought were too big so I walked with him in the pram to the supermarket to get some different ones as I was too nervous to drive with him. When I got there I couldn’t reach the nappies (I’m 5’2) and was trying to stand on the bottom shelf to get them. LOTS of people just walked past including tall men, after lots of balancing and attempting to grab them another Mum (taller than me) with a baby in a pram and a young daughter stopped to help me. She said she was always surprised people were not more helpful!

The staff also can't help the layout of the shopping centre, either so how it this their fault or part of poor customer service?

Realistically, what did you want/expect them to do given the jumper had been worn and washed and they couldn't see the fault?

I don't really know what they could have done differently to be honest.

They can't really say 'I can see nothing wrong with this jumper, which you've washed and we'll be unable to resell' but here's your £60 back. They got several members of staff and tried really hard to see what you were seeing. They didn't choose where you queued or that your baby was crying. I honestly think they just did their best.

Wool, especially cashmere or very fine wools can a really tricky thing to wash.

It really needs gentle hand washing in a wool appropriate wash, like ''woolite'' and not rubbed at all.
Gently squeezed and dried FLAT. It's a pain.

Bobbles usually come from agitation such as in a washing machine, or inappropriate soap.

Or at the wrong temperature, usually too hot.

{Don't ask how I found this out- having ruined an expensive jumper by using ordinary detergent on it}

Not quite sure what you expected them to do. If you said it was only noticeable in natural light, they had to check that out rather than just handing you a refund after you’ve washed it. They could have just given it back to you, but instead they went above and beyond to look into it. And if this was by chance JL in MK, yes I do know that was quite a few minutes walk for them.

As for the 17 yo, clearly she asked for help from a more experienced colleague first and then they escalated it to the supervisor when they couldn’t see anything wrong with it.

Retail is having a terrible time at the moment, recruitment is hellish and overheads are being cut everywhere. We know how many shops are closing. At this rate, online will be our only viable option and snappy entitled customers fall into the problem part of the equation.

Again, John Lewis did use to not care about the unscrupulous 1% of customers, their marketing strategy was about the 99% who they would foster loyalty with, part of that was an attitude that wasn’t suspicious about returns, they literally didn’t focus on those customers like pretty much every other retailer does. that it is Jon Lewis is entirely relevant to this scenario, we are not discussing other retailers.

I didn’t read the OP as requiring preferential treatment just some understanding and people should show more empathy depending on someone’s circumstances, that is called being kind!

@FTMaz I would have felt exactly the same as you. The staff were being ridiculous faffing around. Maybe I’m over sensitive too but it would have stressed me out. So so hard trying to negotiate this kind of thing with a crying baby x

She offered to go outside with you and view in natural daylight and you got the raving hump?

If she couldn't see it in the stores artificial lighting what was she supposed to do?

No one was rude to you, they all wanted to help but you took umbrage!