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?

You mentioned Chanel customer service OP. I had a gripe with them.
Background - I have a platinum loyalty card with my local department store. I joke that I am on a crusade to keep them open. If I buy online, i do it as collect in my local branch in an effort to keep their sales up (not sure if that makes any difference). I shop there regularly and am on first name terms with some of the staff.
Anyway I bought a Chanel lipstick (not my first) and the stick part broke in the tube - still usable but awkward. I took it back hoping they would swap it for a new one. It was obvious little amount of the product was used. I can only describe the sales person as disdainful - I forget her actual words but she was not replacing anything. A. Big. Fat. No.
I think that could be close to 10 years ago and I have not spent 1 penny in Chanel since.
Beat that for grudge holding!

Yes I would image so…hence me trying to say (but in a wrong way) I’m a repeat customer and hardly ever return things!

My friend works in jl. The things she tells me are unbelievable. The pay is 11p above minimum wage, way below every other retailer. They get no training, Nada. People expect them to be experts when really they have no or little clue whats on sale. The signs in the shop are crap and confusing. The management are never on the shop floor and only listen to staff who are there over 20 years. Newer staff aren't asked what they think. There's no new thinking or fresh ideas. You cant phone into a store it goes to call centres abroad who again have little training and less clues.
The idea of john lewis as a bastion of customer service is laughable sadly. The till systems sound ancient and take forever. My friend said customers complain all the time to staff who in turn are never listened to.
Shes trying to get a new job. Said working for jl is a complete nightmare.

Baby’s/toddlers in this scenario usually do impact most people, I am very laid back in nature but when DD was a toddler she hated being in the pushchair waiting as she was normally wondering about with me- there was a time in Marks food hall I was in this massive queue for self service and a woman and her son breezed past all of us and cut in the queue so I was up next and my annoyance was definitely heightened by the fact that DD was upset, I asked her if she had not noticed the massive queue and she replied, “does it really matter?”, someone behind me said, “maybe not to you”, I asked her if she thought we were just standing here for pleasure, a till became available so that was the end of that but the whole queue was questioning her when I left! It didn’t really matter in the scheme of things. In contrast to now taking back a top of teenage DD’s to Urban Outfitters, Spanish Inquisition there as the labels had been taken off, I was also asked where this particular Branch on the receipt was as she had never heard of it-we had bought it on holiday, like the retail assistants lack of Geographical knowledge was my problem. I was confused as the assistant told me that this would be a matter for Mgt, ok not fussed but then asked me to confirm my card details and refunded me, she offered a patronising telling off before parting about in future I need to keep the labels on. I think if I’d had a baby I would have left by the store location comment:

I wondered that too.

My friend says the big bonuses stopped many years ago. Shes been there 6 years i think and hasn't had bonus for a couple of years and it was a couple of hundred before that. I think she gets 20% staff discount, hardly huge and the stuff is expensive to start with.
She says people imagine the staff there get huge bonuses and great money but they certainly dont

I will say this one more time THE STORE IS IN A SHOPPING CENTRE

Goodness you're a drama llama. They were trying to be helpful and you pulled the ‘do you know how much I spend’ card.
If it could only be seen in natural light then going outside was the logical thing to do.

Yes she loves the discount in waitrose im sure its 20% there too

Which you were happy enough to "drag" your baby into, in the first place?
If the baby was crying, a walk to the outside would surely have helped the situation, not hindered.

It wasn't their fault your baby cried. They offered to go outside and inspect the jumper in natural light as you said yourself the faded patch on the jumper couldn't be seen in the stores lighting. You declined. I think they behaved in a fair and reasonable manner. YABU.

Tbh I can’t decide if yabu, on one hand I think it’s a bit daft to expect them to exchange based on you saying there is damage when you know it isn’t clearly visible. On the other hand it seems a bit of an overreaction from them but, as a previous JL employee myself, I know that the some returners are a bit much, one tried to ‘return’ something that they didn’t even buy from JL just because JL also stock the brand.

Just complain and get your standard ‘go away’ free cake voucher (assuming that’s still what they do, it was what happened when I worked there).

I’m actually perplexed how people don’t under the issue with this. Firstly no you don’t go outside you park underneath. Secondly how is it reasonable to take someone outside then stand out there whilst the jumper is further inspected THEN if they agree come back inside etc etc. it’s a strange suggestion in my opinion.

Oh my goodness all the pole up their arses replies im so sorry.

So sorry for the negativity on here.

Yes you're right that was appalling customer service. Should have seen you had a baby and dealt with it swiftly! I'd complain to customer service (just so that they log it) and like someone else said contact the sweater brand. Hope you're okay x

@FTMaz don't bother arguing with idiots on here. They have all the time in the world to irritate and annoy. Go and do something for yourself!

No, not their fault but they could possibly have some empathy for the situation, plus it is even worse to ask the OP to do this considering she has got a young crying baby and has waited for them to faff about already!

Totally beside the point but I only ever bought one thing from Sweaty Betty (a jumper, as it happens) and the quality was not what I expected for the price. It washed very poorly.

Because outside is where the daylight is 😂. Haven't you grasped this yet?

It’s ludicrous and completely disproportionate action on their part.

how is it reasonable to take someone outside then stand out there

Outside!!

The inhumanity!

They wanted to see it in natural daylight, how is going outside disproportionate? It's actually quite necessary, really...

It’s shoddy customer service from a brand that prides themselves on their customer service. Leading a customer past the queue of people outside to prove themselves when she said she’d just have the top back!