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 don’t like sweetheart but you’re happy to call and adult woman by ‘girl’

yup yabu

The accidental but very much purposeful misunderstanding of OP's (very clear & concise) posts by most on here, just to get a dig in, is so ridiculous that it's actually funny. Is this what Mumsnet is now? I only joined recently but have been silently observing the odd thread here & there for years and I don't remember it being like this.

OP you ANBU

NO ONE CARES

😆😆😆

Do you think it’s in the Zara staff training manual 🤣

I agree they dealt with it clumsily/unprofessionally but I wouldn’t call it humiliating.

They should have just refunded you but maybe they have been told to be more cautious in accepting refunds.

I’d email customer service about the fault with a natural daylight photo. Express surprise that it couldn’t be resolved in store. But they didn’t humiliate you.

If the white patch could only be seen in natural light, and not in the store's lights, how could you expect the staff to refund or exchange if you weren't prepared to have it inspected under the conditions which would have shown the fault? If I spent £60 on a garment that had a fault I would at least be co-operative with the staff. I don't understand what was humiliating or embarrassing about the way you were treated and I think you would be very unreasonable to complain.

ALL customers should receive great customer service, whether they are repeat, single purchase, spend thousands or spend in single figures. That's the ethos of being in retail.

They normally have fantastic customer service if you have a picture I would email and complain.

What absolutely appalling service. The service at my local Target is better than this - you should not be made to jump through hoops to return a shoddy product. If you say the product is defective they should take your word for it and offer an exchange/refund, end of. The amount of time they wasted faffing around probably cost more than the cost of the jumper. No wonder they are tanking if this is the quality of staff/management they employ.

It was humiliating. Four members of staff were basically questioning her integrity in front of a line of other customers and it sounds like this dragged on for ages. It's borderline bullying, especially as they ignored how upset her baby was becoming which would have stressed her out even more. Frankly I would never shop there again if I was treated like this.

I would do this. The few times I’ve written a letter to bring attention to unsatisfactory products or service there has been a response. Having your situation acknowledged will help you to let go of it.

Do you think, in reality, that staff on minimum wage give a shit about how loyal a customer is? No. They care more about not being bollocked by a manager for refunding an item they shouldn’t do.

Personally I think they were OTT.

I'd either email customer services or chat with them. I wouldn't let this go and yes I'd want to return it and get a refund.

I think there are a mix of issues here op.

I get it as I also worked for JL and they were very disorganised and training was poor. Their stores are also awful an poorly laid out.

I get that what ultimately made this situarion stressful was youe crying baby. I get it.

I do think however you were a bit silly expecting a refund when you said the patch could only be seen in natural light, and then refusing to go outside with them or not taking a photo of it beforehand. I do think you also sound a bit pompous minimising the expense of the jumper. That’s a lot of money to most people, including the staff.

I agree their service could have been better but ‘humiliated’ is a strong word here.

Sounds like you were trying it on.

You went in and told them there was a patch and presumably expected them to take you at your word rather than looking for the invisible patch.

So they told you that the patch wasn’t visible, at which point you told them that it was only visible in natural light, but never mind you’ll just take the £60 hit.

Nothing humiliating about that. Nothing.

Plenty of customers try it on, and sounds like you were one of them. Except at least you didn’t make a scene, but far too many people think “oh, x have good customer service, I don’t like the product so I’ll take it back claiming there’s something wrong with it” and expecting to just be given a refund.

They would have been unreasonable to give you a refund just on the basis you claimed there was a patch on it when clearly when they looked there wasn’t.

The thing is John Lewis didn’t used to take that approach at all, see the above quote from the retail Director I posted from 10 years ago, their marketing strategy was exceptional in this regard;

“They [the unscrupulous] are a tiny fraction of the public that you find a lot of businesses pay attention to. As you walk in [to a store] much of their communication is designed for that 1% of the population – ‘don’t touch it, don’t break it, don’t drop it, don’t bring it back unless it meets these 27 criteria and it’s a Friday and the wind is blowing from the north west’. Why would you do that if 99% of your customers are trying to be fair and reasonable?”

Their interest was in the 99% who didn’t try it on! no other stores operated like that I think it is a real shame that this has changed and I know loads of people shopped there s as no Waitrose precisely because of an overall better customer service experience.

Describe how you would have preferred the experience to go

I also agree with this. Take your jumper out in natural light and take a photo

I don’t know when you worked in JL but it was easy to take stuff back in the past often without a receipt precisely because they thought differently about their approach and how it benefited profit margins.

Yes, in my younger years I worked in retail but and no I wouldn’t have cared about how much a customer had spent but I worked in line with the ethos of the company and I worked for companies that absolutely cared about the unscrupulous 1 percent. When I worked in a top end restaurant in central London as a waitress and bar person, it was a totally different approach needed and the customer was pretty much always right.

I worked in customer services for 10 years, in retail and in call centres, and the customer is most certainly not always right. It’s perfectly acceptable to be fair, not just to bow down to all customers.

My post was referring specifically to Op making a point to the staff that she was a loyal customer. No one gives a shit in the real world. Especially not shop floor staff.

OP, I understand how it would have been humiliating and upsetting for you. I also get that you might've also got a bit flustered as everything is more challenging when you have a little bub in tow (which some responders on this thread would do well to remember).

As you have repeatedly said to some in the non-comprehenders on this thread, you didn't want to go outside because it was in a shopping centre. You also don't have to prove anything to anyone here regarding white patches (you'd most likely only get a bunch of button-pushers telling you that they can't see it or that it wouldn't bother them).

You have been very clear and some people on this thread are either very thick or take joy in being deliberate wind-up merchants.

Best of luck contacting SB and I hope you get your refund. A terse email to JL costumer service wouldn't go astray either, if you can be bothered.

YANBU but some people on this thread definitely are. 🙄

It’s not about proving the patch to us. It was about proving the patch to JL if she wanted to claim it was a faulty item.

Yes, this. A "screaming baby" doesn't give you a pass or entitle you to the customer service you think you should have because you're "stressed". Actually what you should have done was to go outside, calm your baby down and come back to deal with the transaction when s/he wasn't screaming. That can't have been pleasant for anyone else in the shop, let alone the poor retail staff trying to do their job with a baby screaming at the top of his/her lungs in an indoor space.

Colcomma?