to have sent this letter of complaint? (Bit long, sorry)

[FilledWithRage]

I feel I might have been a bit 'OTT', having calmed down slightly since last week. I still feel shoddy service should be reported though.
No response yet. Here is the letter, sorry it's long.

"I am contacting you to register my concerns regarding the service, or rather lack of service, which I recently experienced at your (town name) store.

I visited on Thursday 12 and Friday 13 March.

Complaint 1: On both occasions the shop was hardly busy, myself and maybe two other customers, yet I was not once acknowledged, approached, greeted or offered any assistance during the course of a 20 minute browse. (I appreciate it is nice to be left to browse in peace, but I do value a smile and a friendly greeting, and an offer of assistance later on if required. This encourages me to shop and provides a relaxing and welcoming environment.)

Complaint 2: Worse, when I approached the changing rooms with a selection of items to try on, I was greeted by blank unsmiling stares, and (here I trust I am not entering the realms of paranoia) what seemed to me to be stifled sniggers. When I asked 'May I try these items on?' I was greeted with a curt 'yes, there' and a finger pointing towards a changing room. No friendly greeting, or 'We'll be here if you need any help'. Once I was in the changing room cue whispers and more laughter. Whether this was related to such an apparent spectacle as myself is, of course, indeterminable. But it was unprofessional and off-putting.

Perhaps you could advise these extremeley unhelpful and seemingly immature staff of the following salient facts:

1. If they find my size 12 post-caesarean figure - no doubt considered obese if you are a 19 / 20 year old - so objectionable, there are many more stores one could (and given recent experiences, definitely will!) choose to give custom to.

1. Shock! Customer is clad in 'old clothes' rather than the latest offerings (for which these staff are presumably given a liberal 'uniform' allowance). Er, yes, I have a baby and can't spend hours getting ready and co-ordinating. Also, that would be why I am shopping - to buy new clothes.

1. They are employed (presumably) to provide a service, and were it not for people like myself (ie a customer) visiting the store and spending what is probably the equivalent of a couple of days' pay for them (if not more), they would not have a job in the first place.

I find this blase and even hostile attitude unacceptable at the best of times but utterly astonishing given the current climate. If customers are not valued, made welcome and assisted at the moment, what hope is there?

I found the whole experience very unsettling and off-putting, the absolute anthisis of welcoming and relaxing.

I read on your website that 'store teams are carefully selected to ensure that they can offer our customers friendly, genuine, knowledgeable and impartial advice in a relaxed environment'. This is laugable, and is certainly failing as far as the (town name) store is concerned.

I was left with the abiding impression that Jigsaw (town name) ticks along quite nicely without the interrruption of customers, thank you very much, therefore I am not currently needed and will not be returning to this shop in a hurry, if ever."

beanie, no of course it should not make any difference, but it seems especially crazy not to be trying to encourage customers at the moment!

well she would have hopefully been very embarrassed!

i would then have asked for the regional manager's contact details to speak to them ...

Ignoring whether they were laughing at you, they couldn't even take your clothes to the dressing room, help you when you were browsing etc - this is all basic retail service

But presumably mystery shoppers look out for whatever the management of that particular chain has decided are the important things to look out for? Maybe Jigsaw mystery shoppers just have to go round and score the staff on how neatly the knitwear is folded.

cat, it will help me moderate my response if they get back to me.

Also, as I said in the letter, I don't like to be pestered, but a basic 'hello' is nice, just to be ackowledged rather than ignored.

I have mystery shopped clothes shops - the usual things they look for would be - whether you were acknowledged verbally/by gesture when you entered the shop, whether staff approached you within x amount of minutes, whether staff were friendly/helpful when you made an enquiry, whether staff showed you to fitting rooms, whether fitting rooms were clean and uncluttered, whether staff were available to assist you in the fitting room. there would usually be an opportunity to make a general comment about the service/anything not covered by the questionnaire, so you could mention poor customer service.

That's interesting TotalChaos.
(This is what I love about MN - whatever subject comes up there is always someone who has actually done the job for real )

i have done it too TC!

also restuarants and pubs - fab

Your letter makes you sound completely unhinged TBH. Having worked in several shops including supposedly "snooty" ones I can assure you that sales people do not give a monkeys about the figures of the customers!You sound really paranoid. Also the staff don't get free clothes, you are obliged to spend some of your, usually fairly poor, wage on clothes from the store albeit at a discount.

It sounds like the shop was quiet and the staff were bored and chatting and didn't offer you any service, the rest reads as a frenzied rant!

I don't really understand the paranoia thing. I am not unhinged. I am a very reasonable person (generally, outside of this thread ). I received very poor no service. I was unhappy, sure, but if that comes across as paranoia, oh well.... I should have posted before sending, but thanks for your opinions all the same.

Also, londonone, if a shop is quiet, might not helping a customer relieve the boredom a bit?

I didn't mentioned this, but the woman in the next cublicle was receiving plenty of fawning assistance, and "Oh that's lovely on you"s. So what was the problem with me???
I defy anyone to have been there and not taken it personally.

Actually I think good on you for sending this. The letter was possibly a bit overly emotional IMHO, but that doesn't really matter - the point is that the staff in this shop made a customer feel shit, and that is unacceptable. I hope it gets taken seriously and the staff are given training on this.

It really annoys me that big corporates like this think it's ok to pay staff a pittance, get moody 16 year olds in and not bother to train them properly, when they expect customers to pay £60 for a top (or whatever). I actually got a tut and a tooth-kiss sound from a girl in Jones shoe shop recently for daring to ask to try on some shoes . Wish I'd complained about it.

Lol - Filledwithrage, chatting to your mate is WAY more fun than helping someone pick out a wedding outfit!
You forget that in a large chain it makes little or no difference to the sales assistants whether you buy or not, commision where it exists is paltry and the pay in retail is horrendous as are the working conditions in most of the big chains. There is no motivation for them to help you. Given how rude many members of the public are to sales assistants I am surprised any of them make the effort. The tone of your letter makes it very clear that you feel you are superior to them, perhaps that comes across in your manner (not saying it does just putting it out there)

You should have complained Fattipuffs. What do these girls think they are to do, if not help customers? That's what I'd like to know.

Look at your last post FWR. You so obviously think you are some sort of superior individual to "these girls". No wonder you get ignored, no one in retail gets paid enough to deal with the the type of customer who thinks they are doing you a favour by shopping in your shop.

I think it's a bit OTT but I can't really comment as I fired off two rants yesterday - one to a radio presenter because I got sick of him slagging off Coleen Nolan, who I don't even like, and the other to Center Parcs because they are trying to make us pay and extra £300 for an extra room for DD who will have just turned two and will doubtless still be in our bed.

I hope you get a reply anyway. I would definitely be out off shopping somewhere where I was greeted with that attitude.

" I didn't mentioned this, but the woman in the next cublicle was receiving plenty of fawning assistance, and "Oh that's lovely on you"s. So what was the problem with me???"

so your gripe is not that they were rude, but that you feel they were rude to you in particular? Are you sure you weren't projecting your own feelings of indequacy onto the situation?

you seem to have taken this very very persoanlly. Your comment in the letter "If they find my size 12 post-caesarean figure - no doubt considered obese if you are a 19 / 20 year old - so objectionable, there are many more stores one could (and given recent experiences, definitely will!) choose to give custom to." is just strange. Surely there is no way that these women would have known you were post Caesarean? Was it really worth mentioning?

londonone, you astonish me, how can you possibly read anything negative into the expression 'these girls'?! What should I have said, pray tell?
IMO it's you who are being paranoid about me supposedly being superior. I can assure you I am NOT.

beanie, it's bad enough to be rude in general, but when you are singled out for bad treatment how do you think that makes you feel? I am starting to cry now, so I am going offline for a bit. Clearly I am too ugly and worthless to go shopping, or possily even exist.

My Jigsaw is fantastic - have incredibly helpful and knowledgeable staff.

FWR I do know how you feel. I felt terribly self conscious buying a pair of £20 shoes in Next this lunchtime. I constantly think I'm too fat and ugly to go into shops and it takes a lot of determination to do so and I'm way above a size 12!

no one here has said you are too ugly and worthless to go shopping. You said earlier you don't have self-esteem issues - are you sure? I don't think anyone here has been particularly harsh, just that some people felt your letter was a bit over the top and contained information which wasn't particularly relevant. This is in 'AIBU' and unless you've not posted here of lurked for a while I'm sure you know that the opinions can sometimes not be what people want to hear. It's not likely everyone is going to thinnk you did the right thing.

Don't cry

and a size 12 is nothing to have issues about!

your responses to this thread would suggest that you would respond in an extreme manner to the instance in the shop.