Just took a moment to vent. I've decided Customer Service feedback is really important, and I am going to start doing it more often. . . Good and bad.
This is a letter I just wrote to Michaels Craft Store Customer Service, about the last few experiences I have had.
I would like to give feedback about your Charlotte area stores. I am a professional artist who shops with you on a fairly regular basis.
Rarely is an instance of good customer service exemplified.
More often than not, most employees are somewhere between apathetic and unfriendly. I suppose this is due to the typified "brooding artist" personality and usually can laugh it off.
At the Park Road store a clerk at one point suggested to the line that the customer, showing another clerk the mis-priced shelf where she found her item at that time, should apologize to the line for holding everyone up. Essentially making fun of the customer for the store's mistake.
My most recent experience was with Sherry, at the Sycamore Commons Store. I had an exchange of several small items for a larger item which cost slightly more than the sum of the returned items. Sherry noticed I had written the check earlier that day on the receipt and said I could not return the items. I explained to her that I was exchanging and not and not returning the items expecting cash back. There was a considerable line developing so she loudly told the other cashier, "She wants to return this on a check written earlier today." All eyes in the line were on me at this point. The other cashier said just as loudly back, stopping her own transactions, that checks have a 10-day waiting period.
At this point the woman I assume is the store manager stepped in, and I assume she was friendly enough, however no one explained to me why this was a problem. I, myself, thought if I just asked for the receipt back and pretended I didn't have a receipt at all I could have saved myself a ton of embarrassment.
The manager told Sherry to exchange the items, ignoring her rebuffs, and stood there walking her through the process. At this point I owed 3 cents, to which Sherry exclaimed: you've got to be kidding. As if paying 3 cents were the worst thing that may have happened to her at that point, prolonging the torture of dealing with me, apparently the most demanding customer of all time. I paid the 3 cents and she was filling out the paperwork for the exchange as I started to walk off, knowing I didn't need to keep track of the transaction. She called me back and told me to take the receipts, which I explained I did not need, assuming she could throw them away for me. She literally huffed and said EVERYONE takes the receipts, as if insinuating that my not taking the receipt made me a terrible inconvenience. I asked her, can you please throw them away for me, since there is a trash can beside you? She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes like a teenage girl who didn't get her way and said, "Are you serious?!?" at which point I turned and walked out the door.
This behavior has made me decide to avoid Michaels and shop at the competitors from now on. I also intend to tell others about my experience. I worked retail for over 10 years and have firm grasp on customer service. This was absolutely customer disservice, insulting, embarrassing, and condescending.
Thank you for the opportunity to share this experience. I hope you understand my frustration.
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