Saturday, December 6, 2008

Why I'll never shop at Charlotte Russe again!

This is definately a ranting post. Yesterday was the worst retail experience I think I have ever had. And I was at Wal-Mart on Black Friday! Suzanne and I had run all over town searching desperately for jeans that would fit. It's taken 4 years, but we finally found good jeans at Charlotte Russe. But from there on, things went steadily downhill. First of all, there was only 1 person who could do each job. But they weren't in the area near their job. So, every time Suzanne wanted to try anything on, she had to track down an employee who would call the person with the fitting room keys (who was nowhere near the fitting rooms).
That was bad enough in and of itself, but then we saw the shoes. And neither Suzanne nor I can resist the siren song of shoes. So, we had to find another employee to cal the shoe person. We each asked for 1 pair of shoes from the back. She wandered around for about 10 minutes, then walked back up to us to reconfirm what sizes we needed. 15 minutes later, she comes back with one pair of shoes. When I asked about my boots, she said they didn't ahve it in my size. So I asked for the next size down b/c the fit was a little loose, and I thought I could maybe make it work. 20 minutes later, we noticed her rearranging shoes on display. And when I asked her about my shoes, she looked at me like I was speaking Swahili. It took 3 times repeating my question, and showing her the display shoe before I saw that light of recognition in her eyes. And she told me that they didn't have the next size down either; then she walked away again. At this point, Suzanne and I have been in the store for over an hour with our two kids. The kiddos are so done, I've changed two diapers, placated a crying, starving Nathan, and I'm beginning to go out of my mind.
So we finally get to the checkout line, and when I tell the cashier about our experience (actually I just touched on the 20 min shoe search, and how she didn't bother telling me they didn't have the shoe), she smiles a big, fake smile and appolgizes, saying that we certainly deserve the highest level of customer service. I've given up at this point, and I just wanted to get out. I will admit that when she asked in her syrupy sweet voice if I wanted to donate a dollar to St. Jude's Children's hospital for a ten dollar off coupon, I snapped at her.
I may have said something to the effect of how I didn't need a coupon because I wasn't coming back. Then I thought of my little sister in line behind me, and I changed my mind. I paid the stupid dollar to save my sister ten. What can I say, I'm a giver. Dan and I took the kids toward the food court because the grown ups were just as hungry as Nate, and they're sick of the store we've been in for an hour and a half.
Thus began Suzanne's solo adventure. It turns out the coupon they sold me was only good on purchases of $50+ so she had to find something to make up the difference. It took 2 tries because the first time, her total came up to $47. After she finally made it over the $50 mark, they told her that the coupon isn't good until the 18th. And she asked to speak to a manager. Turns out they gave her the assistant manager. In an effort to explain our shopping experience, this woman patiently pointed out "well, it is a Friday." What? Excuse me, but since when does that make sense. So only 6 days of the week require good service? Friday it's every man for himself? Eventually, Suzanne got to talk to the actual manager who first offered to give her 10% off her purchase instead of the coupon. Which is a savings of $5. But it's not even that good when you take into account the extra crap she went out and found in order to hit the $50 minimum, and the fact that I paid a dollar. So, in the end, after about another half hour, Suzanne got her coupon, and got a couple bucks off a few items that the cashier had told her the wrong price for, but no appology. Jut the explination that "it is a Friday"
So, that's why I won't shop Charlotte Russe again! (which is a shame because I'm not looking forward to another search for jeans Suzanne likes)

2 comments:

Coree Adams said...

OH my goodness! That's HORRIBLE!!! I would have been so mad! As a matter of fact, I am a little mad even now just reading about your awful experience. Stupid Charlotte Russe

Kassi said...

Oh my goodness! I had some terrible service happen once there to! I was going to pick up my cousin's formal dress for a dance with another cousin and we were dressed in our pajamas pretty much and we walked in and you would have thought that we had the plague! They were so mean and didn't want to help us at all but as soon as someone who was dressed nicer walked in there followed them around helping them like a lost puppy! And when we started to look at things for ourselves they didn't even help us once. When I pointed it out to the manager she didn't seem to care one bit and said that they were busy, which was a lie because there was only us and maybe three other people in the store and about 15 people working there!!! I was so mad! So I understand your frustration!!