Customer Service?

First things first, I will have the winner posted for the Domestic Goddess Giveaway as soon as I finish tallying up the entries, in the meantime I need to get something off my chest and where else other than my blog, right?

***Warning-this is a rather long post without any pictures-I will have much more delightful reading up later today when I announce the winner!***

In the last several months I have fallen hard for the store Martin+Osa. I have placed orders for myself and for others that, in total, have been in the 4 figures... It's been my newest found retail love! The sweaters, the tops, the jeans, the amazing sales, what was not to love?!? Well, recently it has become increasingly apparent to me that the customer service has definitely been one of the reasons not to love. Now, before I go any further, I will say that this is just what I have experienced, many other people could have had much more positive experiences but given that this has happened to me on multiple occasion and is not just an isolated incident...I'm a little frustrated.

Before I vent, I will say that the store associates and online customer service been wonderful and helpful when I was placing orders (particularly the larger ones) but if I try to return something or there is a problem with my order (that was completely out of my control), more often than not I've been hassled and given major attitude. A few examples:

Yesterday I was at the mall trying to return several different items from different purchases. Before I went I separated each item with it's own receipt into separate bags, everything was organized, everything was in pristine condition-folded nicely, everything had the tags on so this all should have been a no-brainer right? Unfortunately not so much, 45 minutes into attempting to return the items I start to develop a POUNDING headache due to multiple sales associates' attitudes and complete lack of an ability to read a receipt.

The first return is one item, she should be able to scan the bar code on the sweater and scan the bar code on the receipt and be done right? No, instead she spends nearly 10 minutes trying to return the wrong sweater and can't figure out why the price isn't coming up right...after numerous attempts to show her on the receipt I have to reach over and POINT AT HER COMPUTER. She gets all flustered and makes excuses...Return #1 complete.

Return #2, also one item, more problems-this time it keeps saying my credit card doesn't match except for the fact that the credit card listed on the receipt and the one in my hand are the exact same! They keep looking to me-what am I supposed to do here? I can't just whip out a magical credit card! Many many minutes later, manager figures out an over-ride and return #2 is complete.

Return #3, one item, the computer can't figure out the receipt....the sales associate takes my credit card and swipes it to look up the purchase (btw I am super displeased over the fact that they are saving all my credit card information)...only there are too many purchases associated with the credit card and she doesn't feel like looking through them all....they look at me blankly and say they don't know what's wrong but it's giving them an error message, ummm how come I have to figure it out???? My head is already pounding at this point and I finally just request that she put it on a giftcard and I'll try to figure out how to spend it (why is it that it's so much easier to charge money ONTO your credit card rather than put it back on?). She manages to figure out how to do this easily enough...Return #3 complete.

Return #4 was a few different items from an online order. At this point the sales associate really ups the attitude quotient and raises her voice at me telling me that she can't figure out what she's already returned and what belongs to this receipt...is this MY fault!?!?!? I have only handed her three items from previous returns-which I handed to her one at a time with the receipt, waiting until she was done with the return before handing her the next receipt & item... Why can't she move them off her counter behind her where everyone else seems to be placing their returns? All the other sales associates are giving me the dirty looks for ruining the stores sales quotas for the day (my returns were not even $200)and a few even make snide remarks about internet shopping not working for me. Ummm, she is holding an invoice in her hand that had 20 items purchased on it! I return a couple of them and all of a sudden internet shopping doesn't work for me?!?!?! I point that out to one of them and they actually have the decency to look embarrassed for a minute and then they respond by telling the girl that every single order needs to be verified to make sure I'm not ripping them off. Yes, they say that right in front of me...."ripping us off" Also, only two of my four returns were from shopping online, so I don't see how that had anything to do with anything... A little while later we are still there, now the sales associate can't figure out how to return the items together as one order since the invoice was three separate stapled pieces of paper....for some reason or other she has to treat items on each separate page as it's own return and I have to stand there for an extremely prolonged period of time getting dirty looks, being hassled while she slowly returns each one (having problems with a couple of them). She knocks one of the items off to the side, doesn't make an effort to return it and when she hands me my receipt telling me she's done, I try to point it out saying you haven't return this one yet, she gives me the death stare, sighs loudly and then proceeds to return it extra slow...frankly I've never been more humiliated in my life. I had a whole bunch of items that I was planning to purchase after I finished the returns but after being treated like that I felt so flustered that had to leave...return #4 complete.

Unfortunately I haven't had much better luck online. That 20 item order I placed? Well, only 15 showed up in the box, I called to check to see if there was another box and there was only the one, so somehow 5 of my items didn't make it into the box. The sales associate made several comments about how she'd never heard of this happening before and had I looked carefully? was the box tampered? was I sure they weren't in there...? To the point that I was left to feel like a criminal, ripping them off! I'd have liked all the items to be in the box too! That's why I ordered them in the first place. The customer service rep said she would have the items reshipped out to me if they were still available (they were-I checked online) but instead they canceled my order.

Another time, I called the customer service for a price adjustment. She tells me that Martin + Osa has a 14 calender day price adjustment policy, I say ok, that's perfect, I ordered it exactly 2 weeks ago so that should apply here, she gets all irritated and says...no Saturday would have been 12 calender days, today is the 14th day....yeaaaahhhhh???? You just said it was a 14 day price adjustment window! *sigh*

In addition to all this, their free shipping for orders over $100 apparently doesn't always apply automatically to orders like it's supposed to. It's not supposed to require a code but I discovered I was charged for shipping on my very first order, I emailed them-no response, put in a ticket-no response-I had to call and complain in order to get my money refunded when I never should have been charged at all!

Why is this all so difficult! I have NEVER in my life ever had this much trouble with a store before and have done A LOT of shopping in my life-particularly online. I don't expect people to fawn over me when I shop, I am just fine being left alone-I'll pick out what I need/want and bring them up to the register, pay and be done with it. But there are going to be times when I order stuff online and it doesn't work, in which case, yes, I will return it... I'm not a demanding customer at all, in fact my husband often teases that I'm a retailers dream...

*sigh* I'm sorry this post is so long... I've had poor customer service before but it's always been isolated incidences where someone was clearly just having a bad day. I really like the clothing at Martin Osa but I have been so turned off by the repeated mistreatment that I am really rethinking shopping there. It's a shame too because I love their new spring line and I had a cart of more than 20 items that I was in love with. Please make me feel better guys, has anyone else shopped there and had a positive experience? Anyone else had negative shopping experiences like these? Does customer service still exist?