Toilet Rolls...yes Toilet Rolls, is how I would compare the importance of customer service to any retail/service entity...If expected and available, the user could be indifferent about it. But when needed, and provided user may walk away with a sense of association with a brand. But what happens if you are denied the usage of a service. A service that has been the industry norm for decades now. This goes out to the Gap Management Team I hope the account of events below helps you fix your services and allows you to reduce unwarranted revenue losses. Today (20th Sept) we visited the GAP store at London Designer Outlet Wembley. Being a Saturday (and a non-event day) the crowd at the outlet could be considered moderate at best. So was the case at your store. This is to establish that the store didnt seem unusually flooded with customers. After spending what was a considerable time carefully sifting and selecting the clothes at GAP Store (the sole reason for our visit to the Outlet), when my wife made way to the Fitting Rooms to try those clothes, and to our utter surprise the staff member denied entry to the fitting room. For a moment we felt if we overshot the store operating hours (9pm). But it was about 7:55pm at that point. The staff member casually mentioned that is too busy managing the clothes that other customers left and cant afford to allow more. We respected that, and asked how much time she would need before she could allow us entry. To our utter shock she said that she wouldnt. It felt as if something was amiss there, and decided to speak to the Store Manager (Victor), and see if he could propose a solution to this petty issue. When we explained the issue to him, in a very condescending tone he said that in theory I shouldnt allow people to enter the trial rooms, as the store is in such a mess. We then recommended that it would have been better if that expectation was set with us when we entered the store, and we would not have wasted time in cherry-picking the clothes. In this entire conversation he didnt make eye-contact with us, and we had to nudge him by saying that can we get some attention from him on this matter and he simply shrugged. He went on to state that he has instructed the staff that if any customer complained about the issue they should send them to him, and he would decide if they can be allowed to use the trail rooms or not. Which was appallling on many grounds. At this point it was clear that there is more than just some basic operational issues at hand. When asked if he is happy to let a customer feel dissatisfied for wasting over an hour of their time, and yet walk away from a possible sale he is making the store lose on. He replied with a haughty Im fine with that. At this point I should highlight, we have had instances in other GAP stores where store personnel have gone out of their way in helping us find out-of-stock items in other stores and reserving them for us. On another occasion, staff members have helped us use our membership with GAP for availing better deals that we were eligible for, which obviously were well appreciated. But todays incidence left us with a very bad experience at the store, and I can assure you that we might not be going back for foreseeable future.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 23:13:20 +0000
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