well sort of.
No explanation.
Sorry.
It's been a long month
but I'll be by to see you all this week, I promise.
While I was gone, I had some customer service issues which I am going to use my little corner of the world to bitch about. First up...
My daughter got me a pair of shoes for Christmas which were a bit too small. She forgot the receipt which I was annoyed about but are you going to scold your kids for forgetting to get the receipt for a gift for Christmas? (No! in fact I myself misplaced a receipt for my son's snow boarding boots which I would have to really go on a hunt for if he didn't like them (fortunately he did).) So, I figured it wouldn't be a big deal since I didn't want a gift card or money back- I just wanted to get something else.
Little did I know.
Meanwhile, my 15 year old son had gotten a watch from his other older sister from the same Kohl's my shoes came from (across town 20+ miles). He's a small chap and the watch was sized for a man. He went with me when I exchanged my shoes to see if he could get his watch re-sized. Sounds easy enough, yeah? Hah again!
I went to the customer service desk to see about the exchange (that's all I wanted and that's all I told her I wanted- although I didn't really want shoes. I just purchased some before Christmas unbeknownst to my daughter. I kinda wanted a purse). The person at the counter starts to tell me that I am only going to get $6.99 for the shoes since I don't have the receipt and that is what they were worth the last time they went on sale (yeah, maybe they 50% off the sale price or something for staff after the store was closed or something ridiculous like that- I once got a swimsuit from Dillards for dirt cheap like that. But the conditions have to be just right!). Anyway... "I just want to exchange so tell me what I need to do." "Find something for $64.99." "Shall I leave this here?" "Take it with you and you can do the transaction at the cash register."
So, I went to the purse area and start browsing. It was immediately apparent to me that it was difficult to match the price of the shoes. The purses were on sale but not on enough of a sale. They were also not that attractive for the price! I finally found one that I thought suitable considering the sale price and it fell well under the 64.99. It's regular price was 104.99 which I thought was positively ridiculous and I would NEVER have paid that amount for it, but one sale at 54.50 (or something like that) it was okay. So I headed to the cash register... (now all of you who have experienced Kohl's and know their policy better than I are going "wait, don't go, you won't get it for that price..." So I would learn!)
Heading toward the cash register, I run into my son. Me: "Did you get the watch fixed?" Him: "No, they won't fix it without the (wait for it....) RECEIPT." Me: "What? All they're doing is resizing it." Him: "Yeah, but they say they don't sell this particular watch here and they won't resize it when they don't sell this brand." Me: "Cass got it in Aurora? (across town)" Him: "Yeah. They called the and he even said they wouldn't do it because they don't sell this brand here." Me: "For god's sake. (call's daughter) Cass, so you got this watch at the Kohl's in Aurora?" Cass: "Yeah. Mack said they won't fix it for him there. We'll take it to Macy's or something. Tell Mack not to worry about it."
I get to a cash register, hand the cashier the items I am exchanging. "Oh if it's not a straight across exchange, you'll have to go to customer service."
My other daughter joins us (the one who bought me the shoes). She's fuming about the watch situation. She has some cute shoes in tow but is mad that my son has been brushed off... we head to customer service where I hand another woman both items for exchange. Woman: "So the difference between the two items is $40.25." Me: "So even though the purse was on a big sale, I am going to have to pay over $40 for this purse?" Woman: "Yes, you can only get the straight across pre-sale price." Me: "Right. Should have told me that from the start. Forget the purse. I'll just get the shoes." (It was obvious there was no way to get a different item straight across, their items are priced so there's no even exchange unless it's the same type of item. If you don't have a receipt at that place, you're just screwed and I was no longer interested in giving them a dime of mine or my daughters.)
So, we get the shoes and wait some more. A cashier comes to the register next to me and says, "Can I help whose next." I turn to his register and he says, "I'm sorry but I was talking to her." I nearly blew my stack. I'd been waiting there for who knows how long. The lady he was referring to wasn't even there when I walked up. Whatever. I go to the next register, exchange them successfully (finally!!!) where my daughter and I are both writing out complaints about the terrible customer service. The cashier kindly (the first one!!! yay her!)) gets the manager for my daughter. He looks rather stony but proceeds to head over to the online catalog to see if he can even find the watch on the online catalog. His search is half-hearted (at best). The website is slow and it really feels as though he's saying, "I have all day. I'm getting paid to sit here and humor you so we can go through this damn catalog all effing day." My daughter thought he was honestly trying to help but finally tires of the charade. We tell him thanks for the help but we'll go elsewhere. We leave and I have decided I will NEVER shop at Kohl's again! Now I know, I know, always keep your receipt! But nevertheless there are times when we all forget some of the mounds of papers that slip through our hands each day so it's ridiculous for stores to be so customer unfriendly.
SO WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED???: I work in customer service. I am essentially the floor manager at the library and generally I get involved in the situation when the bitchiest people don't want to take "no" or "these are the rules" for an answer. And hey, who is nicer than they library? I mean we give away free stuff! And we make deals a lot of times on fines if you are not too much of a jerk so I know what I speak of here. Had I been the first person at the customer service counter there are two things that should have been said, "Whatever item you select is going to have to match the presale price to the presale price to the shoes since there is no receipt. It is unfortunate but it is the best I can do under the circumstances. And, if you're going to buy another pair of shoes that costs the exact same then you can go to the cash register and check out. If you think you might want another item that is a different price then you'll have to bring it back here and pay the difference." That is not what happened so I wound up getting in line after line, getting information in bits and pieces. And that floor manager? He should have called the Aurora store instead of screwing around with the website. If he was really interested in helping he could have found out if we had really purchased the watch at that store but he didn't want to and he was a JERK.
Okay, so, now you can laugh at me. I've gotten it off my chest and as a co-worker said to me the other day, "if it were anyone else, you'd be laughin." It was the Great Kohl Misadventure that will in fact, never happen again (even though I laugh).
