I've made a formal complaint against Swarovski complaining against the store rep and the store manager. Although I made my voice heard from the Regional Retail Manager of Western Canada Ifti and to the Director of Retails Natalie, Swarovski has considered the mattered closed now even though I still have no idea as to why the mishap occurred, who is the culprit, what is the disciplinary action, and whether Swarovski can avoid this kind of incident that ruined people's celebrations in the future. I'm no going to make my wife cry again (nor do I want to go to the police station) so I will never go to Swarovski in the future, and I hope that you will never have the bad experience as I do.
Kevin
PS. Please feel free to share your Swarovski "stories"
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Hi there,
This is a formal complaint against Swarovski, as my wife walked into the Richmond Center store (BC, Canada) happy and excited on my birthday, but end up crying on her way out and visited the police station. Not to mentioned that the visit has turned from a 30 minutes visit to 3 hours. Is this the customer experience that Swarovski wants others to experience? Please give me a satisfy response. Thanks!
I’ll start from the beginning.
My birthday was on June xx, and my wife was hunting for my birthday present in May. After discussing with a friend of her (Xxx Xxx, member # xxx-xxx-xxx), she decided to give Swarovski a try and see if she can pick up a watch for me. In the beginning of June, she visited the Richmond Centre South store (1574 A-6651 No. # Road, Richmond, BC, Canada), and the customer rep Brian showed her a couple of watches (Octea Lady Cry/Sts 999975, and Octea Sport Cry/Sts White 999981), one as my birthday present and one for herself. My wife loved the watches, and decided to order it for my birthday present. She paid the deposit on 6/11, and the remaining amount on 6/18 after she got the watches (invoice # xxxx and xxxx for Store No 037A 1). Since adjustment was needed to ensure a good fit for the watches, my wife planned that she would give the gift to me as a surprise gift on my birthday (6/xx) by bringing me to the store, adjusting the watch for fitness to my waist, and presenting me my birthday present at the same time. Although Brian did indicated that he may not be around the store that day, he said that it is only logical for Swarovski to have someone who can adjust the watch for me on my birthday.
So, my wife brought the watches and me to the Swarovski store on 6/xx around 5pm, all excited and happy walking in, told me that she’s going to give me this pretty Swarovski watch, and asked a store rep to adjust the watch for us. This is where I uncovered numerous mistakes/errors by Swarovski as the company, its policy, management, and staff. Jackie was the store rep to greet us. After listening to what our goal was, she said that there was no one in the store that had the skill to adjust the watch for us at that moment, as the store manager (Eileen) ended her shift about an hour ago, and both herself and the other staff in store were new staff and were not equipped with the skills to adjust watch. Error #1: Is it Swarovski’s policy that customer won’t be able to purchase watch, adjust watch, and leave on the same hour/day? Or is it management’s fault in either not slotting a skillful staff in the store for this purpose, or in not providing sufficient/appropriate training to staff to adjust watch?
My wife was not happy to say the least, as she was unable to present the birthday present to me. So we spent the next 45 minutes discussing with Jackie as to what she/we can do in here to solve the situation, and Jackie said that nothing can be done on that day originally, as we’ll have to come back at a later time. As my wife and I have a combined 20 years of work experience including retail, we did not take the NO as the final answer as there are numerous things that she could do. So we proposed to her that she could called the manager back to adjust our watch, or reimburse us for the expense since there are numerous watch-selling stores in Richmond center which could adjust my watch right away – it’s only fair that I could buy a watch from Swarovski and wear it right away, isn’t it? The first 15 minutes Jackie just said that there’s nothing can be done – seems like she doesn’t want to create any trouble or put in any (extra) effort at the expense of customer satisfaction. After our insistent, she finally tried to phone Eileen the store manager but she is unable to get a hold of Eileen. My wife and I insisted further, and after spending 45 minutes in the store, Jackie finally agrees to call others who know how to adjust the watch, phoned Brian (on his off day), and after I discussed with Brian he agreed to come to the store in 30 minutes. My wife was more than mad at that point already, on my birthday, but if the goal is reach in the next 30 minutes and we could walked away with the watches adjusted in another 45 minutes, that’s “okay” – definitely not a great experience already won’t you agree, as we had in numerous occasion during our discussion with Jackie that we would refund the watches (and she didn’t care too much anyway – probably she won’t receive any commission either way?)
(I’ve also asked Jackie who’s fault is it to create this situation, is it Brian telling us that someone should be available to adjust the watch for us? Jackie said no. Is it her fault for not knowing how to adjust, or not knowing how to deal with the situation? She said no. Is it the store manager’s fault for not slotting a skill employee, she said no. Is it Swarovski’s fault for not having a store policy to ensure customer can buy a watch, have the watch adjust right after the purchase, and walk away happy with the watch? She said no. At the end, Jackie was implying that it was my wife and I’s fault that was causing this trouble. I asked her is it my wife and I that are at fault for this situation, and this time she didn’t say no… Although she may not be the “cause” for this issue, she had definitely added oil to fire and made us more mad, instead of calming us down. Shouldn’t all customer rep has training as to how to deal with difficult customer?)
So my wife and I walked away from Swarovski and spent the next 30 minutes in other store – actually only one – the Body Shop. On our way back to Swarovski however, my wife was wondering whether she has lost the watches in Body Shop, as she was holding 2-3 other bags, and she had to put down the bags to try the samplers in Body Shop, and she was not carrying the Swarovski bag out our Body Shop trip. We gone back to Body Shop and didn’t find anything, so I told her that we probably left the watches in Swarovski as we would need to go back anyway so it’s likely that we left the watches at Swarovski. When we got to Swarovski, we were greeted by Brian, we told him about the missing watches, he asked Jackie and the other store clark who said that they haven’t seen the watch right away, and Brian reported back to us. We asked Brian to check the back of the store, and Brian got Jackie to go inside to check, and, after spending 5 seconds in the back, Jackie reported back and say she doesn’t have our watches. Fear stroke my wife as she was certain that she has lost both watches that costs about $2000 (when she put down the bags in body shop for trying out the samplers and someone may have stole it). My wife panic, and I tried to calm her down without much success. Brian volunteered to go back to Body shop with us and check again, without success. Then Brian and the Body Shop store clerk both went to the security office to lodge a case with Richmond Center (with almost no chance of recovery). The next step is to file a case with the police, and before we moved, I asked Brian whether if it is possible for him to get me the receipts again and the watches’ model number etc which would be helpful in the police file #. Brian said yes, the 3 of us gone back to the Swarovski store, and Brian printed me the receipts (invoice # xxxx and xxxx). All these were done while my wife was crying inside the store.By the time we walked out of Swarovski at 7:30pm, she’s devastated, with most of her makeup gone thanks to the tears.
So my wife and I got to the police station and file a case with the Richmond RCMP (file # 2010-xxxxx). Just when I was finished the details and the cop finished the data entry, Brian phoned my wife and let her know that he found the watches in the store. I was shocked. My wife was shocked. Brian said that since the store/mall closed already by now (just before 8pm), he won’t be able to adjust the watch for us on that day (6/xx my birthday), but he would definitely made himself available starting Thursday anytime. Now that we had “recovered” the watch, we were happy (although we don’t care too much by that point already, as you can probably imagined why). But it’s a happy ending at least in the eyes of the cop, so we closed the RCMP file, and gone home.
When my wife and I got to Swarovski on Thursday 6/xx, both Brian and the store manager Eileen were there, and the service was excellent.
So the million dollar question is, how come Jackie didn’t find the watch in the store when asked initially, even after her spending 5 seconds looking at the back of the store? How did Brian managed to find it afterward? Error #2: Clearly, Jackie doesn’t understand what is it mean by providing good customer service and customer experience…either she had not received proper training previously (management’s fault or corporate policy’s), she is un-trainable after the training but Swarovski still decide to give her a try at the expense of sacrificing its commitment to excellent customer experience, or she just doesn’t care about the customers and won’t spend the extra effort in trying to hunt down the watches for us despite she knows how much the watches mean to us and despite that fact that she saw my wife was mad and crying.
So at the end of the day, my wife and I had, after spending almost $2000 on the Swarovski watches to get both the quality products and the excellent customer care, have to spent 4 hours not including extra travelling to adjust the watch (3 hours on 6/xx and an additional hour on 6/xx for the actual watch adjustment), had panic attack, fear, guilt, madness, and sad-tears during my birthday when it suppose to be filled with happiness and excitement, received unhelpful customer services from Swarovski despite spending $2k since we thought that the Swarovski was supposed to be trust-worthy, reliable, and care for its customers, and even ended up visited the RCMP station. So my question is, is this how Swarovski wants its customers to be treated? My wife has banned the 2 of us for going into Swarovski again until further notice. I also talked to Xxx Xxx, one of your member, about this event and he’s definitely shocked to hear our experience, told us that he will never go to the Richmond Swarovski store again, and is contemplating on whether to renew his membership when his is up, and thinking whether he should spread the word to his (member) friends so others won’t have to deal with this type of sadness and craziness in the future. Is there anything Swarovski would like to say in this instance, before I passed the above-mentioned words and experience to our friends? Please let me know if you do. Thanks for your help in answering my questions toward Swarovski!
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