I bought a pair of knitting needles from Hobby Lobby located at Cypress, TX 77433. One of the needles’ tip got broken and fell off from the plastic needle only a few hours I opened the package. I then went back to the store and asked for refund or exchange. The cashier required the package at the first place, while I could not present the package since I threw it away once I opened it. However, I gave her the receipt. But she insisted that they would not allow return without package. But eventually she called her manager and agreed that I could go get another one for replacement. Then something really shocking happened –
While I was walking back to the cashier with a new pair of needles, an employee stopped me and asked if I was the “knitting lady”. I told her yes. The employee waved the needles in her hands – which was the brokend ones I left with the cashier – and said at my face, “This, is not from our store! ” I was shocked. I told her this Hobby Lobby was the only store where I got needles from, and I know it’s from here. She repeated, “No, we do not have this. We do not sell this. It’s from somewhere else.” I asked her whether she was sure. She looked at me as if I was a thief who is setting things up to cheat Hobby Lobby for less than $5. As a mother of two, previously educator, I was very upset. I told her to come with me and I would show her the fact whether her store was selling this to me. I led her to the needle shelf. It’s ironic that even in front of the shelf, she was still insisting saying, “We, do not have this! ” I had to pick up the goods which was exactly the same I bought. This time, she just kept saying, “oh, this is brand new. We did not have it before.” Apology? Nope. She did not say any single word like “sorry”, or “it’s my mistake” or anything that a decent employee should say.
Being so suspected and treated, while I just wanted to exchange some broken merchandise, I was really upset. I decided to let the manager know. But the manager seemed just want to get me out of the store. He said, “It’s me who told them to double check. “ I told him that it’s not the “double check” that upset me, but the fact that the employee just came after me in an extremely rude way before she did any check! Sadly, all the manager did, was not to apologize to me but to defend his employee. He argued that it’s their new style of management. I went to business school, we all know the importance of customer management. But this manager was defending this poor customer service by emphasizing they were “adopting a new style”.
Please know that during the whole thing, I was never rude or angry. I walked in the store with smile. My smile did not disappear until the rude employee’s obvious accusation hit me. I am very disappointed the behavior of this store. I live in this area and shop here frequently for my home, and my kids’ school projects. What they did to me, just made me very sad. I have never seen them treated a white lady in this unacceptable rude and unprofessional way. I won’t shop there again, instead I will just go to Michael’s.
0 comments