Why shopping online is preferable
Today I had a horrible shopping experience at Hobbycraft, Stanway, Colchester. It all started when I was looking at acrylic paint and there wasn’t a price visible for the Daley Rowney Graduate Acrylic tubes. Fortunately, there was a member of staff in the same aisle a few feet away from me putting things on a shelf. I said, showing her the item - ‘excuse me, sorry to interrupt you but do you know the price of this?’ She said ‘the price is up there’ and walked over to the display. There was no price and I said ‘if the price was there, I wouldn’t have asked you.’ She said in quite an abrupt manner – well, I didn’t know the price wasn’t there. She walked off without saying anything else and returned a few minutes later whereby she scanned the item and told me the price. I said thank you and she walked off. I later discovered that she is the manageress. I carried on shopping and when I got to the till, in addition to the items in my basket, I had 3 bolts of fabric and had to ask for assistance to reach a fourth on the shelf – which I received. Initially, I asked for a metre off one bolt, but before it was cut, I asked for it to be half a metre. The staff member who was assisting the young man on the till, was about to cut the fabric when I noticed that she was going to cut it through the width and I queried this – a discussion ensued between her, the young man (who told me that I didn’t have to buy it) and myself about how to cut fabric from a bolt and they called the manageress - whom I had already encountered. She agreed with them and I was trying to explain that when you buy fabric if it 100cm wide you are buying a metre or half a metre by 100cm. You don’t cut a metre up the middle of the width. But I was told that this is how they always do it and I could see that they were getting annoyed with me, so I told them just do what you want. Anyway, I got my four bolts of fabric cut (by the manageress) and the young man continued to ring up my items. Once paid for and I had my receipt, I decided to check the total as I had seen as I walked in the door and at the till that if you spent £40 you got £10 off. Sure enough, the ten pounds had not been deducted. I asked the young man about this and was told that it had to be requested! Are you kidding me! Didn’t say that on the signs! I asked if it could be refunded to my card and he had to call the manageress again for help. Turns out a refund could not be issued – the whole transaction had to be voided and the whole lot put through the till again! While I was shopping, I knew that I was spending quite a lot and it did occur to me to split my shopping and get the discount twice, but I didn’t do that. I packed my shopping into my own bag the first-time round, but the second time the member of staff (young man) did it and just chucked things in the bag with no care at all. I knew that he and the manageress were annoyed – as was I, so when the final total was reached, which was only £6.00 less than the original total, I couldn’t be bothered to question it. The first total was £86.40 and the second total was £80.40
During all of this the tone of these members of staff was unfriendly, somewhat rude and it seemed that they did not enjoy their jobs nor care about the image of the company. Granted no-one wants an awkward customer (and I have worked in retail) but I don’t think I was being overly difficult.
The moral of the story is shop online where you don’t have to deal with unpleasant, poorly trained staff and also, you are unlikely to impulse buy which I did to the tune of about £30.00.
Svar från Hobbycraft
Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback about your recent visit to store. Customer satisfaction is our top priority, and it is disappointing to learn that we did not meet those expectations during this visit.
We understand how important it is for our customers to receive clear assistance and a friendly atmosphere while shopping. We take feedback like this seriously and will ensure that it is addressed with our team to improve our customer service and training.
Once again please accept our apologies.
