This was, unequivocally, the worst customer-service experience--with any type of business--I have had in my 10+ years in DC. The owner (Caucasian gentleman in his ~70s) treated me in the most rude, condescending, and insulting manner. I had visited the store a couple of months earlier while searching for an accessory for a pair of glasses I owned. The staff present at the store on that day were an African-American woman and a younger man of European/Latin American descent. The woman was courteous and helpful (and the young man was friendly in his interactions with me), and helped me find a product that worked on my glasses. Unfortunately, as the woman applied the product, one piece of the product fell to the floor and lost its adhesive quality. Consequently, she offered to attach the product by applying extra adhesive. She then went further, and kindly helped adjust the arms of the glasses for a better fit. The male staff member stepped in to help explain the process of adjusting the arms.
A couple of months later, the product (on the side that had lost its adhesive after the woman had dropped it on the floor) became loose, so I revisited the store for help to reattach the product. This time the owner was present, while the woman who had helped me was in a room underground. After I explained the situation to the owner, he took the glasses downstairs to the woman, then came back up to inform me that the woman had no recollection of the glasses/product. He then curtly conveyed that they could not help me.
What followed was a terrible interaction where I politely tried to explain each part of the situation and was met with shocking insinuations from the owner for each point. For example (paraphrasing)--Owner: "You didn't buy these here so why should we help you" Me: "I really did purchase these here. I have proof of payment. If she were to come up, she may recognize me." Owner: "It's not a permanent solution; you bought these glasses elsewhere, and you'll keep coming back to us asking for a fix." Me: "Yes, I did buy the glasses elsewhere, but I purchased the accessory here, and the adhesive is not working because your staff dropped the product on the floor thus rendering the adhesive useless. The fix that she put in place is now not working, so I'm only asking that she fix it again, and I'd be happy to not come back again." The younger male staff member was present the whole time, and when I asked whether he had any recollection of my previous visit, he quickly brushed aside the question, denied any recollection, and obsequiously deferred to the owner (a natural/expected reaction, I suppose, but flatly unethical/irresponsible).
The conversation degraded toward the owner essentially telling me to go away in several rude ways, refusing to listen to my reasoning and denying any plausibility to my account. I politely but firmly asked to see the female staff member, and in response to the owner saying repeatedly "She is busy," said that I would wait. While waiting, I pulled up the receipt on my phone and offered to show it to the owner, but he declined to look at it (again, as expected, since it would prove me right that I had indeed made the purchase at the store). He then reiterated the point (of course, immaterial to the question of whether I had lied about purchasing something at his store) that this was not a permanent fix--that it was my fault for purchasing glasses elsewhere that required an additional accessory, and that I would keep coming back to ask for help. Given the futility of trying to reason with the owner, I refrained from explaining once again that I would not have needed to return there had his staff member not dropped the product/damaged the adhesive to begin with.
The only saving grace of the visit--and of the store--is the courteous African-American staff woman, who eventually came upstairs and helped reattach the accessory, all the while interacting with me kindly. From what I've heard from friends who have visited this store, the owner seems to have a visceral beef with how the industry has shifted toward online players, and that any whiff of a customer who may also have anything to do with the new reality (in my case, I bought my glasses online and needed an accessory; in a friend's case, she needed a certain measurement to make an online purchase and was willing/expecting to pay for the measurement in his store, but was still treated rudely) brings out the owner's resentment and shockingly hostile/scary behavior toward the customer.
I am a management consultant with one of the top firms, and my advice to the owner is that he would do well to adjust to this new reality by doing a couple of things: 1) offering the kind of customer service, personal experience, and follow-up features that the online options simply can't provide; 2) taking any ancillary business that comes his way from customers who also shop online, rather than reacting to such customers in rage. read more
