FC NOW: The Fast Company Weblog
December 20, 2005
Chocolatier to Holiday Shopper: Drop Dead
Here’s a Yuletide tale to chill the hearts of brand managers everywhere:
One of the things I am most thankful for this year, is the gift of a new friend. Joanne came into my life when I was new to town, overwhelmed with trying to recreate a whole new support system – from doctors to hairdressers – and missing my long-time buds back in Boston. She is generous to a fault, and has a remarkable knack for calling just when I need somebody to talk to. The first time she and her husband got together with me and mine, she took us to a wonderful little chocolate shop in Soho called Marie Belle, where we had the most extraordinary hot chocolate.
To thank her for her many kindnesses this year, I wanted to get her a can of that very special cocoa. I work in midtown Manhattan; the shop is downtown --- about 50 blocks away. So I hopped a subway after work last night, lugging my laptop and all my gear –notes, tape recorder, etc. -- for working at home, in preparation for a long-anticipated transit strike in the morning. I got to the shop at – literally – 7:02, only to discover that the store had closed at 7 p.m. There were still 4 or 5 clerks milling about inside.
I banged on the door to no avail. I rang the bell, and got a shopkeeper who told me to come back tomorrow. I pled my case, pointing out that if the subways stop running, and I live and work uptown, I wouldn’t be able to get back. I noted that it was the Monday before Christmas, and this was a gift for a special friend. Her response: tough nuts. The registers were closed. I would have been happy to pay cash, if only they’d slip a can of cocoa out the door. Ring it up tomorrow. Don’t bother with a bag. No dice. I tried pressing my nose against the glass, looking pathetic enough to melt their frozen hearts. Scrooge couldn’t have been less sympathetic.
Here’s the question: When it comes to customer service, where should companies draw the line? I'm not one of those people who thinks the customer is always right. Customers who try to return once-worn party dresses with sweat-stained armpits to Nordstrom's should be turned away. And I was appalled at Oprah’s diva demands at Hermes in Paris, particularly when she tried to cast her exclusion from the store as racism. But I also know that if someone had tried to help me last night, I would have been a customer for life.
Marie Belle does many things right. It has wonderful packaging, a superior product, a lovely shop. But all that investment is for naught if a devoted customer who has made an extraordinary effort to buy the product is turned away at the door.
As it stands, I’ll grudgingly buy the company’s hot chocolate for my friend if and when the transit workers ever return to work, but I’ll henceforth take my other chocolate needs elsewhere. As an astute passerby, sensing my frustration, suggested, “Try Vosges or Jacques Torres around the corner.”
Posted by Linda Tischler at December 20, 2005 10:36 AM | Category: customer service |
36 Comments
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I am trying hard to be the clerk inside the shop -- and a case could be made for their "go by the rules" attitude. But, as the owner of the store, I know that 4 or 5 heads would be rolling.
It is so much easier and more cost effective to keep an existing customer than to find a new one. The registers may have been closed, but someone should have thought creatively. I would be very surprised to hear that the owner was inside -- these were paid clerks who really did not care.
Linda - I sure hope the Marie Belle owners see your article! I am going inform them of their stupidity via their website. I can't help myself.
Oh big boo hoo for you. This new found friend will appreciate your gift whenever you give it. Stop whining about a clerk that makes less per hour than your cocoa costs.
It may have been 7:10 by their clock!
Snake, remind me to never ever hire you. I hope the owner of Marie Belle replaces the offending clerk with one of the millions in New York who are pleasant and who know the value of a customer and who perform with excellence not because of their pay scale but because it is in their nature to do so.
The owners of this business must see this email. The customer may not always be right but when there standing at the door, begging to give me money, I'll find a way to take it! Be fore my professional switch to software engineering I worked in a lumber yard. The rule (from the owner) never turn a customer away. I've have re-opened my store on countless occations, after the money was in the safe, to be able to sell a customer the material they needed. Everyone of them has become a customer for life. My co-workers did complain but that kind of customer service isn't found much anymore and that's what sepparates one lumber yard from all the rest. Chocolate, like lumber, is a comodity, you can only charge so much money. Service is where youcan set yourself apart from the competition. As the passersby mentioned there are other chocolate shops nearby, I'm sure someone wants to take your money.
To play devil's advocate, you do ask the question, "When it comes to customer service, where should companies draw the line?" This business has drawn the line at 7:00 PM. If someone saw you in there buying something at 7:05, then by your logic, they'd have to let them in also. If it wasn't you they turned away, it would have to be someone.
Having managed a business before, remember that these employees had tasks to complete to close the business for the day. They cannot just turn out the lights at 7:00 PM and walk out the door. For every person they help past closing, that pushes their work later. I know with some franchises (not that this business is one), if you don't get reports in to the home office on time, they have the right to penalize you financially.
If the registers were closed, about all they could've done was taken your cash and given you some inventory and rung it up the next morning. But as an employee you open yourself up to liability here. What if the money isn't there the next day, then you might have to pay it out of your pocket or someone suspects an employee of stealing because inventory is gone.
Finally, if a manager wasn't there, the regular employees may not have had much leeway to do anything anyway. Personally, if I was you, I wouldn't hold it against them. Remember that you were outside of their established business hours. Yes, they could have gone above and beyond to help you (and if they did, they should be rewarded with positive press). But don't give them negative press because they didn't bend the rules to your liking.
I feel your pain, I honestly do. It must have been disappointing and frustrating to be so close, and not be able to get it.
But . . . I am a retail worker in December. When we close, we lock the doors, take the tills out of the registers, and start cleaning up the store. In December, we usually have an hour of cleaning ahead of us. Clerks are moving around the store, and the lights are on, but the store is closed. Our store has just been open for 16 hours, and we've just worked a long, hard, busy shift. Once we lock the doors, we're done. No one who isn't an employee comes in. I'm sure that's at least in part an insurance thing.
If you had missed the closing time by a half hour, and clerks were milling about, would you have been as upset? Have you ever missed a bus or subway by a minute, gotten there just in time to see it pulling away? Do you blame the conductor or driver for not waiting?
I'm sorry that your schedule did not mesh with their schedule. I'm sorry that there is a transit strike, and your life in the city is made 10 times more difficult. Call the store (while they're open :) and explain the situation. Maybe they'll send a bike messenger with the stuff, maybe they'll FedEx it to you.
I'm a nice person, I really am, focused on customer service. I read books about it, and try to practice what I preach and read. I don't think I would have opened the door for you either, and I'm sorry for that, but it's the truth.
As a former retail worker, I see both sides of this: customer service is important, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Many stores forbid their employees to work overtime, and it this sort of policy, plus the horror of the holiday rush, could cause a place to remain closed. I also admit, however, that this is a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy of mine--when you work in a mall and customers fail to take the sound of crashing gates all around them as a gentle hint to hurry, it's easy to grow frustrated.
Allow me to recommend this book: Win the Customer, Not the Argument. At the end of the day it's the customer that pays the salary of everyone in that shop.
I can't find much sympathy here. Whether it's airplanes, banks, movie theaters, or a store, the owners do set a time. And let's respect that and not whine when we don't get some extra privileges.
Airplanes, movie theaters and subways are not chocolate stores. The former all have other customers waiting; the latter, well, they don't. With retail, the line isn't as definite.
Anyways, try Kee's Chocolates on Thompson St.(Spring St.) sometime. They don't have the hot chocolate, but they do have good chocolates.
I understand your frustration and if I were the owner or manager of the store and I had been there, you would have your hot chocolate. However, I think it is unrealistic to think that someone making an hourly wage should unlock the door, let you in amidst all the cleaning, figure out a way to get around the registers already being closed out, take your cash (that he/she wasn't sure you had to start with), tuck it away, write a note to explain what the money is for and then have another person pick up this cause in the morning. So while I certainly would have gone the extra mile if it was my store, I think you have no right to EXPECT that level of service. Man, these days, I feel lucky when retail workers don't try to lock the doors early. Which is sad. And what about your responsibility as a customer to find out what time the store closes and get there before that point? And my last point is that by writing about it and mentioning their name on the website of a national business magazine, I think you have gone over the line to diva behavior. Sorry.
Sure you want to win the customer but the customer must also understand that (1)hours are posted for a reason (2) the store's employees have lives outside of the store and don't want to stay a minute longer that they have to and (3) once my registers are closed and the tills are pulled no one is allowed in the store no matter who they are or what they want. The last thing I want to happen is for one of my employees or myself to be injured or killed over some petty cash.
I used to be a retail store manager and I once let a "regular" customer come in about 5 minutes after closing to "get a Christmas candle" and an hour later I got a call from Home Office telling me to close my all my registers and finish my paper work so the store could poll. Yes, an hour later the customer was still there and all she bought was a $7.50 candle. At that time my store closed at 10 pm and we were the only store open past 8pm in that shopping center.
Real depth to those comments U.F.
It looks like these comments were written by workers - not owners.In this day and age customer service is paramount. Because you can get anything somewherelse cheaper.
There is no reason to be rude to customer. Even if they didn't let her in - they should have turned her away with a smile (she probably was in the wrong trying to get in).
OK, folks. Interesting discussion today, re: whether this was a lost opportunity to cement a bond with a customer or simply an example of some hopeless New York diva whining about not getting a chance to buy overpriced cocoa. (for the record, had it been a regular day in June, with no transit strike, no pending holiday, not 22 degrees, I would have said, sure, I'll be back tomorrow.)
But let's think about this: from a management standpoint, what do you tell your sales help to do in a situation like this? Bar the door, or make the effort? I don't blame the kids who were trying to go home (although closing at 7pm just days before Xmas doesn't seem like the smartest business strategy), if they were, indeed, under some of the pressures that other writers alluded to. And opening the door after hours on a regular basis would invite mayhem. But what kind of policy should a retail establishment set to guide workers through extraordinary circumstances like these?
If customers are as precious as we keep saying they are, what are the ground rules for making them happy?
This was, in my opinion, most definitely a lost opportunity to “cement a bond” with a customer.
At our mail-order company (Alaskan Harvest Seafood) we make all attempts to provide the best possible service to our customers. As far as published hours go, we follow them but if someone calls outside the hours and we are in the office the phone gets answered, or the email is replied to. Many times we work overtime and respond to customers on evenings, weekends, well outside the two minutes after closing.
My personal rule of thumb is: A happy customer might tell a friend. An angry customer will tell everyone they know.
In this case an angry (upset/frustrated/disappointed/whatever) customer told every one that reads this blog.
With the ease of publicizing your opinions, rating products/places/services that the internet has blessed and cursed us with, it also allows for a very simple way for people to broadcast their opinions.
Fortune published an interesting article about Umbria (www.umbrialistens.com) which was interesting in how they harvest opinions and intelligently assess blog comments for market research clients. I would link to the article, but alas, Fortune’s web site isn’t as friendly as Fast Company’s is and I can’t find the article.
I own my own business, and if I heard that one of my employees had turned someone away two minutes after closing that was trying to buy a Christmas present, I'd fire them on the spot - no question about it. And not because of the "make more money" part of the equation you might think would come from an owner, but because the person was trying to buy a gift for a friend and was turned away. It's Christmas, for crying out loud - let's bend the rules a little.
I work at an upscale food seller. We're open until 10PM daily. Every night by 8 or 9PM, it slows down; traffic almost comes to a halt. But then around 9:55PM, customers come - sometimes *running* - into the store to buy whatever they absolutely "need": usually expensive wine or cheese. These customers are inevitably the hard-to-please customers, as well. "Could you wrap this in the special bags?" requests and such.
We lock our doors at 10PM sharp, but even then, it can be as late as 10:30 or 10:45PM until the last customer leaves. Once a customer is inside, it's almost impossible to get them out.
In the scenario detailed, I would have served the customer, provided the customer just wanted the one item and was willing to wait outside the store while I fetched it. But I would have to do all this without my manager's knowledge, and I would be risking my own job in the process. I can't blame other clerks for just saying "no".
-Mike
Quick follow-up -- I forgot to mention, "bang[ing] on the door" and ringing the bell was a BAD idea. That's the very last kind of customer I would ever serve at my store; not only are they likely to be a "special requests" type customer, but that behavior would lead me to suspect them perhaps being a security risk. I haven't encountered that behavior yet from customers at my store, but if I did, I would fear that the person was under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs. I would telephone the police immediately, and certainly not serve that customer.
-Mike
I've found the perfect solution to this problem Linda.
I've even proposed it to Marie Belle via their web site.
You should be BANNED from the premises for One Year with
a lifetime ban if your whining keeps up.
You're too dumb to look up the hours (phone, web, whatever)
of the store, you slobber all over the just-cleaned window
like some out-of-control Jabba the Hutt with your hams and
you expect people to act like supplicants?
Only a woman (to retract my earlier post) could set up in her mind some Aztec chocolate fantasy to cement her friendship,
and when it doesn't come through blame the store.
Go look in the mirror. Have some personal responsibility for failing to plan and failing to have a backup (web shopping!).
The store has rights and obligations to the people who work there; you as a customer have rights and obligations. Civil liberities and discourse do not come together until you weigh both these; you have no idea what the repercussions of them "just one little purchase" does.
You get two black coals in my book And No Drinking Chocolate For You!
Foob
PMFJI, but isn't anyone creative anymore? There are valid points on both sides of this argument but to what end? A customer whose enthusiasm has obviously waned and a store whose reputation has been tarnished, even if slightly.
It's easy to cite chapter and verse about why this customer couldn't/shouldn't have been served. It's harder, and takes real creativity and class to see how to turn this challenging situation into one that would keep the customer, reaffirm the reputation and probably receive additional referrals to boot.
How?
For example, supposed the clerk would have said,
"I'm sorry but our registers and the computer system has been shut down. But since you have travelled all this way I think we can find a solution to help you out. What about you leave your contact information where we can reach you first thing tomorrow morning.
You can make place an order over the phone and pay by credit card and we can work with you to arrange to have the item delivered to you by courier or FedX if there is a transit strike.
Chances are Linda wouldn't have minded paying extra for delivery (she was late after all) but she would have received personal attention in a way that demonstration that the store valued her business and her relationship. And they store wouldn't have had to make any exception to story policy, except for a little time and courtesy.
Plus the keep a customer, maybe even create a more passionate cheerleader for the brand in the process.
Eveyone wins. Happy ending.
I don't know this particular store but I'll assume it attempts to project an upscale image. I'd bet the box of cocoa you wanted to buy was much more expensive than a box of Ovaltine at Duane Reade. And that is why you have reason to be dissapointed. When shops charge extraordinary prices for goods the customer should expect extraordiinary service. In fact, the owner of the shop is at fault for not training her staff to properly handle this type of situation. You only have one chance to make a first impression. Too bad because they have it half right. Raving fans are tough to come by these days; but they enticed you to inconveniently travel all the way across town to spend in their store however they blew it once you got there. Madame Belle needs to train her staff to act upscale! As Agassi says, Image Is Everything!
seriously, get over it.
they close at 7, it isn't their fault that you didn't make it on time. i mean, those people have lives too and want to go home. its a week before christmas, do you realize how busy retail gets? so for you to whine and possibly get someone fired because you couldn't make it to the store on time isn't really fair. writing about it in this blog isn’t fair. you should have made it anonymous.
the employees are probably making minimum wage and on their feet all day, the last thing they should do is cater to a customer who comes after closing time. and 7:02, i HIGHLY doubt you came then. i think you're exaggerating to make a better story and i am guessing you came much later than that.
if i were working, i would have turned you away as well. what happened was really no one's fault but your own. you might see them as just employees, but they’re people too.
It would have been a lot easier for everyone to just order online & have it delivered to your friend.
I guarantee you it was 7:02. I checked my watch because I couldn't believe I had missed my chance by so little time. And I never stopped thinking of those folks as people. I was only hoping, given the effort I had expended to get there, the impossibility of returning, and the rapidlly approaching holiday, that they would also think of me as a person and not just an annoyance.
As for naming names: I bet you never heard of Marie Belle before, and now you -- and all the folks who read this blog -- know that they have chocolate worth schlepping across town for.
Linda, you absolutely should have named, names! Had Marie Belle handled things differently the store owner would have been delighted with you telling the world through this blog about what a class act they were.
Those who think if unfair obviously are clueless that social media are fundamentally changing the rules of retail, manufacturing, service, etc. Have they not heard of the trials that have visited Kryptonite, Dell Computer, Range Rover, Typepad, among others, when they foolishly ignored consumer dissatisfaction? Finally, at long last, good customer service will be rewarded and bad customer service will create severe consequences.
>>I bet you never heard of Marie Belle before, and now you -- and all the folks who read this blog -- know that they have chocolate worth schlepping across town for.Linda, you absolutely should have named, names! Had Marie Belle handled things differently the store owner would have been delighted with you telling the world through this blog about what a class act they were.
Those who think if unfair obviously are clueless that social media are fundamentally changing the rules of retail, manufacturing, service, etc. Have they not heard of the trials that have visited Kryptonite, Dell Computer, Range Rover, Typepad, among others, when they foolishly ignored consumer dissatisfaction? Finally, at long last, good customer service will be rewarded and bad customer service will create severe consequences.
>>I bet you never heard of Marie Belle before, and now you -- and all the folks who read this blog -- know that they have chocolate worth schlepping across town for.
You're right, I have never heard of it before. Now, however, I know it as a store that doesn't have the brains to value customers who would schlep across town for their products and one that might have a quality product but certainly doesn't deserved any reputation for service quality.
Linda, you sound like a New York yuppie who is so self-absorbed with her own life and career -- and feels entitled to ask the world to stop so she can indulge her every whim.
Don't blame a few retail clerks for your misplaced life priorities. You left the important people and tasks to the last minute. You should have made the gift to this generous friend a priority (maybe do your shopping on Saturday) especially when you knew the transit strike was "long-anticipated."
If I were the brand manager for Linda Tischler, yes, I would be feeling the chill.
So, it boils down to poor customer service as well as poor planning on Linda's part.
I'll still read this blog and the magazine. I most likely won't include that store as a stop on my go-to list the next time I am in Manhattan. It's a question of service and it could have been handled MUCH better by the staff (see the many of the examples above).
All potential customers should be treated well and that expectation does not make one "self-absorbed." If you cannot stomach that part of the business, pick another line of work.
If I were the manager/owner of the MarieBelle store in question, I would try to take the high road by pulling my staff together, probably not singling out any one employee, and let them all know my expectations for our brand's providing top-notch customer service. Most often, this level of service involves a creative solution to problem-solving--even for the simplest of problems.
If a "closing-time" line has to be drawn, then make it clear to the staff that in a scenario such as Linda's, they are to attempt an immediate and efficient solution such as the "We'll-get-it-to-you-tomorrow-first-thing" approach. Give the staff my expectations, empower them with the ability and authority to make such decisions, provide them with examples of what they can and cannot do on behalf of the brand, and ensure they understand the consequences of positive and of negative service.
Okay, so maybe it's over-priced, delicious hot-chocolate mix at a gourmet chocolatier. What if it were, instead, a bottle of aspirin from the local drugstore (or CVS, Walgreens, etc.)?
Another (real) example:
I was turned away by a car dealership 10 minutes before their closing time because I was told by the salesperson that "They (don't you hate the use of 'they' to skirt accountabilty?) usually close up about now." 10 minutes early! As I left, I shared w/ the salesperson that he should tell "them" that "they" just cost him a commission, as I was ready to purchase and had been looking forward to owning the car. I already had been on the lot for about 15 minutes. Bought the same car the next day at a different dealership, btw.
Recommended reading: "QBQ! The Question Behind the Question" by John G. Miller. Through examples not unlike these, the author shows the power of excellent customer service driven by a sense of personal accountability. Since I have purchased and given copies to my staff before, I would do the same again as manager of the shop that Linda visited.
Now that this blog entry has some legs and meat to it, is there going to be some follow-up as to MarieBelle's side of the story?
From a quick glance at their web site, they seem to be a thriving speciality retailer/quality chocolatier producing some excellent yummies.
If Mgt has a reation, it'll probably be a free spiffy for Linda and a big "Mea Cula" from MB. If she had any integrity she wouldn't accept it.
The bigger question is if the use of a blog at a corporate magazine (i got here through a google homepage feed) for a personal time management error is really appropriate and within the guidelines for Fast Company.
Like i said, i think she should be banned. There are bad customers and the CRM that FastCo. has written about has included the kind that "weeds" the whiners, malcontents and other hazards from the business garden.
The worst part of this story is the "personal violation" nonsense; Linda you F*#@ed up with poor time planning and not just calling/web ordering since you already knew the gift.
Others also have this "owner" mentality verses employee; you have no idea if the money flows to those who provide best service, if there's a profit share in place, or if this is a joe-job in choccies one step up from a 'SBUX position.
This place seems to operate as a hot cocoa bar as well so i'm sure bad customers with no time considerations often try to stay past-hours and linger, hence the strict "we're closed" policy.
Foob, wanting some balance
After reading all of these comments, I just want to add the following:
the store workers could have been considerate - there was a mass transit strike pending that would make travel difficult (esp right before the holidays!!).
make one customer happy and she/he tells one person.....make one customer unhappy and they tell EVERYONE
I have a small business and always go out of my way for customers. Easier to retain customers than find new ones.
The issue here is not so much that she could have foregone the 50 block trip to get a $20 tin of chocolate by registering personal information on MareClaire's website (or tell a stranger your credit card number over the phone) and had it shipped to your office (for another $20) for delivery later that week.
The issue is stores who set the clock ahead 5 or 10 minutes to lock up by their time so the hourly employees can go home. In theory, I, too, am hourly-paid. I am a federal government worker who "donates" 5 or 10 extra hours each week, and I'm usually not the last "hourly" employee to leave on Friday night. Perhaps that's why we have the strongest military anywhere - hourly support workers who know that pleasing our customer (the front-line soldier) is our top priority.
The simple fact that there are 33 comments to this blog post is proof enough that customer service is close to all our hearts.
I must say that as an Australian guy reading the comments I'm surprised at how some of you New Yorkers are so harsh on the author's predicament. I reckon you should all take a bit of a chill pill...The solution is really simple...If the shop's attended (it ws), the product is available (it was), the customer is willing to pay cash (she was) then they should just do it. It's the simple, normal, no fuss thing to do.
Such poor service would not happen if people were less uptight.
Cheers for now...TIM The Ideas Guy
www.theideasguy.com.au
This thread has been really interesting to read, purely from the fact that I'm a Franchisor in a service lead industry. I've worked in Customer Services and can see both sides to this tale.
On a plus note by naming names, I, as someone in Britain is now intrigued by a company in New York that has products so good people will schlepp across town for them. (Could they really be better that Charbonnel & Walker and can I really buy their products on line? Great!) But this story also helps me to highlight the perils of Customer Service to our franchisees in a very real way. Cheers guys for your view points, it's very helpful!
I add my comments to stand with the others' on this post who called you on your whining.
The fact is that you didn’t plan appropriately and you suffered the consequences. The fact that you didn’t have the foresight to get a taxi or car service and leave you road warrior gear out of the mix does not gain you any sympathy from me. You are clearly able bodied and you can deal with the transport of a laptop and all the gear. That was your decision travel with all of that and not those of the merchant or their store clerk. I certainly have had times when caught without the ability to lift heavy items and I have back issues that have put me in a wheel chair on occasion due to any repeated lifting of more than ten (10) lbs. But when I was inconvenienced, I didn't have a major melt down and blame some poor hourly worker.
Also, if you were more considerate of other people perhaps you might have been able to get a better response than you report. I frankly think that you were obnoxious and the staff decided that they didn't wish to violate rules that most stores impose by repopening after they were closed for business.
On a separate issue, the Oprah comparison is NOT appropriate in that: (1) you are certainly NOT in Oprah’s league otherwise you would be able to EXPECT a store to open up for you privately.
(2) The president/CEO of Hermes ADMITTED to the entire country that their employee was caught, on camera, being unjustifiably and indefensibly rude to a clearly STELLAR customer (read influences decisions and trends in the marketplace that you can’t begin to compete with). (3) The only thing Hermes did not admit was whether the incident was racially motivated. They could not rule it out! (4) Oprah did not whine as you have nor did she demand service after it had been rudely refused.
The fact is that Hermes came out after their employee had made a scene and with a customer that they clearly valued. They tried to rehabilitate their image. Most people who have experienced discrimination, as Oprah surely has as an African American woman who is not that much younger than the girls bombed in church in Birmingham, get to know and can better size up what is and what is not discrimination. After all Oprah experienced it when she tried to gain access to a New York city Madison Avenue boutique during its business hours and was refused access. There was no apology and the incident of discrimination for shopping while Black was simply forgotten by those who never have to confront it in their lives. Therefore, your comments and name calling of a self-made, award winning, Forbes list business woman as a "diva" are incendiary as is your pathetic attempt to use yourself as a comparator to Oprah Winfrey.
Did it ever occur to you that pose a security risk demanding access after the store was closed? Judging from your rant in that at least Oprah was INSIDE the store and attempting to make a purchase that may have ended up with a major increase in revenue with free promotion as one of Oprah’s “favorite things” as opposed to you standing outside and threatening all manner of security breaches and offering exactly what?
People like you made me leave retail management having worked at the most prestigious Manhattan department store as my first job out of college. Their director of security stated that they had a policy of scrutinizing customers by race and following those deemed not to belong in there. I was not surprised however I required my subordinates to treat all customers inside the store with the same degree of courtesy and respect that their behavior dictated; but even I got tired of the incessant whining about every little perceived flaw.
I had a customer who approached me with your attitude of self-involvement to the exclusion of common sense and demanded preferential treatment to purchase her item at a counter that was inundated with similar customers – who elected to wait their turn to be helped by overworked, underpaid sales clerks – during the Christmas onslaught. This woman, much like you, did not consider anything beyond her own interests. Instead of trying to reason with the unreasonable, I just walked down with her to the counter and pointed out to her that which should have been obvious. There were more clerks than the store usually staffed; she was not alone in having to wait her turn, and finally there wasn’t even space to put another body behind that counter. Unfortunately, the union rules prevented me as a manager from using the cash register and I was not about to commit any security violations by accepting cash from her so she had to deal with the system as it was. A lesson that you have yet to learn! You could have bought an Amex gift card and told your friend about the chocolate place as a suggestion. You could have done so many other things other than spend your time unproductively and vindictively.
Instead of trying to demand that which obviously will not change, I went and got a professional degree. Now, when I am required to deal with people of your ilk and listen to client whining, I am well compensated to deal with the whiner, according to their just desserts (pun intended)! On the other hand, if I don’t feel like tolerating childish and juvenile behavior, I no longer am required to suffer fools gladly.
You are getting exactly what you deserved -- in the more rancorous comments made by others -- I hope you take to heart your self-involved, narcissistic and racist commentary and the responses thereto and get over yourself. If not, go get some professional help because I would think that after 9/11 you would have more perspective that what you are demonstrating about matters involving security in buildings and the authority of some clerk to reopen a store after closing hours.