Howdo, for those who are close to me, you may well be aware that i have recently fell off the “in a relationship” status page and into the “engaged” category. Well, this was in part thanks to our friends at H Samuel, who sold me an amazing and truly spectacular engagement ring which was ‘alas’ the wrong size (but i new this, but wanted to propose and couldn’t wait for the real size to be ordered).
Anyways, swiftly moving on, proposal done and she said “YES” :)
Well, this is where the story gets a little more complex, after realising that online H Samuels had the ring size she needed in stock, we soon placed an order, with the intention of getting the one online (instead of the one which had been worn by god knows how many women in the shop) and returning the afore-mentioned ‘demo’ ring to the store in EXETER !
Well, a day after placing the order on H Samuels website i got an email from them saying they needed to talk to me about my order and could i contact them, which i then did. Only to be told that my order was on hold, pending a security check (you’d think the credit card company doing that, and visa verification would be enough, apparently not). Well, we cleared that up and i was informed that the ring i had ordered was extremely limited stock and there were only a few left in the warehouse. Well, thanks for letting me know, but now the order is confirmed, i assume one of those will be reserved for me, NOPE !
A day later, i get a call saying they have cancelled my order and nothing can be done, nice ! So, i figure ill call them and see if i can get the order changed to one of the sizes they do still have in stock and have it adjusted before shipped, so i get a nice new one, in the right size, happy days ! NOPE !
Online H Samuels have informed me that this ring is not capable of being altered! HMM, this sounds bad, because now iv proposed to my girlfriend with a ring which the in store staff at H Samuels EXETER say can be altered, but online are saying NOPE it can’t ! Sounds like bad news for me… Long and short of it, order online cancelled and that’s the end of it !
Well, not quite, my ‘now’ fiancée is down in Plymouth one evening and comes across a H Samuels store, and decides to have a quick look inside, low and behold there is the ring she now has which does not fit. And even more to her surprise it’s in her size ! Online not too keen on checking their stores stock levels it seems, oh well, not everyone can invest in modern technology which has been around since the early 90′s (Ya Know, excel would prob do the job :)…
Well, with a correct size in hand, she buys it on my credit card ! Job Done, we now have two rings. One wrong size and one the correct size, no problem, just take the one back to EXETER when we get home and that’s the end of it, NOPE !
Apparently, when i purchased the original ring i was given a £25 gift voucher off any other purchase, which was stapled to the receipt, well this is now missing. So when i appear in EXETER H SAMUELS with my pristine and unworn engagement ring, and a receipt i am told “NOPE, No voucher, no refund”. Right, that’s bad news ! Now I’m in possession of two very expensive rings and my credit card is starting to get scared.
Okay, H Samuels… What’s the policy if someone has lost their voucher or it’s been damaged or destroyed…? Ummm, Dunno was the helpful answer i got :/ well, okay can i see the back of my receipt for the returns policy, hmm nothing there at all, just some rubbish about passing my personal details to third parties (thanks for that violation of my private data, would be nice to be asked). But no refund policy, okay no problem, ask the helpful sales assistant, who then tells me, right to my face “oh, we don’t keep that in store”, umm what ! so your telling me that there is no refund policy anywhere, “umm, let me take a look” after which she visits some internal website and prints off a 7 bullet point page detailing the H Samuels extensive refund policy, nowhere in which does it mention anything about vouchers.
So, by this point I’m not too happy, sales assistant is useless, and won’t answer anything without manager being there, manager not working this day (21/07/2011) so me, the customer, screwed apparently. What if i can’t find this magic voucher for £25 (wow, that’s going to break the bank aint it, on an industry which adds 100% mark-up to every product in the window). Apparently the answer to that is a blank expression and an excuse that she can’t do anything for fear of losing her job, which i can somewhat understand in these harsh economic times. But it would of been nice if she had at least come up with a suggestion, something like “wait a min, i call another store and check with their manager” or even better “hold on, I’ll call head office and see if we can sort this out” or, i dunno, something outrageous like “it’s okay, each transaction has a unique code which is linked to your transaction, so by doing a refund it will invalidate the code” (i know the last one is a long shot, given they can’t even count stock apparently, but it’s worth a go)… But none of these, just tells me to (essentially) sod off and come back tomorrow when manager can tell me the same thing (most likely)…
Well, i come home and hunt like mad, and what do i find hiding amongst the other 1000 pieces of paper on my desk, a £25 voucher for H SAMUELS… So, the day is saved it seems, i can now go back tomorrow and REFUND TO MY HEARTS CONTENT :)
Just outta interest though, i checked the voucher, the code is UNIQUE, so any modern system could have linked this to the transaction, the code is in plain view, so I’m not sure what’s stopping me from just writing it down and using it after iv returned this ring. And finally, there is absolutely no sign of any terms and conditions on the voucher saying it must be returned with the item if a refund is issues, it does not even say that its invalid if the transaction is cancelled. So, end of the story is…
H SAMUEL DESPERATLY NEED TO WORK ON THE FOLLOWING
: Customer service, online and in store (rude and somewhat dismissive of their customers, even the ones who spend thousands in their store on (ladies, please forgive me), overpriced shiny things
: IT Infrastructure, common you useless people, i did one module of database stuff at uni and even i could come up with a POS which has better functionality than whatever you have.
: I think also they might need to find a way to link their online store with the street stores a lot better, what they have now is two companies who don’t talk to each other and both tell different stories to their customers (leaving me feeling like one of them has been lying to me, and personally i think it’s both lol).
Right, so thanks for reading, and please take one thing away from this article, when you propose make sure you checked out every other store before committing to the H SAMUEL brand, it is in desperate need of some polish (least the company, the rings are well-pretty ;)
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