The level of condescension and pretentiousness exhibited by the employees at AE is rivaled by no other retail company I've ever seen. In the decades of retail management I've had the joy of working in, I've never intentionally made customers feel inferior for choosing to shop our store, but this is my consistent experience here.
Tonight we realized the mall was closing soon and quickly ventured in with our teen daughter to try and purchase a pair of jeans quickly. We checked our watches - 7:52 when we approached the store. The two employees were quick to remind us the closing hour of 8pm, to which we nodded and said "sorry, yes we are just looking for jeans and will be very quick!" They both scoffed and looked at each other when we walked by (I turned around to see them smirking at each other). When we found a potential pair, we asked an employee if we could try it on; to which he said "I'll have to ask a manager". Then he said "how many pairs?" We said only one. He then said yes and another employee opened the fitting room, walking past my wife and saying "we do close at 8". The employees at the front of the store were now staring at us, and they kept talking to one another on the walkie, and when the jeans didn't fit we walked immediately to the front to leave, only to have four or five employees all huddled together staring incredulously at us and whispering to one another as we walked out. My daughter was incredibly embarrassed and we felt like morons for even treading in their store so close to closing time.
The attitude I always had when customers come in near closing is to help them with whatever they need and not put myself or my desire to clock out above the company's bottom line or the customer's needs. We won't ever shop here again, and don't expect this company to succeed. read more