I rarely leave reviews, but I needed to leave one for this Ashley store located across from the Northridge Fashion Center on Tampa. The experience my wife and I had was so uncomfortable, we had to leave, and leaving, believe or not, was an ordeal in and of itself. Never have I been stalked relentlessly through a store by employees as we were at this Ashley. It was ridiculous and maddening.
I'm aware employees of companies like this typically work on commission so they are eager to make a sale, but stalking customers and driving them up the wall with your pestering is the fastest way to chase them out the door, not to make a sale. And it didn't happen with only one employee. It was three different employees.
When we walked into the store, a man was sitting at a podium right inside. He welcomed us, asked if we had any questions, and when we said we just wanted to look around, he gave us his name and told us to ask if we needed anything. We thanked him and moved on. We walked more than twenty feet from him (not an exaggeration) and he approached us and asked us if we needed help. It was boggling, because we had JUST told him we didn't and wanted to look around, but we shrugged it off, said no, and carried on. He walked off, and we managed about two minutes, tops, of looking before we were approached by another employee.
She said that the first employee we'd spoken to had gone on break, so she would be helping us and to let her know if we needed any assistance. We thanked her and she moved over to speak to another customer. Less than a minute after she walked off, yet another employee approached us, and she was abrasive. She barked at us, "You need help! Has anyone helped you?"
We said we were fine and that an employee had already helped us, and she shouted, "Who? Who's helping you?" which was completely bewildering and also unnecessary. We were simply walking around looking at furniture, not in distress, not seeking out an employee, etc. We didn't know the other woman's name, but we could see her, so we pointed at her to indicate she'd helped us, and the second lady shouted at her from across the store. "Did you help them? Are you helping them?"
As she was doing that, she slipped away from her, and by this point, my wife was incredibly uncomfortable. She had issues with social anxiety, so people constantly being in her face creates a very uncomfortable environment for her. I don't have anxiety, but even I was uncomfortable at this point as well. But wait, it gets worse.
Once we escaped the second woman, we managed to make it three more couches down before we were approached again by the first woman. We told her we didn't need any help and just wanted to look, and she said, "Okay, I won't bother you." We thanked her, and she literally responded with, "I'm not trying to bother you, but are you looking for a dining room table? Let me tell you about this dining room table sale we are having right now." She then proceeded to hold us there for a good three or four minutes running down dining room table sales and options, despite us never indicating that we wanted a dining room table. In fact, we explicitly told her that we were not interested in a dining room table. We told her again we just wanted to look around, and she said, "Okay. Just let me know. I've worked here a long time. I'll give you the best price." And kept tapping her name tag.
We walked off and sat on a couch that looked nice, and she immediately was on us. "You like this one? It comes in red, brown, leather..." And on and on. My wife is so uncomfortable at this point that she is saying she is whispering in my ear that she needs to leave, we need to get out of there. I was ready to go too, which was unfortunate, because we had just moved into a new apartment and had NO furniture, and there were several couches in Ashley that we liked a lot, but we couldn't really consider any of them, because we were being stalked and hounded and not given any space to look, experience, or privately discuss the options.
We were at the back of the store at this point, and I noticed as we rounded one section that the woman was actually stalking us. I caught a glimpse of her in my peripheral. She was watching us for a short distance back and when we stopped, she stopped. When I looked directly at her, she shrunk back behind a wall as if to hide, which was ridiculous. I was dumbstruck at this point, honestly. But then when we started moving again, she started moving again. And so it continued all the way to the front of the store. We even sped up and cut across sections to make it there faster, and she did the same thing, cutting sections to catch us at the door.
We are at the door, my wife is pushing it open, and she shouts out at us to stop so she can talk to us one more time and give us her card. I took it but immediately pitched it in the trash in the parking lot. There is no way in any hell that I would go back to this Ashley furniture. read more