One word: FAIL!
Imagine this scenario. You are from out of town. You have a wedding to attend in Austin. You bring a dinky ratty dress, just in case, because you know you will find something gorgeously apropos in one of Austin's many boutiques. You stop at C. Jane and voila - you find THE DRESS. It's one the most uniquely beautiful dresses you've seen in awhile and it's on sale to boot! You are overcome with glee and your accompanying friend even genuinely ooo's and ahhh's the moment you step out of the dressing room. You purchase the dress. Your friend and you gush about the dress for hours and hours, while stopping at nearly a dozen other boutiques and forgoing other dresses you try on, because although they're cute, you've already found THE ONE, so no need to overspend.
Now imagine. You're getting ready for your other friend's wedding. You slip on the dress, humming a merry tune and BAM, WHAT THE FAWK IS THIS?! The atrocious eyesore of a security sensor sullying the bottom of your dress. Ahhhhhh!
The aforementioned scenario is a true story/based on actual events. Except I was the accompanying friend who witnessed my other friend's grievous tragedy. By the time we noticed the security sensor had been left on her dress (you know, while she was putting it on before the wedding - because naturally you'd assume boutique salespeople to adhere to protocol about removing those dang things after purchase), we were miles and miles away from C. Jane and only with an hour left to spare before the wedding. Needless to say my friend was EXTREMELY furious and then that gradually dissipated into tears (look, it happens! Clothes make me emotional too sometimes, in a bad way . . . usually when I'm trying them on). Ladies, you know how it is. You have your heart absolutely set on a beautiful outfit and then someone spills wine on it immediately or your dog chews off part of a sleeve. This is kind of like that . . . you get what I'm saying?
We returned to C. Jane the next day and my friend asked if she could return the dress as she no longer had foreseeable use for the dress. She explained the whole scenario while the poor salesgirl stared as us blankly. Then salesgirl mechanically regurgitated the stores "no return, only exchanges" policy. My friend firmly, but politely informed the girl that because of another salesgirl's oversight the day before, she wasn't able to wear the dress as intended (instead she wore her fall back dress and was depressed about it the whole time, believe me) so there was no longer a use for the dress. Poor salesgirl tried to call the manager, who didn't respond so we volunteered to leave for lunch and return to resolve this situation later.
We returned later and salesgirl informed us that because the item was on sale, her manager had informed her that not even an exchange was possible (not that an exchange would've been all that great as we were from out of town). But what she could do for us was remove the sensor? Oh sweet baby Jesus, you think??? As my friend had paid for the fawkin' thing 24 hours ago. My friend sighed, weary with exasperation, and acquiesced at this point (as she had no other choice!) and did tell the salesgirl she wasn't mad at her directly and personally, but highly dissatisfied at the store's unwillingness to try to rectify their error (I mean come on, someone else would've bought the dress and you know, the sensor might actually be removed the next time???).
What displeased me about this whole episode was that the employees just seemed so timid and confused. I mean, they didn't bother much to even apologize to my distressed friend, just kind of hollowly repeated the store policy every time my friend tried to convey her frustration and disappointment. Um, hello? Not saying the customer is always right, but a "I'm sorry" wouldn't have killed ya (to the salesgirl's credit, she did finally utter a meek "I'm sorry" when she was on-so-kindly removing the sensor for us). I am totally understanding of human error (I've been there, screwing other people's stuff up!) , but i was kind of shocked that the employees weren't even feigning empathy or sympathy to my friend and kind of just adopting a, "Well blah blah blah policy says x and y, we are powerless creatures . . . " Bad form!
I was only going to give this place two stars due to our incident, but I settled on one star because a dress we saw here ON SALE for $90 (my friend tried it on and ALMOST bought it), was $60, regular price at Maya's on South Congress. Um, what?! So yeah, I would highly suggest you check out Maya as they have a waaay larger selection, some of the same things for less, and I loved their salespeople . . . (will gush more about them in a proper review).
Never ever coming back here, ever. read more