My fiance and I came to Distinctive Diamond's Best Sale of the Year on Sunday of the weekend long event to look for engagement rings. We got there around noon and the crowd was already amassed complete with guards lining the entrance and interior. Once we entered the showroom, it was sensory overload as the room was packed. We checked in and were told to wait for a sales person to help us. We were offered an alcoholic beverage and both my fiance and I politely declined but appreciated the gesture. While we waited to be greeted by our assigned sales person, we began to look around and chatted with some of the designer's representatives that were on hand for the sale. While talking with the designer representative we were offered again, but the same employee, an alcoholic beverage. Again we declined.
I won't mention our sales person's name but the gentleman we worked left a poor taste in our mouth. Once he introduced himself to us, he seemed almost offend that we began looking and talking to other folks. I had been in mid question with one of the designers representatives and he kept trying to pull us away, which I found odd. We ended up moving with our sales rep. to the back end of the showroom. On our way to the area, we were offered wine / beer by the same female employee. That was three times in less than 15 minutes. In the 55 minute we were at DD, we were offered beer and wine a total of 7 times all by the same female employee. While the gesture was appreciated, by the third time this not only became annoying, it crossed the line to highly offensive. I should not have to tell someone 'NO thank you' to an alcoholic beverage 7 separate times at noon on a Sunday. I understand they were very busy and she was just doing her job, but this culture of pushing alcohol on customers seemed very aggressive and inappropriate to me.
While that situation was difficult, it wasn't enough to make us leave, yet. When we started working with our sales representative we immediately informed him that we were on a set budget for our ring and that we were not looking for a wedding band, just an engagement ring, and our budget was firm. We felt that this was understood since we were upfront about it, so we didn't feel the need to ask about pricing for each piece he presented to us. Silly us! He also kept walking off and disappearing so we found ourselves asking questions of the designers and getting suggestions and support from them. When he did come by to check on us or hand us another setting (way out of our budget), he consistently seemed inpatient with me and kept pushing for me to settle on a setting so we could talk diamonds.
At this point I was so overwhelmed and lost about the entire process, I started to understand why so many people needed multiple drinks to get through this!! I decided to narrow down the setting I wanted by looking at pricing, that was the reason my fiance and I came together so we could make a decision together and find something in our budget. Our sales person still wasn't present so we started asking the designer about setting prices. The designer's representative we had been talking to started to give us prices but he quickly stopped once he saw the baffled and puzzled look on our faces when the prices he shared were well over our budget. He quickly suggested that he track down our sales representative from DD and encouraged us to talk prices with him. Once he got our sales rep back to where we were, the designer's rep. mentioned to the sales representative that we had a budget. The Sales rep. confidently responded that he was well aware, almost offended that a designer's rep. had told him this. The confused designer's rep. politely mentioned that all the settings that we had selected from his specific designer were well out of our price range already, without the diamond. The Sales rep seemed to just brush this off. When we questioned him on this and mentioned that we were concerned and that our budget was firm for both setting AND the diamond, the most unprofessional and unheard of suggestion came out of his bag of sales tricks. He suggested that we could afford just the setting now with our budget and that we could just get a CZ for now for the ring. We could come back and purchase a diamond later, essentially doubling our budget. A jewelry store that suggested we buy a CZ for our engagement ring? Now I have heard it all. I was so baffled by this suggestion and the complete lack of disrespect for our budget. My fiance and I shared disapproving glances and at this point, it was time to leave.
While they do have an excellent selection and quality diamonds, the sales approach we experience wasn't for us. Some people appreciate wine and creative solutions to their budgeting challenges, we aren't those people. I also feel we would have had a completely different experience had it been any day other than the Best Sale event. read more