One bad employee really can ruin the entire shopping experience in a store, and that was certainly my experience at this L'occitane location. I love L'occitane products and shop at the Century City and Beverly Center location often but on Sunday I happened to be in the Sherman Oaks area.
This one woman with light blonde hair who is very nice with good service starts helping me and I am asking her about some promotions for free gift with purchases that I saw online that also said it was available in store and she is telling me about them and this Very heavyset woman with a very bad attitude who is presumably the manager of this location swings open the door of her office behind the register and barks at me that I cannot have the promotion without presenting the online print out or mailer and then starts questioning if I even get the mailer because if not I am not entitled to the promotion. I tell her yes I get the mailer and also have the various promotions listed on my phone directly from email/website with the discount code for free gift with purchase clearly listed. She starts arguing with me and I say I am just going to look around, thanks. I look around more and the nicer sales person tried to show me another promotion for a small sample of a serum if you purchase a face cream to which I was interested in, and I say ok, and start choosing the cream I want, and ask her to help me choose between a couple different types, then the heavyset woman comes over and says that I cannot have this deluxe sample with purchase of a face cream if I do the other promotion, and I tell her I am willing to do it on a separate transaction, and she tells me no, because then I would be getting 2 promotions and that she would get flagged from corporate because they are not allowed to do that. I then ask her about another promotion I saw online for a small kit that you get for free if you spend over a certain amount, I think it was 80 dollars, and she says no that is only available online even though I clearly see them sitting in the store. I tell her that I am used to L'occitane always honoring current promotions and that usually the people are happy to share new samples and products with people who are currently spending a bunch of money in the store and she says that I should come back over Christmas or Thanksgiving if I want special promotions because during the rest of the year they really don't do many promotions which I know is not true. At that point I felt like she was really trying to push me out of the store and I was feeling very uncomfortable so I told her I would buy items from another store where they are nicer and that she has poor customer service. Has anyone else encountered this heavyset manager with dirty blonde/light brown hair and a bad attitude making them feel uncomfortable and basically treating them like a criminal for asking to take part in the promotions? read more