I had a great experience with Steve/Steven the first time I brought a necklace in a while ago to get repaired. He was patient and friendly and helped me fix my necklace on site and didn't charge me much. But this second/most recent experience has soured me on this place.
When another/different necklace broke, I immediately knew I wanted to bring it back to Lireille. This time was totally different. I brought in my necklace and Steve again helped me. He said it had to be soldered somewhere in SF, but he would bring it in to the city for me. I told him I was leaving on a trip in a few days and he said he'd have the necklace back before then "for sure" and would "call me when it was ready". The day before my trip, when he said that it would be ready, I still hadn't received a call, so I called the store. I spoke to Yan and she was very apologetic and tried to get a hold of Steve for me, but couldn't. She apologized on behalf of Steve. I ended up going on my trip without my necklace. I came back and got the necklace and Steve was not there, but Yan was there. She was helpful and was very nice. The necklace was "fixed" in that the part that needed to be soldered was soldered, but the jump ring on the other side, the non-damaged side, was now a copper color. This is a silver necklace and I know the jump ring was definitely not copper-colored when I dropped off the necklace. Yan tried to get a hold of Steve to figure out if he changed the ring or something, but couldn't get a hold of him. He called me last night and left a voicemail message and said that the jump ring is very inexpensive, etc. etc. but didn't actually explain why the jump ring was copper now. And never apologized for not getting my necklace back to me in time in the first place. And never apologized or acknowledged that he never called me to tell me that the necklace would not be back in time for my trip, like he had promised. I called his cell back this morning and got a voicemail, so I called the store. I spoke to Yan and she said Steve was out but would be back and would call me back in about an hour. I'm still waiting for a call, hours later. And I highly doubt I'll ever actually get a call back from him.
I'm sad that this 2nd experience was so bad. I thought I had found a local store that I could support long-term, and thought I had found a place to take all of my jewelry for repairs if necessary. But this recent experience has definitely turned me off from Lireille and I will not be returning.
Yan is really great. It's too bad I have to take away so many stars for the store because Steve was horrible to work with this time around. Steve's customer service skills leave a lot to be desired. And I guess I'll never know why my necklace now has a copper jump ring on it. It makes my otherwise nice silver necklace look totally chintzy and cheap.
It would've been very simple for Steve to a) get my necklace back to me when he said he would, or b) call me to tell me it would take longer. And on top of that, if he damaged the jump ring and changed it out for me, or if the soldering people damaged it and had to change it out, or damaged it and made the ring turn copper, I would've understood. I don't think it's too much to ask that you get your stuff back when promised, or at least updates about the status, and that if your property is changed or damaged, you at least get an explanation of why. read more