I just left the Niketown Boston store after the WORST possible customer experience. I went into the Boston store looking for 2 pairs of Nike SB sneakers. I was given a one-time use discount card for 40% off my order that I intended to use.
After standing with the two pairs of sneakers in my hands for a few minutes, an employee finally came up to me. I asked for both pairs of sneakers in a 9.5, which they said were out of stock. I asked if they could order them for me or locate them at another store and if I could still use my discount card since they were out of stock in what I was looking for. He responded yes on both accounts and took me down to the cash wrap. He started to work with another employee who also told me I could use the discount card with a phone order.
They wrote down multiple phone numbers for me to start looking for the stores (which is poor customer service that they didn't call for me). I sat in the store for about an hour before finally locating 1 of the 2 pairs of sneakers I was looking for in Georgetown. I gave the employee on the phone all my information and then was told he would need to talk to an employee about using the discount. I asked an employee to speak with him and after explaining the situation, he brought me over to the store manager, who, in my opinion, was the worst representation of the company they could possibly hire.
He explained to me that the discount was solely a promotion to bring business into their own store, not so I could spend my money elsewhere. He explained that it was a gift from him to me and I shouldn't be complaining about it. He obviously fails to see the big picture in that it would have been a win for the company as a whole to make the sale, and that either way, since they were out of stock, his store was not getting my money.
So after ultimately hanging up with Georgetown and walking out of the store after a 2 hour ordeal, with no shoes, I called customer service. I was on the phone with customer service for 33 minutes, mostly on hold (she was "checking her resources"), I was told nothing could be done because "they were just a call center, nothing more, all they do is take calls". So, my ultimate questions for Nike are:
1) Why do you empower your store managers to make potentially very poor decisions in customer service levels but fail to empower your customer service call center employees to fix the problems caused by others? The store manager was allowed to create a promotion that was not known company wide, allowing him to make decisions on how it was used and honored. He chose to not honor it, very poor customer service. When customers experience issues like these, they almost always contact customer service either via phone or email, something viewed as a higher level than the store, to solve their problems. Why don't you empower your call center employees to actually solve problems and turn the situation around? They are typically the last hope at turning a frustrated customer into a happy and loyal one. I work for a startup and I can promise you that our customer service levels, even with only 10 employees and 1 sole customer service rep, are much, much higher than this.
2) Do you really only view your customers as a wallet? The store manager failed to see that in this situation, he could have allowed the discount to be used since his store was out of stock to create a returning customer so I would spend my money there when they did have what I was looking for OR they could have a customer leave frustrated and never wanting to spend another dime at his store. He chose to tell me that the promotion was created with the sole intent of making money. Not that it was a way to create relationships with customers, to create brand loyalty, or to build a community in the city of Boston, all much better reasons behind having promotions.
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3) What are you going to do to make the situation right? read more
