Im not an employee or paid off customer, I am however a General Manager with over 20 years experience in customer service, so my review is true honest and 100% accurate. Night before a huge event, and unable to find any stores still open, I went onto the Party CIty website searching for champagne flutes, among other things. Found a P.C store near me that had the exact quantity I wanted, so I purchased them, with other items. About an hour later I get a confirmation stating that all but 5 of the champagne flutes I ordered were available, so my order was readjusted to have 5 less than I originally ordered. Problem 1, if your website says you have 10 and lets you check out and purchase 10, then how is it that an hour later you no longer have 10 but only 5? how did you sell 5 packs when it is after hours and all stores are closed?
Confused, i went back online, now searching P.C stores for the remaining 5 flutes. When what to my wondering eyes should appear? But the store I just bought from said "we have 5 right here!"
Confused even more, cause the same store told me they didn't have 5 of the 15 packs I wanted and had to lower the amount I wanted, from 15 packs to 10 packs. Now they are saying that they have 5 more left to sell, so I created another guest account and purchased those 5 packs. checked out, got my confirmation and relaxed cause I got everything i needed. WRONG!!
First online order notified that my order was ready for pickup. Still ha the second order so i waited for that confirmation, so I could pick up everything at once. 2 hours later and still no confirmation for 1 order of 5 packs of flutes, I finally called the store (by now they were open for business) to inquire on the second online order. A girl came on and said my order was ready, she actually said "ya there's a bag here with flutes i'm guessing that are yours so if you wanna come get them", that when i said I was going to pick them up and that's when I headed out to get everything
I get there, instantly I see 4 employees, one at a register chewing gum or eating something, another leaned up by a post obviously not doing anything and not even trying to look like she is. A third kinda hiding behind the fourth, doing a much better job at looking busy than the second girl. Of all 4 employees, only the fourth employee was working, blowing up and tying balloons and sad to say, this was the manager. RED FLAGS RED FLAGS RED FLAGS!!
As a Manager over Managers, I always stress to them that when they become managers, they should never try to do everything themselves. In fact, i don't want to ever see them doing a job that the regular employee could be doing. DELIGATE duties and have employees staying busy during slow periods. This would free up the manager so she could do other things, like checking inventory levels and making sure online orders were being fulfilled HINT HINT. This manager was doing the exact opposite and the amount of respect the three employees had for their manager showed by their lack of 'looking busy'.
I walked up to the register which was maybe 15 feet away from the 3-pack that were "filling" balloons, and said I was there to pick up an online order. The girl walked away and went next to the 3-pack, by what appeared to be a cove that was originally designated for online orders, but now just looked like a hot mess. (Hint, maybe one of the 3-packs could have been organizing the hot mess, manager could have seen it and delegated it if she wasn't busy filling up balloons so that her employees could stand around). Once at the Hot Mess, the girl yelled to me, "what was the name?', to which I reluctantly yelled back my name, then apologized to another customer that had walked up to check out behind me. Here I was, apologizing and feeling embarrassed for the lack of customer service skills and even basic common decency skills, these workers have, at a place I don't even work at!
The girl apparently couldn't find my first order, the big order, so she stumbled over to the one employee, oops sorry i meant to write Manager, that was blowing up and tying balloons, and told her that she couldn't find my order. The manager then asked her if she looked at the order that was at her register, in a shopping cart. The girl then walked back to me, to a shopping cart that she had to move aside when she left to go find my order, asked my for my name again, and said 'oh, its right here". (personal note, if it was my kid I would have pulled a Cher in Moonstruck, slapped her and said 'snap out of it'). The manager then yells to the girl, knowing I'm standing right there and can hear every word being yelled. The manager says, "are they also picking up the order for 5 flutes", and yes, the girl then repeats what the manager yelled, then yells back my response, (no seriously, I'm not making this shit up, I am laughing now as I recall it, but at the moment i was more embarrassed and wondering 'am i being punked?)
Aw outta space, see review 2 read more