I have shopped in the Oviedo Staples store for over 25 years. Service has never been their stronghold but there has also never been anything that occurred that would compel me to ask to speak with a manager and/or write a review, until today.
After today's episode, I can say that as a CPA & Controller for a multi-location, multi-billion dollar corporation, I'll be pulling our corporate Staples account, effective July 1, 2025, and here's why.
First, the man working the Amazon returns was so rude and short with me as he acted annoyed that I didn't know what he expected of me. There was no conversing. I guess he thinks I should know their process? He acted exasperated as he said he was "waiting on me." Honestly, I was waiting for a prompt from him, as I didn't understand the next steps for my Amazon returns. I stated to the man, "can't you just ask me nicely? I said I don't know what you need. He stated he couldn't help me if I didn't know what to do which is when he said he was waiting on me to show him a code. I stated, "can't you just let me know that? I'm not sure what the steps are." At that point, he told me he can't read my mind! I was flabbergasted at that comment and stated that I thought he was being extremely rude and it was really unnecessary. In my mind, I'm thinking, " What is going on here? I simply came to send back two Amazon returns but what I got out of the exchange was I was bothering this man! He gave me a print out and said here you go Karen. Boy, if this is acceptable behavior and conversing with a customer then they (Staples) have really lost their way in their business.
Of course, things continued to go downhill. I made the bigger mistake to think the manager would want to know what happened and would care how I was treated so I asked the man to please call his manager. He refused and said his manager was in a meeting.
I then went to the photocopy area and asked the woman working that area to please call her manager. She asked me why and I briefly stated I had a poor customer service experience with the man at the Amazon counter and wanted to share it with their manager. After waiting a few minutes, I asked the woman if the manager was coming and she said, "She's very busy."
I waited a few more minutes when I noticed the male clerk speaking into his microphone and smirking which led me to believe he was speaking to his manager, who still had not come out, about the incident and his rude behavior. At this point, in my wait and seeing that the manager clearly didn't think an upset customer took priority I really thought about just leaving. Why bother? After considering that option, I felt that it was still the right thing to do to report the poor customer service. So I waited a few more minutes.
When Erin, the store manager finally arrived, she seemed rushed, and not at all open to hearing my concern. She didn't greet me, just rushed behind the counter and looked at me.
I asked her if she was Erin, the manager and she quickly answered yes, how can I help you?
I then introduced myself and started to explain the experience I had with her male employee.
Erin stated she'd already made up her mind that her employee did nothing wrong and stated "several" customers already informed her that the employee did nothing wrong.
I thought that was an interesting take on what happened because there was one woman who walked up to check out after I was finished up at the Amazon counter and then that woman immediately left the store. I seriously doubt anyone who heard the rudeness from the Staples employee would have made it a point to cover for him and there were no other customers in that part of the store. So who were the "several customers?"
That's when I realized how sad this entire episode really was. The employee gets away with arrogant, rude behavior and the inept manager is incapable of dealing with a troubled employee who's going to continue to cause the store issues.
Erin is in over her head, she's probably hard up for people who are willing to show up for work and because of this she will tolerate unacceptable behavior. She's clearly not capable of handling a customer complaint and her male employee knew this and knew he would get away with his rude behavior.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt but I was literally dumbfounded how poorly the man and the manager are at treating people decently. So sad!
What's even more sad is the fact that this type of poor customer service is defined and condoned from the top-down. And that is why I must that pull my corporate account from Staples. We have 35 Florida locations who will utilize Amazon for our weekly orders. I won't give the value in lost revenue that Staples will experience from this one incident but suffice it to say that it's a very large number. read more