"THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS WRONG"
My mom was going through a very stressful period in her life so I thought it would be nice to surprise her with a gift card for a massage, just because.
I searched Google for a massage place. I settled on The Spa Haus in Amityville, based on Google's rating and reviews. I went to the gift cards section of their website which directed me to a third party site which handles the electronic transactions for The Spa Haus. I filled out the forms and chose a $200 electronic gc. I got a confirmation on the site and received an email receipt.
I eagerly awaited a call from my mom thanking me for the surprise gift. A day went by, and nothing. I decided to contact her and ask her if she received an email from me. Nope. She asked what she was supposed to look for and I told her.
No more surprise.
She found an email from The Spa Haus. There was no mention of a gift card, me or the dollar amount. It was a generic email saying that she can call for an appointment. It looked like spam.
I called The Spa Haus and a woman answered. I wish I had asked for her name, but the owner is well aware of who she is. I explained the error to her and expressed my disappointment. She immediately got defensive saying, "That couldn't have happened"..."I see it fine on my end"..."Did your mom scroll the entire email?"..."Did you submit it correctly?". She was curt and she repeatedly interrupted me. At no point did she apologize, take responsibility or act the least bit sympathetic. I became increasingly less patient with this woman. The tense conversation escalated. After I called her out on her terrible customer service, she said in an obvious condescending tone, "I'M VERY SORRY." I eventually hung up the phone.
I called right back and asked for an immediate refund and she said she would talk to the owner and get back to me. No call back.
The next morning I called The Spa Haus multiple times with no answer. I left a message.
I tried calling The Spa Haus later in the day and this time someone answered. It was the owner. When I introduced myself, she said that she was just about to call me. I began to explain the situation and she immediately treated me with the same lack of respect as her employee did a day prior. She was defensive. She cut me off. She told me there are no refunds, before I could even finish. I expressed how her employee was unapologetic and the owner snapped at me saying that she reviewed the cameras and the employee said "I'm very sorry." I told her that was said condescendingly, only after I called her out on being unapologetic. It was another escalating conversation with poor customer service. I then told her, which is true, that I'm not that upset about the gift card, because it's the internet and errors happen. I told her that I was really upset because the employee treated me like garbage. I guess it finally clicked because the owner did a 180 and told me that she would refund my money, and she did. She half-apologized and said that the employee "probably had a bad day." Nothing she said sounded sincere. I was just glad to get my refund and be done with this nightmare.
The employee on the original phone call should have said something like, "I'm very sorry that happened to you. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make it right. Can you please share with me exactly what happened so we can correct this and make sure this doesn't happen again. Thanks for choosing us." Instead I was made to feel like an idiot and a bother.
The owner should have known better. Perhaps business is so good that she doesn't care if she loses a customer every now and then. The funny thing is, I would have kept the gift card had someone at this business actually been kind to me.
This was supposed to be a nice surprise for my mom, something to relieve her stress. Instead, another business will get my $200 and a possible long-term customer, and I have wasted hours of my life dealing with yet another bad business with no clue what customer service actually means. read more