Tiles and Tribulations
I went to three Tile Shops to get all of the tiles I needed very quickly. I ended having to go to 3 stores--Manassas, Sterling, and Rockville. The Manassas store just opened and folks there were friendly, helpful and did move the tiles to my car. Even the folks in the Rockville store were nice, very helpful and offered to move the tiles to my car. These are all important points compared to the Sterling store.
The Sterling store...you should stay away from.The people who "work" there are lacking basic customer service skills.
I paid for some tiles at Manassas and had to pick them up at the Sterling store--18 pieces of 12x12 (approximately) marble. The lady Daihana who was there as less than helpful, wasn't sure what I needed to pick up, didn't smile, etc. I asked her for help to move the tiles to my car. And waited and waited and waited....she helped about 5 customers while I stood there. Granted nobody came to the front to help her--she also never called for help either. After 15 minutes and repeatedly asking her if someone could help, another employee showed up and i asked he had a cart or something so I could at least transport the tiles to my car and load it myself. He simply offered to move it for me. Daihana never raised an eyebrow, never moved, never apologized, never acknowledged me. Customer service--FAIL.
The next day I had to return to the Sterling store because some of the tiles were damaged as well as some trim pieces I picked up. I should have called first to see if they had inventory--they did not have inventory for the damaged marble pieces and the other trim pieces were all defective--pieces were all stuck together back to back. I arrived at 11:05 on Sunday and doors were locked, some guy was on the phone staring at me, i'm carrying 5 marble tile pieces, I keep trying to open the door and he finally comes and opens the door and runs back to his phone (didn't offer to help me carry the tile). Finally another guy (no name tag but wearing a wrinkled, stained white shirt and really unkempt looking) processed my return. I realized 2 days later that he took away one of my receipts that has an open item that paid for but had not picked up yet. I started to ask him about inventory for another store and he walked away. Yes, walked away from a customer asking him a question. Another sales person standing there helped me out after I said loudly, "I guess this transaction is done." This guy told me where the Rockville store was but had no pen for me to write down the address. No pen in the store? Customer service--FAIL.
The next day, we go from Virginia to Maryland to pick up the additional tiles. Our GPS could not locate the Maryland store so I called the Sterling store and a woman gave me the phone number for the store and when I asked for the address, she said she didn't have it but I could call the Maryland store. Customer service--FAIL.
Go to Manassas and see Phil or to Rockville to see Nick. Stay away from the Sterling store (interesting how most of them don't even wear their name tags). read more