Friday, May 29, 2015

"They Don't Have Great Attention to Detail", or: How Sephora Failed Me Thrice

Remember how I wanted the crazy Dior tie-dye blush?
this guy!
Ebates* was having 16% back at Sephora for their anniversary (though it seems I somehow restarted my Ebates-Sephora session, as I never got the cash back notification; fortunately, as you'll soon see, it's a moot point), so I pulled the trigger and ordered it. A few days later, I gleefully opened it, only to discover they'd sent the wrong shade.
*affiliate link
poached from my Instagram; I don't know why sometimes
my phone decides photos should be the wrong direction.
So I called and got it resent and returned the original. The second one came several days later (damn you, holiday weekend), and guess what?
This time it decided to orient itself correctly, at least!
It was the wrong shade! I received it after a few very rough days, and it was just about enough to break me entirely. I called again, and the customer service rep said he made a note to be extra careful about sending the right color and reminded me to be sure to send back the wrong one so I wouldn't be charged twice (he also called me "hon", which annoyed me––I'm calling with an actual problem, dick!). He finished with, "Let's hope third time's the charm!" (This is what I might retroactively call foreshadowing.) I figured I would wait until I got the replacement so that I could keep the packing tissue from the original to use in a package I had to send, and because seriously, you screwed up twice, I'm in no hurry to get your package back to you. At this point, some friends (some of you!) said they should give me both shades for free. Whatever, I thought. They're a big company, their customer service isn't great, it's not worth the hassle.

Then the third one came. Guess what?
I now have 10 photos of 3 unique wrong Dior blushes taking up
space on my phone. #thanksobama
Yep, it was the SAME WRONG SHADE. At this point, of course, it crossed the line into farce, so all I could do was cackle. Hysterically, of course, because this was supposed to be a nice pretty (very, very expensive) present to myself, and it somehow became a tragedy in three parts. (My brother's response is the quote from the title; he is a master of understatement.)

I tweeted Sephora and tagged them on Insta, and got a response from their Twitter but nothing has been resolved. I may need to call again, but y'all, I fucking hate phones. Just, so much. I've already had to deal with them twice, and on top of all the upheavals in my personal/professional life (I'll probably do a full post on it, but the short version: looks like I'll have to take medical leave from grad school, because #mylifeisawesome #ohwaitthatmightnotbetherightword), I think if I call them now, I'll end up sobbing on the phone to some poor person with no power.

So now I've got two Sephora packages on my kitchen table, both containing the same wrong shade. In an ideal world, they'd let me keep one of them and send me the actual correct shade (though at this point, I'm not sure they're even capable of it) free of charge. Barring that, though, I'm going to return them all and wash my hands of it. And of Sephora, as much as possible. (Customer service, you're doing it wrong.) I guess Dior and I just aren't meant to happen, sigh.

ETA: They finally got back to me! "We are truly sorry for all the inconvenience [...] In reviewing the item, an error with the skus caused a mix up with the shades. We have placed the sku on hold to fix the issue. In the meantime, we have processed a refund [...] Please expect to see the refund posted to your account within the next 5-7 business days. And we have added an extra 500 points to your Beauty Bank. Please use the free merchandise label to send the incorrect products back to us at your convenience. Thank you again for your patience throughout this process." In other words: "We're terrible at our jobs, but here, have a bunch of points you can use when you surely shop with us in the future! PS Send our stuff back thanks." Hello, Nordstrom, let's be friends.

What's your worst customer service story? How do you feel about talking to people on the phone?
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