Online vs. store

I went to Sherman this afternoon. One thing I needed was more of the Clinique powder I use.

So, I tried going to the Belk - one of two stores I know of that sells Clinique. (The other is the Dillards' at the dying mall, and there's nothing else there I want, so I prefer not to go there).

Anyway, I don't know if it was a bad day at Belk or if they've recently reduced their staff, but the four different make up counters they have (Lancome, Clinique, L'Oreal, and there's another I forget) had two workers - two women at L'Oreal.

So I waited. And I waited. And I walked around the counter multiple times. I waited about seven minutes, I would guess. Finally, I asked one of the women at the L'Oreal counter if there was someone available to help me.

"We're both with customers! Just wait, we'll get to you eventually." Said a little snappishly. (And I don't know how busy one of the ladies was, I thought she was finishing up with her person.) And I get that it was a Friday and close to the end of the day, but I was tired too and I HAD been waiting quite a while. And there was no sign or anything on the Clinique counter explaining where to go for assistance or that someone would be with you shortly or not even a bell to ring for assistance.

So I waited a another couple minutes. Then I thought, "You know, I used the Clinique website before. They were pretty easy to navigate and my stuff came fast." And I decided to cut my losses, leave, finish my shopping, and order the stuff later online. (And I just did. And it was easy to navigate the site and they even gave me a free sample of lipstick, plus there's free shipping this week).

How sad is it that you get better "customer service" from a self-serve website than from a couple store employees? And Belk, if you fired most of your cosmetics staff, shame on you. You lost a sale, in fact, you've lost future sales - I'll just order my stuff from the website in the future.

But it frustrates me. I went to the barbecue place in town and got very friendly and nice service. Got good service at the JoAnn's. Got good service, if rushed, at the Kroger. I get that working retail stinks sometimes, but to drive away a customer because you don't seem to care about helping them, that's not good. (And yeah, it was probably that my hair was a bit of a mess and I was in khakis and a t-shirt and sometimes people assume I'm a lot younger than I am from a cursory glance, and therefore that I wasn't going to spend much money, but still.)