Target: For Want Of A Shoe, A Customer Service War Was Lost
Target sold Shawn a defective shoe, and then gave him defective customer service when he tried to get exchange it for a functional shoe. Here is his amusing story, which he was kind enough to submit already written in the third person.
Shawn H., of Charlotte, NC purchases a pair of shoes from his local Target store. Having worn the shoes for only two days, the stitching in the RIGHT shoe becomes defective and begins to unravel. Mr. Harris does what any self sufficient individual would do and pulls the leather parts together with a tie from a loaf of bread to hold the shoe together until he can return the defective shoe(s).
Upon arriving at the original store where the purchase was made, Mr. Harris wearing the funny looking shoe(s), finds out that the store did not a replacement pair of shoes in his size. He inquires as to what other Target stores in the area might have his size in stock. A pair is located by looking at the inventories of the local stores and off he goes approximately 15 miles to exchange the shoe(s).
Upon arrival at the second Target store, Mr. Harris can only locate one of the shoes (the other shoe apparently has been stolen) that would make up the pair. Surprisingly enough, it is the RIGHT shoe…..the same shoe that is needed to be replaced. Mr. Harris asks a store associate about getting approval to simply exchange shoe for shoe and he will continue on with his daily routines. This apparently is "not permitted" because Target would not get credit for the defective shoe(s) unless they received a complete pair in return. Mr. Harris asks to see the store manager to pursue the matter further. The manager repeats the story about Target not getting its credit, regardless of the customer's happiness. Mr. Harris then is asked to wait while the matter is elevated to the corporate level. Shockingly, the same story is repeated…..Target will not get its credit if a complete pair of shoes is not returned in exchange for the one and only shoe that is needed. (How does Target expect to sell one shoe is now quickly becoming the question.)
The store manager, admittedly joking, remarks that everyone else probably would of walked back to the shoe department, slipped of the defective shoe, (the one being held together with a tie from a loaf of bread) and put on a new replacement and walked out the store. Mr. Harris, disagreeing with that solution, is then told he is welcomed to drive to any of the other Target stores in the local area to seek a replacement pair of shoes. For his trouble, Mr. Harris is given a $3.00 gift certificate, just about what it cost him in gas to drive the store in the first place.
So the question is………What would you do, if you were in his ……ahem…shoe(s)?
Cool, Target, you'll get your shoe credit and lose a customer, who may have, perhaps, purchased multiple shoes throughout his life at your store.
(Photo: Scurzuzu)
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Comments:
So the store manager basically authorized him to steal from the store...
Hmmm, spilled acid on my new left sneaker, no problem, I'll just go back to Target and replace it from the display rack...
Umm...I would return the defective pair of shoes and be done with it. Then, as the above poster said, buy elsewhere.
Of course, the OP would have done well by not wearing the pair of shoes he wanted to return. That would have given him a little more flexibility...
When can we start asking "Who buys crappy shoes from Target, anyway?" ?? (heh heh)
I love the fact that the manager said, in so many words, he should have just stolen the good shoe and been done with it.
You heard it here first folks: Target managers don't care if you steal as long as you leave something of equal comparison in its place.
Sounds like that $3 out of court settlement just voided his right to refund or replacement of defective shoe.
Here's how I would have handled it:
Me: My shoe seems to have come unraveled. Can I have a new pair?
Target: Sorry, we only have the one shoe, the other one must have gotten stolen.
Me: Ok, great, that's the one I need anyway, and it's even in my size! Why don't you just trade me shoes?
Target: Can't do that, because we won't get credit for sending back just one shoe.
Me: Ok, well, that's what you've got now. One shoe. Fixing my problem won't change yours. You can't sell just one shoe, and you can't return just one shoe, whether it's defective or whole. You might as well just make me happy, since you're going to have to eat that shoe anyway.
Target: Can't do that...
Me: Ok look. It comes down to this. I'm a customer, and I'm not happy. You as a manager can either choose to provide me with good customer service, by fixing my problem, which will not impact your store at all, OR, you can continue to try to make me upset, in which case I will return both shoes and then you'll have to send the defective pair I'm returning back, impacting your business, AND you'll still be left with one stray shoe. On top of that you will have lost a customer and incurred a great deal of negative word-of-mouth advertising. In the current economy, where Wal-Mart is eating your lunch, I don't think negative advertising of any kind is the kind of thing you want to generate, especially since you have the chance, right here, right now to turn the situation into a pleasant one. The choice is yours.
What do you really want the store to do ? The return policy for the manufacturer is that Target will get a refund only if they have both shoes. Now that the store only has 1 shoe, it is likely that they can write that off as a loss due to theft.
If this is the case, then I cannot fathom why the store manager simply didn't just exchange the 1 shoe anywas since it is going to be a write-off.
*shrug*
It is rather funny that they wouldn't exchange the shoe, even though they wouldn't get credit for the one shoe anyway. Did anyone think that maybe the missing shoe from the box was the display shoe? I hope they checked that.
This is one of those cases where I would just return my newly defective shoes and tell Target to suck it.
I've always liked Target, even after I got fired for my own childhood stupidity in college, but that is exactly how a business loses customers.
Seriously, at this point the store in question is already going to have shrink (loss of product) with the one missing shoe. The least they could have done is help the guy out.
It also worries me, because it could easily be any of the locations I shop at in Charlotte.
Every time I try to read this page NORTON comes up and says this is a suspicious page and blocks it. I am writing this quickly before i am blocked again. Strange.
Yea, honestly, just steal the shoe, and leave your defective one. Rebel justice is still justice.
They need a more creative customer desk at his Target.
Recently we bought several food items from Target and got an error when paying with our atm card, so we then wrote a check -- sure enough, the next day we see that they both got posted.
We took the receipt and a print out of our bank statement to the customer service desk and they thought about it for a bit and then just did a "return" for every item on the receipt and handed us the cash.
Later I stopped by the facilities, so in a way, they did get the merchandise returned. :)
About $3 of gas for 15 miles to the new store? what kind of car is Shawn Harris, of Charlotte, NC driving?
@Thaddeus: Considering that Target has one of the nations largest private criminal loss prevention/forensic labs in the country, maybe the manager knew the guy wouldn't get far?
The screwed up thing is, Target won't be getting their "shoe credit" because they still only have one.
@DeeJayQueue: Excellent response.
However it lacks the viceral "F*ck you" of just whipping out the ol' wang and pissing on the managers shoes.
@Gtmac:
One that gets...um...15 miles to a gallon?
Factor in the 'about' and he might be driving a car that gets 20 miles to the gallon?
Or, if we're talking round trip, a car that gets 30 miles to the gallon?
Nothing to see here.
I'd have probably walked out barefoot.
Shawn: Try buying your shoes from zappos. Great customer service, and you won't use up any gas.
@edwardso: I know, mostly because the shoes on Zappos are also brand name shoes. However, if you buy your shoes from zappos and one decides to die on you, I'm pretty sure they'd give you TWO new shoes, instead of giving you $3, a headache and telling you "we can't help you".
I'd just return the pair for a refund under the basis that they are defective. Target has let me return damaged goods before - for instance, a pair of flip flops that fell apart after 2 wears.
@Gtmac: 15 to, 15 back, so 30 miles, give or take which means, with current gas prices, what, about 20 miles per gallon? If this is city driving, there are quite a few cars that get 30+ highway and around 20 mpg city.
If I were the OP I wouldn't have worn the defective shoe to Target. I mean, what if they didn't have stock?
I'm not sure why he didn't just bring the shoes with him...
Unless he needed the shoes absolutely NOW, he could have called around first, or asked when they think they might get them in stock. I can see if they're either the OP's only shoes (what did he wear into the store to purchase them?) or if they're shoes he works to work and they're the only kind he has...
The Target manager was endlessly and needlessly frustrating in this case. But I get what they mean...and it seems like such a small thing, but it's better for everyone if the OP were to return the shoes entirely because one was defective and to get another pair...cause if he swaps out one defective (and worn) shoe for another, that prevents someone else from being able to buy a pair of shoes. Suddenly the store has an extra shoe because someone decided they wanted to just steal a replacement. The OP should've just returned them as a pair to get a new pair. It's even that way, and helps out other people.
It should be obvious that if one shoe is defective, there is a strong chance the replacement would be defective. This may also explain why there was a shoe missing from the pair at the second store. Return the shoes and "walk" away. I am sure Walmart or Payless or Stein Mart or Kohl's will welcome the business.
By the way, proof read the article. There are at least 3 obvious mistakes that should have never made it to print. (Quality of service here?)
@krispykrink: because they'd chase the guy down over a shoe who's partner the store already let get away
@RStui: I think probably he did. It just doesn't override the manager's "The store won't get credit for a single returned shoe" programming.
Should have he looked for the one legged man wearing the left shoe to turn him in for theft?
@pecan 3.14159265: That's what the OP seemed to be trying to do, though. The first store didn't have a replacement pair. The second store was supposed to have them in stock--that had been verified before he went there, and that's why he made the trip. Since it turned out they didn't have a replacement pair but only a replacement single, he suggested that as a solution instead. I don't see that it makes much difference whether he brought or wore the shoes, since he's not looking for a credit, he's looking for a replacement.
I feel like they might have given him better service if he had not worn the shoes he wanted to return into the store. This is just common sense here. No manager is going to care about making a good impresion on "some guy wearing the shoes he wanted to return".
However, by the manager's attitude I would have most likely returned the shoes and walked to my car barefoot.
@savdavid: Try blocking the ads with AdBlocker Pro. It fixed the problem I was having with the reply button. I have no idea why ads would screw up my ability to reply but they did.
Which is a shame because the Consumer Reports ads were actually relevant to my interests.
@pecan 3.14159265: I think you missed a bit. He wanted a new pair of shoes, but when he got to Target, the only new pair in his size was missing one shoe. That's why he wanted to only trade in one bad shoe for one good shoe - because there only WAS one good shoe. The store was already in the position of having an unsellable extra shoe, which was the shoe the OP wanted.
The store, which will have to write the pair off as theft anyway, wouldn't agree to it because they couldn't return a single defective shoe for credit. Basically, either way the store was out a pair of shoes, so they wouldn't have lost anything if they'd helped the OP and let him have the single new, matchless shoe.
@DeeJayQueue: Bravo. I especially liked your inclusion of 'The choice is yours' at the end; it puts the onus of responsibility square on the manager's shoulders where it belongs. No pussyfooting around there.
Why not exchange them for a different pair of shoes or a refund? Why do people who post these stories always seem to take the most difficult route possible. And really, who fixes their shoe with a bread tie and expects anyone to take it back. Good grief.
@ElizabethD: Well, a lot of people, because they cannot afford the highly-priced shoes at other stores.
Who wears in the product they are trying to return anyways? Especially something like a shoe? Come in with a box, return it and be done with it.
A long time ago I worked as the chargeback person at a Target. At first any returned shoes got thrown into the trash compactor, then they got a giant bin on wheels that all shoes were tossed into and allegedly sold to some other company.
It's not like they're going to miss 1 shoe in an avalanche of returned shoes.
On the otherhand, if the 3 dollars was for 1/2 of the shoe purchase price, then WTF do you expect from a 6 dollar pair of shoes?
"Target has one of the nations largest private criminal loss prevention/forensic labs in the country"
cite your source?
(yay for reply!)
He should have just switched the shoes right in front of the manager, who GAVE HIM THE IDEA to do so. Then walked quickly out to his car.
Or returned both shoes and told them to go fork themselves.
@Oranges w/ Cheese: They call those $3 deals "apology coupons," or at least they did when I worked there. I most often saw them used as a way to satisfy unreasonable customers who won't let an issue drop.
I'd be a little insulted if I were this guy.
@ElizabethD: I've had similar experiences with shoes from Target falling apart, and I'm wondering which brand he bought.
Was it Mossimo? I think that's a Target exclusive brand. I bought a pair of those because they were inexpensive and looked alright, but within two weeks the leather was starting to tear and the right sole had literally broken into three pieces.
I guess you get what you pay for.
@krispykrink: Nope, those are just pre-printed things that they keep a stack of at the Customer Service desk. They call 'em "apology coupons" and use them to shoo away anyone who complains for too long.
@britne: Main source is personal experience. Several police dept. actually contract their private forensic labs form time to time. Their head guy is former FBI along with several other's they employ. You can google it for more details.
Oh god, that picture is giving me PTSD flashbacks of working the shoe department at Target. Even now as a customer, if I'm there and hear the distinctive "thwack" of somebody dropping a pair of flip-flops on the floor to try them out (and they never make it back on the shelf...ever...), I get a twitch in my left eye.
I, personally, would have refused the ridiculous pay off of $3 and told them I'm never shopping in their store again. Then I would've bought from Zappos.