Last week, reader Brianna contacted Consumerist about her issues with the defective packaging of a Benefit Cosmetics products, as well as the treatment she received from their e-mail customer service rep. Benefit saw our post, and their PR department responded to Brianna’s story.

Here’s what they had to say:

Hello Briana and Consumerist readers,

I work at Benefit Cosmetics and came across this story. We are so sorry for the bad experience you had with Benetint and with our customer service team. Our customers and fans are incredibly important to us and we do stand behind each of our products. If a customer has any problems with a product, we recommend that the customer return the product to the location from which it was purchased (in this case, Sephora) for a replacement or refund at the store. Each store has its own policies. Sometimes, as in Briana’s case, the return at the store isn’t possible – and we still want to take care of those customers!

Our customer service team did not respond to Briana according to our standard customer service practices, and we’ll be addressing that.

As some Consumerist users have noted, “Laughter is the best cosmetic, so grin and wear it” is in fact our company tagline, but it should have been included in the signature file for the email or not at all, as it certainly wasn’t intended to dismiss Briana’s problems. Please know that we will research each of the issues this problem has surfaced, with the product and with customer service, and work to get each issue fixed.

Briana, as an apology and in appreciation for your bringing the problem to our attention, we would be happy to send you a credit and/or a replacement Benetint, along with a few of our favorite Benefit products – maybe you’d be willing to give Benefit a second try, on us?

Please feel free to contact us at customerservice@benefitcosmetics.com with your contact details. And again, we’re sorry for the frustrating experience you’ve had with us. We hope we can make it up to you.

Regards,
Valerie
Benefit Cosmetics

What do you think, dear readers? Does this allay your concerns? Should it have taken a blog entry with 10,000 pageviews to get a replacement item for Brianna?

PREVIOUSLY:
Benefit Hopes You Buy More Of Their Defectively Packaged Product