We know good customer service can keep customers coming back. And most of us understand the power bad customer service has to hurt our business.
Yet this simple lesson still falls on deaf ears at some large, well- known companies. Take Abercrombie & Fitch for example. A $3.5 billion-dollar retailer known for attitude in their advertising apparently has plenty of attitude in others parts of their company. Recently they were fined $115,264 by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights for discriminating against a disabled customer in their Bloomington, MN store.
It should have been more. Much more.
First, the behavior of their employees, as reported by Minnesota Public Radio, the StarTribune and others, suggests they have no idea how to handle any but the most common and simple situations. The situation started because a girl needed to accompany her autistic sister in the dressing room to try on clothing. The Abercrombie & Fitch employees said no. Apparently, they felt the girls were lying because they could not verify the disability.
Imagine if this was your daughter.
Second, the girl’s mother tried repeatedly to resolve this issue with various levels of management. She got nowhere. No apology. No resolution. Nothing. So, she dug in her heels and brought out the big guns. This eventually led to an investigation by the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.
Third, the company seems to have stonewalled this case at every turn. According to news sources their actions caused the matter to take longer and cost more than it otherwise would had they been more cooperative. MPR tells it this way:
The company “adopted a litigation strategy of ‘admit nothing,’ refusing to admit the existence of [the girl's] disability until the outset of the hearing, and denying even the possibility that she had suffered from the experience at Respondent’s store. These decisions escalated the cost of this proceeding for all parties,” Office of Administrative Hearings officials wrote.
And it gets worse. The StarTribune reported this:
In its legal battle, the company challenged the family’s claim that Molly was disabled, requesting medical and school records and subjecting the girl to an interview with a forensic psychologist…
What I didn’t see in any of the reports is anything that showed Abercrombie & Fitch has even the slightest concern for how this girl was treated in their store, by their employees.
Maybe I missed that part. Or maybe they simply don’t care.
This seems especially unwise considering the sorry state of retailing these days. In fact, according to recent financial reports their revenue is down 5.6% and net income is down by 42.7%.
Whatever happened to admitting you made a mistake and offering an apology?
They could have avoided a lot of legal fees and bad press had they chosen to apologize. I have hard time believing incidents like these are profit neutral. I would guess this incident will end up costing Abercrombie & Fitch over a million dollars in direct costs and lost business. And this is not the first time this company has been embroiled in such a case. A Google search brings up others.
Treating people badly is bad business. Even worse, it’s just plain wrong. I can only hope this case encourages Abercrombie & Fitch rethink how they treat their customers. Maybe they’ll realize fashion and friendliness can co-exist just fine.
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
What an incredible story! It just so happens I am doing some research on poor customer service by means of social media for our company’s next retail newsletter and Abercrombie & Fitch certainly came up a number of times. In fact, they hit the MSN’s “Customer Service Hall of Shame” list in 2008. Almost 40% of survey participants rated their overall customer service as poor. So, this story didn’t surprise me all that much. I do know that they mystery shop thier stores. Don’t you wonder what they are measuring?
I believe that eventually poor service over time will not only affect bottom line sales, it can cause you to close the doors. I just don’t understand why this is so hard for some large retail chains to really understand! It is the most frustrating part of my business.
Thanks for your posts! I always enjoy reading them
Hi Kathy – It’s not surprising A&F made the ‘hall of shame’ list last year. They should be at the top of that list, based on what I’ve heard and read. Their problems seem to be built in to their DNA. Not sure they’ll be able to fix it without a management change. Anyway, thanks for reading and commenting!
I’ve just had the wost c/s experience with Abercrombie online and was doing a Google search to find their Management’s contact details to report my experience, when I found this article. Now I understand that I should not be wasting my time. It seems to me that this is a company culture issue coming right from the top! I would have thought it would be possible to target young/trendy customers and yet stay polite, helpful and provide good customer service. It seems to me that A&F has not managed to do that.
So, I will now convince my nieces to pick another brand for Christmas , I am not buying this brand ever again.
S T
Hi Sophie – glad to hear this has made a difference in your buying decisions. Too many companies believe they can treat people badly and not be held accountable. But if enough people get tired of bad service – then these companies might get the message. Thanks for reading!
Well i made an online purchase this year over 400 dls.. which is few…. This year i decided to buy AF for first time because i live on the tropic-Caribbean.. and due constant hot weather in mi university i decided to go for a sporty college look.. i placed my online order over 10 days ago and i’ve got over 10 different mails regarding my question about ” where the heck is my tracking number or order status” , it seems like no one really knows.. i also made internationals calls to their customer service and no one answers… First time i buy in a store like this.. and definitely last..never seen a worst customer service in the world , which is weird since USA does one of the best jobs in customer store service… thanks for reading
Hi Luis – sounds like you had a frustrating experience at A&F. Thanks for sharing.
Speaking of bad costumer service…the behavior of the Abercrombie store managers and the lack of respect for the costumer is amazing to me. I ran into a simple problem after buying $250.00 worth of clothing, I was issued a promo gift card for $50 and a deadline of Jan 30th to use it. The problem was that the gift card had a zero balance. Management didn’t have any idea how to look up the information with my reciept and promo number. I was told that nothing could be done. After numerous calls and visits to the store, I finally was able to track down a district manager. Wasn’t able to get her information until she was back from a long vacation. I actually had to tell the manager how to handle the situation and she still didn’t take down my information, just told me that she was not able to help. Lack of training and young managers is a big mistake, customer service is so important. Maybe Abercrombie should hire some older individuals who take their job a bit more seriously. Three visits to the store, two detailed e-mails, 7 phone calls and five weeks later. I still do not have an answer or my gift card. I’m sure I will run into another problem because it is now past the date of the promo. Frustrating!! I will NEVER shop at another ABERCROMBIE STORE AGAIN!!!
I didn’t know about the bad service from A+F until I experienced it yesterday in Honolulu.
I approached a store assistant who was chatting with another and was told she’d be right with me then continued talking about a party she was at the night before! When she finally finished and I asked for a medium sized tee, she told me she couldn’t help. Store assistant? More like glorified mannequin and not a good looking one at that.
When I was ready to pay, the people behind the counter made customers wait while they chatted and looked annoyed when they had to do some work. I just dumped the 17 items I had on the counter and walked out.
Abercrombie + Fitch, wake up! You rely on making your customers happy for giving you a roof over your heads.
I am here to share my frustrating experience with Abercrombie.
I placed an online order from Abecrombie online. The package worth about 100 bucks got lost by the carrier and it was never delivered. I contacted Abercrombie and was impressed by their bad service. All of their representatives claimed they are not going to help since I had a previous shipping issue one year ago. They were trying to blame me on their fault. They claimed it was their company policy. While being asked why this policy was not posted on the website, they said’We dont have to tell the customers’ Then they disconnected me. All of them ended with the same sentence: ‘As we told you before, we are not going to do anything further.I will not answer you any questions from now.’
This is the worest customer service I have ever seen. I am not buying this brand any more.
” The situation started because a girl needed to accompany her autistic sister in the dressing room to try on clothing”
Maybe I am missing something here. Let’s say that I go in there with my two boys, neither one of whom are disabled, and I say that I don’t want them to be alone in the dressing room, so I ask for them to go in together.
What possible reason could there be for telling me no? Shoplifting? Any suggestion like that and my money would spend very well elsewhere.
I think a lot of people share your thoughts.
Not only that, but A&F only hire certain people. You will only see good looking people working there. They discriminate against people. I personally have never bought anything from them nor will I ever.
Similar from London June 2009 :
“Clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch has been accused of “hiding” a sales assistant in a stockroom at a London outlet because her prosthetic arm didn’t fit with its “look policy”, a tribunal has heard.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/jun/24/abercrombie-fitch-tribunal-riam-dean
And the hits keep coming…
Thanks for sharing this news. I hadn’t seen it yet.
I’m not surprised at all. The image that A&F tries to portray through snooty immature staff has made them a laughing stock when it comes to customer service.
I am truly curious to know if this is not a planned marketing scheme. Not the unfortunate case described in the article, but in general. Perhaps the standoffish culture that is prevalent in their stores is a gambit to make them seem more elite since a large portion of their target market is a younger crowd and we all know how we want to be in the “in” crowd at that age.
A terrible idea, if so. But I wouldn’t put it past some of the marketing teams I have met in the past.
Very recently I use to be an assistant manager at an A&F store (I’m desperate in these times, I need to pay my bills!!) and I can tell you that nothing operational or type of policy isn’t regulated by the company. EVERYTHING is. Anything from how customer service is addressed, to how the employees look and act. If an employee isn’t willing to act the fool and do everything the company says, then they’ll find someone who will. It’s that simple. What’s funny is that most, if not all, of the employees that worked in my store knew that it was their policies that were killing business, but if anyone speaks up about it and how it’s a bad idea, then they are either ignored or “corrected.” If you walk into one of their stores and you see (or hear and smell) something that commonsense tells you, “wow that is NOT smart business”, trust me it’s not a mistake. Well….yes, in fact it IS a mistake, but the only people that will never recognize it willingly (or knowingly) are the ones running that company.
I recently tried to order some items from their website for back to school clothes. After a lot of time shopping and ordering, I placed my large order and the money was put on hold in my account last Thursday 6/17. Today 6/21 I contacted them to find out what the status was and they have no record of my transaction. So, my money is STILL on hold and will be for another couple days and there will be no product. Of course, they are now sold out of the items I wanted. What a sham!!
When I contacted their customer service and sat on proverbial hold (thank goodness for speaker phone) I finally spoke to a rep who confirmed that no order was placed and my funds will be released no later than Thurs. I asked to speak to a supervisor to provide web feedback and in her exact words “I am as high up as you will get to talk to”. I shared my frustration she said “Sorry”. Long pregnant pause and the call was over. Amazing.
Thank Abercrombie – you wasted my time and put a hold on my funds for a week. Nice!!
It seems like the underlying issue of A&F is their employees. It sounds like they all could use a dose of customer service training.
The A&F ads with half-naked models, and sometimes completely naked as I saw in a store window tonight, are ridiculous. What does it say about their clothes if even the models won’t wear them??
A&F management needs to realize that teenagers shop with their parents’ money and parents do not want to send or bring their children into a store with naked models on the ads. Some of us have higher standards than that…and self respect!!
I would like to add my story to this, I am a UK citizen, and whilst in Florida in August I went on A&F site and ordered some clothes for my niece and son, I ordered some clearence items which were very good value as we do get completely ripped of here in the UK for their items. I used my english credit card to pay and had them delivered to my address in the USA, I had an order number and the cost given to me, on my return to the UK they sent me another
invoice with the correct cost not the clearence cost!! Why ?? I have tried in vein to contact them – nobody at head office knows who to put you through to – you cannot speak to a supervisor at customer services – its just a joke some big time company run by idiots – they do not deserve the business they seem to get if only everybody would wake up!!!!!! Their staff need some decent trainning. If I went into a store in the USA would they say to me “sorry you have a british credit card you cannot have the sale price”! ITS CRAZY how are they allowed to get away with this.
Don’t get mad at me, but I get great service there. I don’t know if it is just my store, but they treat me well. I once accidentally bought a large jacket. I came back the next day, and they switched it out for a medium. I came back five minutes later because I thought it was again too large. I asked an employee and he explained that the sleeves were too big and that I should get a small. Then I returned it and got a small. The only thing I learned from this is to never ask my parents what size I am. The employees have always been courteous at my store and always help me. I have never been disappointed with my experience. The only negative thing I could say is, the music is too loud and they should stop soaking all of their products in cologne before shelving them.
A&F is winning the title for the worst customer service. District manager was useless. They wasted my time. Doesn’t even worth getting in details to tell my story.
Abercrombie probably has the worst customer service you will ever come across in your lifetime and the service is the same from the managers to seems like “12″ year old customer service reps who address the customer with “hey” and “don’t know” for most of the questions you will have for them. If you have an issue that needs to be escalated please don’t’ waste your time because their mangers don’t’ take phone calls apparently and you will never get the response by emails..don’t waste your precious time.
We had placed on-line order at work 1 months ago and it was about 10 of us ordering for XMASgifts and stuff. The amount up high because of the number of people order and XMAS…they cancelled our order and told that they will not take any more order from us in the future because we are suspected of “reselling their merchandise”
I tired to speak to few people and i was told they don’t have any info and can’t help me and they will not let me talk to their mangers. I wrote them explaining why the order was big if that’s why they suspected us of reselling their merchandise..but nobody got back to us. We felt really frustrated because we got labelled for something we never intended to do and they won’t even listen to what we need to say.
It doesn’t matter if we can’t shop at Abercrombie any-more because nobody wants to shop there again after incident like this..
WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER…
I recently received the worst customer service from A&F at the Sheryway Gardens location in Toronto. I escalated the issue to head office and their reply was “If our manager (at the store) has decided that they can’t return or exchange your shirt, their workdis final… We do hope that you will give us another try.”
I bought a Small Men’s plaid shirt for myself b/c I wanted to use it as an outer layering piece of clothing. I wash all my clothese in delicate cold wash using non-scented HE detergent. Most of my clothes are also hung to dry, including this shirt.
The shift shrunk by 2.5 inches at the waist. We were able to determine this by comparing it to an existing shirt of the same size, in store!!! At first, I was looking to exchange it but in a medium.
The extremely poor customer service at the store was so shocking, I sent a detailed email to their csutomer service hotline and the above response was what I had received!
I will never shop there again! disgusting.