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Dear Thursday: Stupid Customer Service

So yesterday, I packed Betty into the car and went to pick up my first pair of really expensive glasses at a high-end store in Silver Lake. I’ve always wanted a pair of expensive glasses, and I finally indulged that dream … only to be told the day after they were supposed to be ready that they weren’t ready or even in the store. The store was also unable to tell me when they would be ready, and after apologizing profusely, the owner assured me that she or the shop assistant would be calling me soon to tell me when my glasses would be ready and she promised to come out to Altadena herself to fit me. It was hot, and I was hungry, and Betty was fussing, and the store was woman-owned, so I didn’t cancel my order all together, though I was tempted.

Then the day wore on and no one called. I was shocked that any business charging this much for glasses would dare to be this unprofessional. I was also disappointed, because now I feel like I have to cancel my order on principle alone and I can’t stress enough how very, very much I loved these glasses. I’ll just say they are purple and awesome and leave it at that.

Anyway, this is what I call “stupid customer service.” If I’d had a good experience, this is what I would have done: featured my new glasses on Fierce and Nerdy, sang this shop’s praises to friends, worn them during all of my publicity for 32 CANDLES, referred anyone who complimented me on the glasses to the shop. But now, I’ll probably cancel my order, leave a negative review on Yelp, badmouth the shop to the friend that referred me (which might influence her future referrals), and buy the same expensive glasses somewhere else, all because the owner broke not one, but two of her promises.

Anyway this is all to say I wasn’t able to be finish reading this week’s book b/c of the glasses debacle and trying to finish up my rough draft of THE AWESOME GIRL’S GUIDE TO DATING EXTRAORDINARY MEN. I’ll catch up next week.

Meanwhile, I’m interested to hear if anyone else has ever run into this problem with high-end products, and if so, how did you handle it?

Thanks!

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