Recently a friend of mine did the girlie thing and bought an entire outfit (including the shoes, bags and earrings) from a boutique called Zoya in Bandra, Mumbai just so she would have something to wear to a friends wedding sangeet party. Yes, we’ve all been there and I quite liked her outfit and was even planning to visit the store until I heard this horror story from another friend who decided to do the same.
So picture this; you go to a fancy pants store, drop about 13,000rs on clothes and stuff and accidentally leave your own diamond earring on the counter while (at the behest of the sales staff) trying on a pair of earrings. When you realize you’ve left it behind you call the store and return the very next morning hoping to retrieve your lost earring and are met with varying degrees of incompetent service ranging from disinterest to down right dreadful. First they say, “we’ll find it, it must be here” (but don’t really look) then they say, “other people have left far more expensive things behind and gotten them back” (your point is?) and finally they say “go complain to the press if you want” (um, customer service 101 anyone?) The thing is, its not about the lost earring (shit happens) but you’d really expect a store of this caliber to be more familiar with the concept of common courtesy right? Or perhaps that’s only reserved for the rich and famous, who knows. Sadly though I’m guessing it flows from the top because one of the partners Aparna Badlani breezed in and after about 5 seconds said, “well we’ve done everything we can” (really everything, you could tell in 5 seconds?) and proceeded to wax eloquent about just how valuable everything in the store was. My unfortunate friend was obviously shocked at this response and even more so when she was told to “write an article in the paper” to complain if she wasn’t happy (what, why so bitchy?) Not even sure where that came from since no such threat was actually made but hey thanks for the tip Aparna, I’ve decided to call your bluff 🙂