A woman just had a terrible experience at a South Florida Sephora, that left her saying, “you lost me.”
In a video with more than 69,000 views, Amy (@theskinandlashlady), a licensed esthetician and former luxury brand manager at Bloomingdale’s, expressed frustration after visiting the Sephora store in Boca Raton, Florida. She said she is “usually a really easy customer,” but her recent experience left her unhappy and jaded with the company.
Reflecting on her retail background, Amy explained, “The one thing, no matter what department, I would always tell my salespeople, never ask anybody, ‘May I help you?’ Because they’re going to say no. Always ask them, ‘What brings you into the store today?’ Because then that’s an open-ended question and they’re gonna tell you and you’re gonna help them.”
That background informed Amy’s experience walking into Sephora. On a Monday at 10:30 a.m., when the mall was relatively empty, Amy attempted to find a product recommended by a social media influencer she follows. “I figured if I go into Sephora today, I am just gonna say to them, ‘Hey, I follow [@thebeautydebut]. She was talking about this. Can you help me find the color that works for me?’ But that’s not what happened today,” she said.
Entering the store
She described walking to the store and hearing a variety of “chit-chatting” from the retail workers. They didn’t seem to pay mind to her presence, to the point where she felt invisible. When she attempted to test lip liners, she noted, “I pull out the tester and there’s no nib. It needs to be sharpened… so I take up the next one and once again, there’s no nib. Finally [I get] a sales specialist. She goes, ‘Is everything OK?’ And I go, ‘No, I really wanna try these. Can you get these sharpened?’ And she takes them and she walks away.”
The sales specialist didn’t return with the pencils. She waited for a while without assistance, only to shop for a few different items and approach checkout. The interactions there remained cold and impersonal as well, with the check-out lady barely acknowledging her presence. “The first thing she says to me, just like a machine, not even [giving] eye contact, [was] ‘Who helped you?’ Amy claimed. “I said, ‘Actually, there was a girl who took my testers to sharpen them, and she never came back. I’m not sure if I got the right colors.’ She could have easily said, ‘Let me see if I can find her. Let me get somebody to help you.’ Nope. She just says, ‘Do you have your phone number?’ … Totally a hundred percent transactional. That was it. No eye contact, no nothing.”
Not heading back to her local Sephora anytime soon
Amy finished off her video by saying that she’s been dissuaded from returning to a Sephora in the near future. “I don’t wanna go into a [Sephora] store anymore…if I love these and somebody helped me, then I would probably come back. But I guess your business is just so great and so busy that you don’t even need to spend a little bit more time when the store is not busy to help somebody who’s a local customer. Just saying.”
Many viewers pointed out how ageism could play a role in how employees treated Amy. One wrote, “They are rude to older customers. Interestingly, it’s us older women buying the $100+ anti-aging products. You would think they might treat the ones that are established adults with a little more respect.”
Others thought that Sephora employees were “rude” in general, saying, “We are invisible!!!! They have no people skills or know how to be professional!!!!!!”
We’ve reached out to Amy for some more information about her experience, as well as Sephora. We’ll let you know if they reach back out.
@theskinandlashlady @sephora @Claudia Fabian ♬ original sound – Lic. Esthetician Amy
This story was produced by our friends at Gee Thanks.
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