SEPHORA — Attraction in Calgary

I usually have a wonderful experience whenever I come to any Sephora in Calgary. Although the one located in TD mall usually is very convenient for me as most of my makeup clientel is located downtown and some days I need to stock up on certain products before work! Although recently I’ve come into the TD location and had two consecutive negative experiences with one of their staff. The first time I had an encounter with this staff member I had come in before doing my own makeup (it was my day off and I like to let my skin breathe). Whenever I usually approach any staff member I am greeted warmly and they are eager to help! Although with this staff member she was very cold when greeting me and when I asked her a few questions on certain products and she arrogantly would roll her eyes (not even keeping eye contact) essentially brush me off with a short answer or would simply not use proper client etiquette. I was taken back by her attitude towards me, I wasn’t sure if she was simply having a bad day or genuinely didn’t want to help. I bought my things and left. On my second encounter with this staff member ( about a week or two apart) I this time had a face full of makeup therefor I don’t believe she recognized me, once again this staff member had a very arrogant attitude towards any questions I asked. At one point I got the feeling as though she was talking down to me and rejecting any knowledge or opinion I gave to her. She didn’t represent Sephora in a positive way what-so-ever and had the attitude as though she was the best mua in the building and essentially would brush off at ANY knowledge I had, meanwhile anywhere else I’ve gone the staff are always super interested in discussing different techniques or products I’ve found to work best on certain skin types/clients in general. Once I ended my encounter with this staff member because of her negative attitude, I saw her conversing with other staff members and she didn’t treat them disrespectfully like she had with me. My second encounter with this girl I made sure to ask another staff member before leaving (who was very warm and willing to answer any questions) what that first staff members name was and she told me her name was ‘Isha’. This second VERY kind staff member asked me after realizing i was leaving unhappy with my experience with Isha, if there was anything else she could to do help before I left (I left empty handed). I haven’t returned to that location and don’t plan on it. I have been to multiple Sephora’s all over the country and haven’t been treated with such an arrogant attitude. This staff member doesn’t know proper client etiquette OR proper customer service and believe the management here need to look into this Sephora member because she does not respect nor represent the Sephora brand positively. Why work somewhere girls are constantly asking questions and wanting to inform themselves on makeup if you’re going to come with a horrible attitude? If any staff member of mine treated clients like this I would fire them...

The woman the front girl got to help me was so rude to me my daughter couldn’t even believe it. We should have walked out of the busy store. I really needed my foundation though for my friends birthday night out. Very impatient, condescending, and sand-offish with me. Firstly when the front lady paged the woman to help me, they both chatted and I did not hear what they said, then they both very quickly went on their own opposite way. The woman in black yelled back at me, “are you coming or what? No initial greeting, or even eye contact which threw me off when she just walked away.

I really thought she was saying it jokingly,…. because it would be unbelievable if she was actually treating me so disrespectful. Guess what, she wasn’t joking. That woman,with the gray black French braid down the middle of her head, would not listen to my questions and kept impatiently cutting me off and making it VERY CLEAR that she IS NOT a Sephora employee. I said if you’re too busy to help can you find someone else. She literally mumbled under her breath, “give me a break” as she stormed off to check my “database” with a Sephora employee who had the machine to lookup customers history of purchases. Which is what I kept trying to tell her I needed from the beginning. I simply just wanted to repurchase foundation I had bought before, but this woman who was asked to help me, even though she clearly wanted me to know she did not work for Sephora, went rouge on me.

There’s more, I just can’t type more, this is so exhausting.

To wrap this up after she was clearly done wasting her time on me she walked very briskly to two other woman dressed in black, that I’m guessing “worked” there but not for Sephora ? She was Clearly pointing me out and making faces and scrunching her nose literally looking like a pig. I apologize if It is tick or intentional I know not.

The woman she told slowly half circled around my daughter with this contrite smirk on her face making us feel very uncomfortable.

Very toxic environment there, what the heck has happened to management/ owners caring how customers are treated? I’ll never go back to that TD Core store ever , nor would I recommend it to anyone. Worst experience ever.

Reflecting back we think she was perhaps either having a nicotine fit or something on that line of withdraw to be so blatantly impatient and rude. We just can’t believe it could be her demeanour all the time, or could it?

Sephora do you even care about customer service? Who are these people working in your stores that are not employed by Sephora? They really do not care about your brand or customer...

Horrifically bad service that amounted to bullying. Came in to do a return on 4 items and the cashier spent lots of time opening the products (2-5 times) as if I had magically used it while waiting for her to return it. The cashier acted as if the return was being deducted from her own bank account. Near the end of the transaction I asked for a manager to share on the lack of samples I had received on my online orders and the manager (Aisha) smiled, did not apologies and told me to call in. I said I didn’t have the time to follow up on samples and that they were the same company and she repeated the same thing again (felt like she was reading a script and not listening to my concerns) about two more times until I insisted. She then just said ok. She then made a face and said that they “investigate all of these very seriously” as if I was about to attempt fraud to gain some samples.

Did not apologies, did not try to make it up for it. Just passed the buck to online customer service. Took zero accountability. She walked off and the cashier printed a piece of paper and gave me a pen while asking for the next customer.

A point - while I was waiting in line the cashier was laughing it up with the client before me, offered her samples and beauty insider redemptions and the transaction lasted well over 5-10 mins. But I was curtly told that she had to help another client. No asking if I wanted to trying anything, no asking if I wanted to redeem anything. And while I was writing my number she began a transaction. Even though there was only 1 customer in line and the other cashiers walking around. The employee followed their managers lead and treated me like garbage.

I felt disrespect, humiliated, and that I was not a fellow human. The amount of disdain over a simple return was astounding. Unsurprisingly when I got home and opened my bag (purchased 2 products) and did not see a single sample. Instead of deescalating the situation or engaging with me on a human level I felt dismissed.

Do not shop at this store if you are black. Do not walk in, do not interact. Horribly racist and dismissive management and employees that after reading the other reviews - have been racist and xenophobic to several other BIPOC individuals.

Sephora Canada; maybe consider sending a third party specialist to this store to conduct an investigation. This is how they treat paying customers - how do they treat Black employees (who I btw never or very rarely see at this location).

I left my name and number but do not expect to hear anything back after not even being treated like a...