REI — Attraction in San Jose

Came in looking for a shirt for Wifey but they were out of stock on her size so we went to the customer department. The lady behind the counter had an attitude because we wanted her to order one for us and have it shipped to the store. She told us they were completely out of her size in the color wifey wanted and only had one in lavender gray. So wifey said ok order it. “Customer service” credit card please. “Me” I want to pay cash “customer service” you can’t pay cash, you need to buy a gift card and pay that way. “Me” What??!! Ok what ever. “Customer service” it should be here in 6 days “with an attitude” “me” ok thank you. 2 hours later I received an e-mail stating my wife’s shirt is in “whaaat?” As I looked at the e-mail I noticed it was the wrong color and wrong size.. argh just shoot me. I called customer and spoke with Andy “nice guy” told him everything that happened “even he was confused” after A lengthy conversation he stated that the color that my wife originally wanted was in fact in a bunch of other stores and he could get it for me in her size with no problem. He then said can I please have your credit card # so I can order it for you? “Me” what!!!?? I paid for it already!! “Him” what? It’s not entered in our computer. “Me” I got the receipt. “Him” let me look deeper in another computer, I’ll call you back in 10. 10 minutes later phone rings “him” Mr. Henry I got you squared away you should get the shirt by the end of next week. “Me” thank you Andy. I’m giving Andy 5 stars!! But that other lazy Azz!! Chick gets -10 stars I think her last name was Arnold “So if REI is Reading this...

Honestly this visit to the store will be my last. Since REI shifted so much of their business to their website, the stores have kind of become an afterthought. Obviously I don’t expect a brick and mortar store to hold anything near the kind of merchandise of a website, but the store is really starved for products. The shelves are half empty or bare and very messy—there is just stuff everywhere. Men’s and women’s clothes are mixed together, the bicycle department is a disaster and there are hardly any shoes left. The worst part is that nothing has a price tag on it. Honestly almost nothing, and there are no employees to help. If one finds an employee they have to go to the register to scan the item since they don’t have portable scanners. I resorted to using an app on my phone that scans barcodes and then scrapes the web for prices. Often prices for the exact same product were different in the store versus the website or even cheaper on Amazon. Even the employees were using their personal phones to find products on their own website! In the camping department items were missing parts or broken. Even the lighting was bad. In one area it was dark but in another I was blinded by a hot spotlight. Since there are not enough employees the lines are long. At this point, the store is only good for maybe sitting on a bike. Everything else just buy online. REI needs to do their employees a favor and pump massive dollars to improve the store or close the store and transfer the employees to the web division. I don’t want anyone to lose their job....

Generally, a positive experience. Recently, not so good. Employees feel that they need to prioritize themselves over the customer. One such example is when I asked for help, the younger female employee decided to walk away, finish what she was doing (putting hangers back) before she could give me two seconds of her time. I found this interesting and asked “is everything okay?” — really just wanting her attention for the location of a product. She said she was “rushed.” I’m sorry but they are hangers, what is the rush with hangers that you need to walk away from for 20ft before answering a question?

She pointed me in the direction of “camping” and said someone else may be able to help me. As I walked away, she went over to another employee and decided to talk about her day, joking and laughing.

I never did find what I was looking for so I ended up buying it somewhere else.

Ok, so two seconds for the customer, making me feel awkward for bothering you because you’re stressed and need to put hangers back, and all the time in the world to talk about your day with your coworkers? Do you know what real stress is?

REI - I would use this as a coaching opportunity. Not only did she not do her job, the coworker was just standing there pretending to mind his own business and not help her so he could avoid having to do any sort of work whatsoever. Talk about lazy. They should understand that customers pick up on this.

Been coming here for 20 years. I don’t think I’ll be shopping here much...