John Lewis & Partners — Local services in Great Britain

Horrible experience with this store which has completely put me off shopping here in the future. I am nearly 8 months pregnant. I came in here for a baby rocker and some last minute things for my baby. All rockers were out of stock. I however came in with quite a few bags and they were snapping/ripping as I was in the store with my things going everywhere. We went up to the til and asked if we could purchase carrier bags. The person at the til was looking at me up and down in disgust and refused to sell me any carrier bags. It was 15 minutes to closing time at this point and there was someone on the speaker asking people to finish up and leave the store. I was struggling to leave the store because everything was falling everywhere and I wasn’t allowed to purchase carrier bags. We were then left outside the store in the centre which was also closing. All other stores were closing too so we actually had to where to go to get bags. Left in this absolute mess, kind of stranded and 8 months pregnant. I’ve never felt so overwhelmed. Customer service here is absolute shocking. I will not be buying anything from here in the future. Anything I came in for has now been bought elsewhere. You can’t just be kind to be people after they spend hundreds in your store. It’s not like I was even asking for free bags I was asking to purchase them. The whole carry on...

Not the best experience at Glasgow JL, attempted to purchase Apple Air 2020/ Magic keyboard/ Pen - the first problem was trying to get a sales assistant to assist eventually i got one i asked about stock he went on to say i only work with ChromeBooks i asked could you find out about stock or can you get another assistant to help, he eventually returned and said someone would be with me….10 minutes later of standing in front of the Apple AIR stand still no sign…then another assistant appeared i asked the same question regards stock he checked his phone and pointed me in the direction check outs where they hold the stock of Apple, why did the ChromeBook guy not just send me there in the first place!

Went to the check outs where two assistants were one was serving & the other had just completed a sale, she asked can i help i asked regards the Apple Air, due to the screens/masks we both struggled to hear each other but she said i would need to wait for another assistant…….i thought how hard is it to spend £1k+ these days in a shop!!!! if i had waited of the other assistant to arrive (god knows when that would have been...) that would have been 4 contacts i would have had contact with during a pandemic COVID…poor experience all round JL…I’ll buy...

This store is lovely, and I have no complaints about the other floors. However, the staff at the beauty and perfume counters are overly pushy and make assumptions about customers' buying intentions.

I visited with my husband to purchase a few luxury items (Tom Ford, Bobbi Brown, etc.), but I never had the chance to browse in peace. Staff repeatedly asked if I was buying for a wife, girlfriend, or mother, an intrusive and unnecessary question, especially when I was simply looking around and avoiding eye contact. Despite politely declining assistance twice, the same staff member approached us a third time. At that point, we felt so uncomfortable that we decided to leave altogether.

Given that we were two very close men actively testing makeup and perfume, discussing them playfully, it should have been clear that we weren’t shopping for wives. Staff should be able to read situations better and be mindful of different demographics, avoiding assumptions that could alienate customers. While good customer service is appreciated, there’s a fine line between being attentive and overbearing. The staff at the front need to recognize when to step back and allow customers the space to browse...