Cotswold Outdoor London - Covent Garden - Mercer Street — Local services in London

I can’t exaggerate enough at how bad the service in this store is. In chronological order let me break it down.

-I use this shop frequently for online purchases, and have given them therefore a lot of my cash

-I happened to be in London one day and needed to return something and thought may as well go to the physical shop to browse as well

-go to the shoe dep- there was about 6 people waiting and no server in sight (you need to hire more people or better ones, so it runs more efficiently).

-I start looking around for people and eventually stumble on what is possibly their lunch room and hear a gaggle of voices so rather than barge in and ask for service like some people would I patiently wait outside until someone comes and wait for them to make eye contact - they knew I was waiting for them and walked straight past me. Some old guy it was (I don’t care if you see this, you’re rude - and I’ll come back to you later as well.

-I sit down at runners need (I wanted hiking boots and I thought it was all the same section). The guy comes to me and when he realizes I wanted hiking boots not running shoes his attitude totally flipped (I explained I’m only here because no one is serving the hiking section). He did actually help me and brought me my shoes but practically chucked them on the floor and left me to my devices. Luckily I knew exactly what I wanted so didn’t need any advice.

-I now wanted to try another pair so thought better not bother the running guy again so went and waited at the hiking section. Old guy reappears, he’s running up the bill for another customer. He noticed me waiting (wow) and says you can pay upstairs. I reply actually I need to get some other shoes as well, so he says that he is closing and someone else will do it. Bear in mind, there’s a queue of 5+ people still. I said I’d been waiting 20min (including the running guy who didn’t actually give me any time). He said he ‘must go to lunch’ (must implies you’ll die of hunger - you work in customer service, get someone else on the shop floor, 1 staff isn’t enough to clear this queue) and by the way, it wasn’t enough. The queue did eventually clear and why? People walked off out of annoyance, I saw it. It wasn’t them being served.

Anywho, old guy goes for lunch. Now we have a young chap who loves to talk. Now to be fair to him his interaction with customers (old ladies in particular) was actually stellar. He seems to know what customer service is.

However, he didn’t even acknowledge me standing there waiting looking at him for at least another 15 mins and he took about 3 trips to the shoe room in that time without even asking me shall he bring something for me (I was standing less than a meter away from him).

Eventually interjected one of his stimulating conversations with the old ladies and asked if he could get me a shoe which he did. He was actually the best guy there but some awareness of waiting customers would be nice.

Finally - 2 pairs of shoes and I was exasperated. Go upstairs to pay, I tell the guy on the counter who I’m returning some stuff to that just FYI the shop next door (Cotswold know who they are) are doing these trousers at a cheaper price, he seems offended by that and replies well half our shop is on sale at the moment, but thank you. A correction response would have been to offer to price match them !

Frankly visiting this store put a massive dent in my day. I have been here once many years ago and I don’t remember it being like this. I have no issue with their online store - but in person ? They need to...

Having visited this store today I can understand why there are so many mixed reviews regarding customer service - as the experience you have, and level of customer service you receive, is very much dependent on whom you get served by.

Initially I’d gone downstairs looking for a specific backpack that their website said was in stock at that particular store. A gentleman approached me and asked if I needed any help (I later found out his name was Jez). I told him what I was looking for and he said they were usually kept upstairs, but he’d check the system to see if it was in stock. The system showed a delivery had arrived yesterday, and had been receipted in. He also showed me the screen so I could see it for myself.

I went upstairs to look for the bag, but couldn’t find it, so asked another sales associate for help. She checked the system and said they had none in stock. I told her about the conversation I’d had with Jez, and the fact I’d seen the screen myself showing they had 5 backpacks delivered the day before. But she repeated there was none in stock and offered to order it online for me - which I politely declined.

I was going to leave, but decided to go back downstairs to Jez and I told him about the conversation I’d had with his colleague. On the shop floor there was quite a few totes (containing delivery) and Jez said it was probably in one of those. He took the product number and the number of the tote it had arrived in. He then methodically checked the stockrooms and totes, and in less than 10 minutes Jez had found my coveted backpack!

Naturally I was thrilled to bits and so grateful for Jez’s professionalism and determination. I am also grateful that he was my first point of contact in the store - but that was down to pure luck.

I’m a Business Manager in retail, and I know how shops work. I know that sometimes deliveries go missing, or don’t get receipted in properly. I also know that you come across a multitude of different personalities who work within customer service - some (like Jez) go above and beyond to deliver an excellent customer experience, whereas others give the bare minimum: which can sometimes be down to a lack of experience, they are in need of additional training, or they simply don’t care and are just there for the pay packet.

My advice is to...

Went with friend to get hiking shoes for her. As first time hiker she wasn’t sure how should hiking boots feel. Asked the staff member for particular size of particular models, he came back with two different sizes from absolutely different models. Didn’t really explain why, kept asking my friend to ask different sizes from different models, but none of them was the model she asked for-talking about two different models which she asked from the beginning. I got frustrated but she kept finding excuses why she didn’t feel the shoes he was offering, comfortable. After short browsing through the models they had displayed found out the model he was offering was about £100 more expensive that the ones she liked. Thankfully she didn’t fall for that manipulation, but by the look of it the particular staff member has the tendency of selling different models aka more expensive, than the one people are looking for. Most probably works for first time hikers, who are not very familiar with the brands and features of the hiking boots.

Disgusting experience.

The shop next door Ellis-Brigham had the model and brought it straight away when asked for, without attempts to sell something...