Next — Local services in London

Horrible customer experience - ordering eGift voucher is just not possible as all the steps of the flow seem to be broken. I wanted to order an eGift card from NEXT as a gift.

1. Ordered online - for some reason I MUST provide a UK address and phone for that. As I was ordering from another country this was already a problem - I have not seen any store which restricts itself from doing more business by only allowing local customers? That's crazy
2. I found a UK friend who was happy to help and placed an order online on his own address/phone number. He was charged but certificate never arrived to my email (my email was set as a eVoucher receiver)
3. When we called to Next support, they said the eVoucher is pending review as the purchase needs to be authorised (what? you already charged my card!). They asked my friend a ton of needless questions (like - how long are you living at the address you specified etc) - why does it even matter? Total waste of time. Then they said all is fine and the voucher is out.
4. I never received the voucher to my email - so we called back AGAIN. Support said they resent the voucher - again nothing arrived.
5. We called AGAIN - another support agent told us the eVoucher is pending approval. Is this a joke? Is this all manually done? I have an impression I'm calling to a store from 1990s!
6. You think it can't get even worse? It can! We decided to stop this senseless process as we spent half a day on the phone and our party was totally ruined as the gift idea failed. We ask for cancellation of the order and a refund. The operator told us the order was cancelled but we never received a confirmation email and no money arrived back - we are still waiting.

I must say the customer support stuff on the line were all helpful and polite, but the whole system is horrible and just blocks you at every possible step.

Result: being not in UK, i went online to NEXT competitors store and purchased an eGift voucher without being question what's my UK address and stuff. The voucher arrived to my mailbox in 30 seconds immediately after purchase. I would strongly recommend to avoid NEXT to anyone who's looking for a smooth customer experience specifically for an online...

We went to the Next @ Plaza Oxford Street and had a worst experience and behaviour from the Manager/Supervisor himself. I chose a Black shirt which was on a sale. There were many sizes of this shirt which were all on sale marked with a sale price tag. I was looking for a medium size, however I could only find Large size. So I went to the fitting room, waited for the room to come available and then tried the large size. Took the help from the girl staff who was at the fitting room, even she couldn’t find M size so she suggested that I ask at the till. So when my wife and I went to the till and paid for other stuff, we asked the person who was serving us - Najma to order the M size. She checked and told that the shirt is on full price, I told her “but there are quite a few there with the sale price tag”, so she asked Raymond- the manager. He came after a long wait and with no smile on his face, and after hearing from Nima, just told that “I can only honour the sale price for this size and not Medium size”. I requested him that It’s not my fault if the shirt is on sale by mistake of your staff, but if you are honouring it might as well do it for the size that’s right for me. He just shrugged his shoulder and left and in front of me started doing other work. This was so rude and unprofessional behaviour and that too coming from a manager of a store like Next on Oxford Street. It didn’t make sense at all that why he can’t do it for the size I was asking for, when there were other 3 different sizes there all with sale price tag. Anyway my wife suggested as it’s just one size difference, might as well get it. Now here the staff who was serving us - Najma, without letting us know, charged the full price, even though they agreed to do sale price. Not sure if this was on purpose as she was clearly able to see it on her screen but she told us that she has done the sale price. We only realised this after we reached home. All in all a very bad and unprofessional, unpleasant attitude from both Raymond and Najma. Else everybody on shop floor was very helpful and customer friendly but because of these two, even that was soured and will avoid this...

Rude employee, harsh manager Today I went to return few items. The lady was very rude and unprofessional. First she told me I was not aloud to return the items because I removed the labels. However, no one told me to keep in case of returning purpose. She mentioned that was the police and I should have checked before. I asked to speak with the manager, a tall lady came and allowed her to proceed with the return. I said " Thank God the manager said yes", nonetheless, the cashier was not happy with the lady decision, started aguing with me, saying she wasn't the manager. Thus, the cashier got attitude issues..I told her, sorry I dont want to argue, just wanted my refund. The cashier went to her colleague and told her, "I do not want to serve that lady", and decided to call the manager. The manager first explained me that she couldn't return the items etc, because I removed the labels. Therefore, the manager decided to return the items, but I dont know how, but one of the items was 32£ in the r...instead of 34£...she said " I wont be returning the item because you got no receipt " , I told her, I only made one payment, she kept telling me to give her another receipt, because the one I gave was not right. Consequently, I told her was not my fault if the amounts was wrong, I made only one payment that day to ask her colleague because was his mistake. She got upset, and changed her tone. When she finished the refund, I said, Thank you, but she did not reply to me. I think "next" have to provide customer service training to the employees, also, they should smile a bit more to the customers, look like they are always having a bad day. Amazing...