Williams-Sonoma — Local services in New York

9/17/2023- So today I was extremely excited because I had planned to meet Stanley Tucci at the William-Sonoma store, the one that is located in Lincoln Center. He wrote a cookbook and was promoting it and of course signing it. The main reasons I was excited to meet Stanley, first, because I think he is a great actor, and second I look a lot like him. I have been told numerous times by total strangers that they thought I was him. I figured I would get to the William-Sonoma store early, purchase a copy of the book, wait to meet Stanley Tucci, have him autograph his book for me and take a pic with him, which I would of course love showing off. I even took the day off from work to be able to attend this event. Talk about the best laid plans going awry. When I got to the store I was informed by one of the female workers that I had needed to purchase Stanley Tucci’s book online and have it shipped to the store where I would then pick it up and have him sign it, which I had not been aware of. When I asked if they had any copies of the book to sell I was told no. I then told the woman that one of the main reasons I was there to meet Stanley Tucci was because I looked so much like him and wanted to take a pic with him. I was informed that no pictures whatsoever would be allowed to be taken with Stanley Tucci. At that point, a gentleman who also worked in the store happened to come to the door with keys in his hand. He asked me if I was there for the event. I told him I would love to be but was disappointed over what I had just been told, further going on to say, in a friendly tone how I really wanted to take a pic with Stanley Tucci because I’ve been told of how much I look like him. In a most snippy and cutting tone he said to me, “That’s great, is there anything else I can help you with at the moment?” Totally taken aback by this William-Sonoma worker’s horrible customer service sounding attitude, I simply said, “No.” In that same snippy tone he said, “Good”, and walked off and into the store. Now, needless to say I could have taken the snippy worker apart verbally, but given how nowadays when an argument of any sort breaks out in public, everyone films it and I did not want that to be my memory of not getting to meet or take a picture with Stanley Tucci. So, in the end, feeling totally disappointed I left the store and decided to do some browsing at one of my favorite bookstores, Barnes and Noble, where I did not buy Stanley Tucci’s book. I hope someone in Corporate at William Sonoma sees...

THE WORST CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE due to clueless employees and total lack of respect for customer's time/experience! I called the store to check if I can exchange an item, and explained clearly that it was partially paid by WE/WS reward points, and I wanted to make sure that I can use those dollars towards purchasing the item that I was looking for. They replied: No problem, just bring it here and we'll take care of it! I spent an hour to get to the store, and I was told that instead of an exchange I had to return the item and place a new order for the other item. Once again, I made sure to clarify that I used WE/WS rewards dollars to partially pay for the item that I am exchanging and made clear that I wanted to make sure that my rewards dollars credit can be used for purchasing the new item, and the store employee assured me that yes I can use those rewards dollars towards the new purchase.

Guess what?! They did the return, and the rewards dollars disappeard!!! So, I am tossed back and forth and had to call WS customer service, which I did the next day. That was when I learned that rewards dollars are non-refundable, and I was told that this "MUST have been communicated with the customer" BEFORE exchange/return EVEN IF I hadn't inquired about it! Imagine how frustarting it is to hear that after I had asked 3 times from 3 different WS employees that day at the store! (before and after going there!). One would expect that at least the store manager should be aware of that? Well... I called back the store and asked to talk to the manager (just wanting to hear someone in that entire store takes responsibility of wasting my time and energy and their lack of knowledge), but apparently he has been so ^busy^ that he has yet to return my call after 3 days!!! My advice to other shoppers: if you don't have your local kitchen store that you trust, just get the items you are interested on Amazon and save yourself the headache, frustation and absolute waste of your time by dealing with clueless employees under a supervision which clearly has taken out "service" out of "customer service"! More importantly, NEVER rely on what they tell you. Apparently it's the customer's responsibility to figure out all details of their policy, no matter how many times the customer has verified...

Me and My wife had an extremely disrespectful and discriminatory experience at the NYC Columbus circle store. We had an appointment for 'Discover Your Perfect Cup' which is a 30 min tour of coffee machines and grinders at the store, so that we can make an informed purchase.

A guy called Audeliz started showing us and within the first 5 minutes, he made it very clear through his attitude that he didn't think that showing us around was worth his time. In spite of us asking him about various options, he just showed us one run-of-the-mill grinder and then told us that that's the only grinder that we should have. The store carries several high end coffee grinders but he refused to show those to us or even talk about them.

Both me and my wife felt very strongly that this behavior had something to do with the brown color of our skin. When we asked for the store manager (unfortunately we didn't catch his name) and complained about this, he was equally (if not more) disrespectful and completely brushed us aside. We had a very disappointing experience and do not plan to buy anything from Williams Sonoma ever again.

Hopefully the company takes this seriously and looks into the matter so that other customers don't have to go through this kind of...