Rating the stores,staff, & sites

[HappyinHeels]

A stunningly bad experience at a shoe store last summer got me to thinking about how to thrive from adversity and harness the positive power among those in this forum. Those of the GLBT community in the Chicagoland area may be familiar with the Chicago Gender Society which has evaluated many retailers big and small for their service, parking and accessibility, policy towards CD's, and pricing structure. They regularly maintain a list of those stores which make the highest grade--are friendliest to the GLBT community. It occurs to me that the majority of our forum is comprised of members with considerable disposable income when one considers how much we spend on things (mostly shoes but also other accessories) that see only intermittent wear or are used for short periods of time. The sum total of this is considerable buying power. Several members have related their stories of great service (or not) at specific stores and how they felt afterwards. I think we all should make a concerted effort to rate the stores that sell the products we buy and cherish, the staffs inside those stores that will make or break the brand, and the sites on the Internet where we also buy our things. Share your knowledge and then share your joy or anger with a CEO, a CUstomer Service Dept., an advocacy group, etc. I have already related my great experiences with Bakers SHoes and I am known to the corporate headquarters in St. Louis and they were very receptive indeed. Especially in person, if you just level with sales people they will respond if they have half a brain towards the bottom line. Stores such as Target, Payless, and Bakers all carry shoe sizes beyond 10 and have policies friendly toward all customers. Who cares if you are a guy buying high heels or lingerie or a purse or whatever--it's a retail enterprise NOT a social judgement center. We are marginalized customers only if we choose to be. Those who screw with the customer do so at their own peril!!

[kfsteve391]

I agree with HappyinHeels. All the sales people I have dealt with have been very courteous and helpful. I always tell them up front whatever I am buying is for me. If you make up some kind of story, they may have their doubts. You have to remember those sales people know it is their job to sell. They do not care what you buy or what you do with it after you leave their store. So many of us are worried about what others will think. When I go shopping for heels I tell the clerk I want something that is super sexy and very feminine looking. That is what I want and what I get.

[Bootking]

Hopefully Tech or some other Forum guru here can set something up where we can vote with out feet (LOL) for good service in stores.

[Tech]

Hopefully Tech or some other Forum guru here can set something up where we can vote with out feet (LOL) for good service in stores.

We could always have a forum for "Rate your store" where its voting only and no message posting???

[yozz]

Unless I misunderstand it, I think it is more complicated if we want to be fair. Just imagine we make a poll about the service in shop XYZ where you can vote that the service is good, medium or bad. And imagine that most votes go to medium and bad. Now you may need more imagination: assume that the shop sees this and decides to hire an extra person to improve the service which now becomes much better. The old votes however remain. In a discussion people can say that lately the service has improved. What we need is time dependent voting, but I doubt that the system lets us do that. It would be neat though because you would be able to see immediately which shops listen to their customers. My 2c Y..

[Bootking]

Not so fast, Yozz! It is just like a poll; if the service was bad but starts to improve, then the numbers will go up, just that simple. But think for a minute - any type of rating when the numbers look bad, people will start to avoid that vendor (i.e. Consumer Reports, etc.). There is no reason to treat shops any differently.

[yozz]

What I mean to say is that if a store is responsive all the old negative votes remain. That is very hard to overcome because we cannot change our votes afterwards. Maybe being allowed to change your vote (after some time?) would already be a great help. Y.

[Thighbootguy]

How about summing and recording the responses for each store each month then charting the monthly sums for a display. After the responses are summed they are erased so you could vote each month. The only thing you could add would be new stores. Without being able to add comments, there would have to be several ratings for each store: Friendly staff Carry large sizes This may be well outside the capabilities of the forum software.

[Dr. Shoe]

I think it would have to be a forum rather than a poll for a number of reasons. Firstly, we are a scattered community and if someone goes into payless in Chicago, say, and has a bad experience that does not mean to say that someone in New York is going to be treated the same. Moreover, the smaller retailers may only ever have 2 customers from our membership for example, how many members here purchased from Peachy Shoes? Probably 10 at the most out of a membership that runs into 1000s... Secondly, if there are 2 votes saying how the experience was bad, then others might avoid the store completely even though they have since cleaned up their act. Lastly, a forum would allow us to post some good points even if the overall service was bad, for example, you might say they had some gorgeous shoes but the staff were snooty or that they had a very limited range in larger sizes but the staff were excellent. These details would be lost in a poll. I suggest that a new thread be started for every retailer.

[stillettoAl]

First I agree w/ Dr. Shoe that a forum makes the most sense as a format. If members who have really good or really bad experiences post what stores they were in it'll help. I'm sure stores (like the one I'm about to write about) where people have good experiences would like the positive feedback, and at least in my area (Ohio) I know we have several members, and probably even more who just read but don't post, so it would help us get an idea of where we can get great shoes in our size and be treated well while we do that:smile: That said, here's my contribution to it: As of today I have a new favorite store where I got AMAZING service. The girl there was the nicest person I've ever dealt with while wearing and buying heels. She brought out every size 11 stiletto they had (w/o me asking her to, I just said I love wearing stilettos when she asked what kind of shoes I was looking for. She asked for my size and brought out every stiletto they had) and encouraged me to try on anything i wanted, and even gave favorable comments on how the shoes looked w/ my outfit. She complimented me on how I walk in heels, and when I bought a pair of boots she even stretched them for me to make the width more comfortable. She also told me that they get their shipments on thursdays, and got my number and gave me the store number and told me to call on a thursday so they can hold a pair of any new shoes they get in my size that I might want to check out. I'm sure some of you had, but this is by far the best service I've ever had. The store was the Shi-by journeys in Southpark mall, Strongsville Ohio, I wish I could remember the girl's name (I wanna say Sarah?) she really was great, and she will be bringing the store almost all of my business as long as she and people like her work there. I'd highly recommend it, only possible con is that the styles they had (@ lest when I was there) in 11 are a bit more wild, they had a few normal pairs of pumps and boots but alot more as she called them "club shoes" (picture a much less expensive version of the sort of thing I see Victor Blanco wearing in most of the pics we've seen of him) which I love, but for those who like to be more subtle aren't always the best choice.

[tal]

Didn't the old forum had an area devoted to that? I've seen things like this on other sites, and they die a sillent dead after a while. I for one would welcome the format as per Dr. Shoe's idea's.

[kfsteve391]

Sounds as if the sales lady in Shy-by journeys knows what it takes to make it in sales. She made your shopping experience a positive one. In a down economy like we are in I would think more people in sales need to go the extra mile as she did. I'm sure you will be a regular customer and tell all your friends, which you already have. Thanks for sharing.