I recently posted about an experience my friend had with
Louis Vuitton customer service. I'm re-posting a comment from her fiance in which he asks for your advice. Thanks ahead of time!
Hi everyone. My fiance is the one that got the lousy service from Louis Vuitton. Here is a quick follow up.
After my fiance hung up the phone with the manager at LV, she called me, crying. After we spoke for a few minutes I called the customer service number and had a three way call with their CS person and the manager of the store. He was a bully, and didn't seem to care that he made my girl cry! He went as far to say that I was not the customer, that my fiance was, and that he didn't even have to talk to me. WHAT?!
When I wasn't getting the response I was hoping for I asked who was higher up the food chain at LV. It was explained to me that a report would be filed with the appropriate executives. This was the end of the line. Well, that wasn't what I wanted to hear.
After the call wrapped I logged into my LinkedIn (professional networking website) account and emailed a brief overview of what happened to five LV executives. Was this crazy of me to do? Perhaps, but the guy made my fiance cry!
A few days later I received an email from Louise Firestone, the General Counsel of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton Inc. She stated the following: "I am sorry your fiance is not happy. I am not the appropriate person to deal with this; she should contact LV Customer Service."
So I replied:
"Thank you Ms. Firestone,
And therein lies the rub. The customer service department was contacted, on a three way call with the store, and when I had to put the call on hold for a moment, rather more of a mute than hold, the store manager stated, "this never happened", and the CS person said, "I know, I know". Did the call never happen? The incident?
It seems that the issue has died on the vine, but as a small business owner I can't accept that this is where this issue will end. If I treated my clients as we were treated by the representatives of your company, I would not have any clients!
Is there someone in the organization that my fiance may be able to contact about this? Sure, it is only a zipper on a bag, but providing exceptional customer service is an aspect of a luxury brand that was missed this time around. Since Friday this story has been picked up by a very popular blog, and I would like very much to be able to post on the blog that LV responded quickly to address the issue.
We would rather not run around in circles, and I would rather not see my fiance stick the bag in a drawer only for it to be forgotten about.
Thank you very much for your time,"
AND then the amazing happened. My phone rang, and it was Ms. Firestone. My first thought was that this was going to get resolved, but then she spoke and she scolded me! She said using LinkedIn to file a customer service complaint was unacceptable and then explained that she has nothing to do with LV and couldn't help me. She did offer up the name of the President of LV along with his mailing address. Thanks Ms. Firestone.
THEN 2 days later I got a call from Alexandra Winokur, VP at LV. Again I thought there would be resolution, but she wasn’t able to help at all. She stated that she knows the store manager and that she had not received any complaints before about him. I quickly directed her to YELP.com and suggested she do a search for the Garden State Plaza store and read the two complaints on YELP about the store, and specifically Ken the store manager.
As of today the bag is being shipped back to the Garden State Plaza store where we need to pick it up from. I asked if they could ship it directly to my fiance, but they refused. They said that they do it this way to avoid fraud.
I think I'm spent. Do I mail a letter to the President of LV?
I am open to ideas.
Sorry for the long comment. I am also sorry if the story is confusing at any point.
Thanks everyone.
32 comments:
I'm sorry to hear about this situation your friend is in.
I agree--if I am paying for a luxury brand, I expect customer service that goes above and beyond.
To that end, has your friend tried submitting this story to theconsumerist.com yet? They deal with stuff like this all the time, and usually once it hits their site the person gets good results.
I would definitely try to spread the word about this as much as possible. I have been sharing these posts with everyone in my Google reader.
I hope she can get this sorted out satisfactorily--I can't believe they've been so unhelpful!
I'm not sure why this surprises you.
There's a reason LVMH had insane profits last year and could afford Madonna.
You know how a casino works? High-rollers get better treatment. That's not you. Sorry.
Cole Haan replaced a buckle on my expensive laptop bag for free, no questions asked. Move on!
Thanks for sharing this Ginger. I'll encourage them to post it on consumerist.com
Dog, I think people assume that when they pay for quality it means that they will have good customer service and I'm glad to hear Cole Haan actually does. Though I don't really understand your point about high-rollers.
I'm posting this because I think it needs to get out there. There are many people who just assume expensive means quality and it doesn't. I would also like to warn people against buying Louis Vuitton.
Wow. Just wow.
I know I mentioned it last time, but Michael Kors gave me a new bag in store because my year old bag was ripped. I was shocked and so happy, but when I told people about it, they all thought it was "normal" for them to replace the bag. I had no intentions of ever buying LV, but now I definitely never will.
Anonymous Guest--
There's a reason they have all your purchases recorded. When they saw you only bought that one bag... Well, to them, that's like buying a stick of gum and then complaining.
LV had to choose whether that kind of customer was worth keeping. Clearly, they don't think so.
I don't know why she would even want to carry this bag after this mess. I would sell it.
I would also spread this story far and wide. But don't expect a response.
Wow - this is a pretty crazy story, and unfortunately I'm not that surprised.
I would continue to send emails and write letters until it is resolved. If you could get personal email addresses and or physical addresses, I would send a letter ever week until I got a response.
Oh, Also - you should report them to the better business bureau, unless you have already.
For sure Better Business Bureau. Have you considered a local news channel with a "problem solving" team? I feel like they'd eat this stuff up in this economy.
And - if she wasn't the right person to contact you'd think a company that was good at customer service would reply to you and copy customer service in a warm handoff. She made it worse.
Yes, you only own 1 bag, but what does that matter? If you pay for the gold standard you deserve the gold standard.
This is really too bad. Don't they understand the cost of poor quality?
Personally, I would give up on trying to get satisfaction by contacting the company. They've made it clear that they're not going to come through for you without a big stick... either in terms of media exposure or a case in small claims court. Even then, it's a toss-up as to whether or not you'll get what you want.
Personally, I would stop using the bag and for the most part let the whole thing go. If someone mentioned they were getting something from the store, I would discourage them, but beyond that I'd try to put it all in the past. As galling as it is to let them get away with it, I just wouldn't want to deal with the continuing aggravation.
In this economy, LV should be happy for every customer it can get. Their behavior is causing them to lose many future customers!
If I were you, I would go ahead and mail a letter to the president of LV and I would post this entire story on the LV forum of The Purse Forum. Those ladies will help you kick some ass (and I know, because they've done it for me!).
Hi everyone, fiance here.
I followed up by sending this along to the Consumerist plus I started a thread at the LV forum that Sunflowers mentioned. I had no idea such a website existed!
Here is a link to the forum:
http://forum.purseblog.com/louis-vuitton-shopping/goodbye-louis-vuitton-493328.html#post11981351
The next step is to send a letter to the President of LV. At this point we might as well see it all the way to the top.
Thanks everyone!
Hi Fiance!
I'm going to have to agree with "Dog Ate...". I completely understand where you're coming from, $700 is a lot of money and, for that amount, one would expect an investment piece that will last a life time. However, unfortunately, Louis Vuitton probably sees your fiancee as liability. It's a no win situation for them since they've already burned their bridge.
1) They fix her bag for free, she still hates them and never shops at LV again. You've already done all the negative PR you can do so at this point, they're just wasting their money and resource fixing her bag.
2) They don't do anything and the negative press this is generating doesn't matter because, frankly, anyone who's going to be deterred from buying LV products after reading these posts are probably people they aren't interested in getting or keeping.
Besides, once you told them it's already made it to a popular blog, you've taken away any incentive for them to help you. Bad press is already out there.
3) They can try to make this right by going above and beyond, like a free bag or something. You go on-line and say, "Hey, it's all good now, LV gave my financee a new bag!" and, next thing you know, LV is bombarded with other "1 bag in a lifetime" customers clamoring for the same service.
And, don't take this the wrong way, you handling the situation on behalf of your fiancee probably didn't help the situation. I think it made your fiancee seem too weak and non-confrontational. If they think they can push her around, they will.
So yeah, I agree with the above comment, sell it and move on. Be honest, if LV does offer to fix the bag for free, would your fiancee even want it anymore?
Oh, and if it does make it to Consumerists, be prepared to get a lot of "WTF! Who spends $700 on a bag?! What do you expect from a snooty purse company?!" kind of responses. Consumerist readers aren't exactly known for their kindness towards people who purchase "frivolous" things.
Refer the LV people to the you tube video "United Breaks Guitars", and see what they say then... Word of mouth or these days blogging or you tube is the best was to get your point across. Bon Chance.
Sorry -- am I the only one who agrees that the fiance should not have used LinkedIn to contact people who are in no way related to customer service? A letter to the President\complaints department\company in general fine, but the General Counsel? Maybe make sure that your use is in accordance with LinkedIn's policy and terms.
I'm going off on a tangent here, but I'm genuinely curious about something: What is the deal with LV in the first place? I can't say that I know the product line, but a lot of these bags that run hundreds if not thousands of dollars are just plastic coated canvas with a little bit of leather trim, right? Why the heck are they so expensive?
God that's awful. I hope they get some sort of resolution!
fz - I'm not sure I ever saw the appeal of them. Then again when something is THAT expensive I tend to think it is overpriced to begin with which makes them unappealing to me.
Personally, I also hate having something that everyone else seems to have as well.
Contacting random execs at LVMH was totally inappropriate. Ms. Firestone was correct in her response.
It's apparent LV wouldn't budge on this one. Even though they're wrong, they've taken the attitude that your fiancee is not important enough of a customer to lose, especially if she's a first time customer.
It appears that it doesn't matter who you contact in LV, they will not do anything about it.
Going to small claims court (since the amount is under $5k) would be an even better solution at this point.
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That's really rude. I felt sorry for your little girl. That manager should be fired. He didn't know how to handle such situation.Well, true, he sucks.
louis vuitton
Good Customer Service is a rare thing at the present time. Although companies offering the same services are numerous and have somehow to drift on the market they still do not care about their clients. And the worst thing is that the customer services of these companies do not care about the filed complaints. They simply ignore them. What a mess!
LV employees work their a**** off trying please whiny people like you who think they deserve something for nothing. Own up to the fact that you ruined your bag by using it every day when it isnt meant to be. Obviously you love the bag and the LV look so much, or you wouldn't use it everyday. Admit that you wore it out by enjoying every minute you got to show it off with pride, and pay for the repair. Be thankful that the bag was even in a repairable condition based on the way you have been using it. I dont mean to be rude, I am just trying to provide a different point of view. Thank you very much.
Interesting article as for me. It would be great to read a bit more about that topic.
I am surprised that anybody even wants to carry those crappy bags---let alone work for them!
I heard about a lawsuit by a former LV employee who got fired after asking for time off for Jewish holidays and for warning the company that it was against the law to sell purses made out of ENDANGERED SPECIES!!!
That should be a fun lawsuit.
I am shocked that PITA has not taken action against Louis Vuitton.
I also think louis vuitton has terrible customer service. i spent over 30,000 dollars in one year and recieved a damaged pair of sunglaases for 590.00. LV stated they NEVER LET MERCHANDISE LEAVE THIER STORE DAMAGED. They actually incinuated that I had in fact damaged the glasses and tried to return the. The store manager at westfarms store in CT> also called me by my first name and handled the situation very unprofessional. Also a couples months later my son lost a 1700.00 gift card and I was told that it cannot be tracked or replaced and that thier answer was "so sorry'
Very interesting story. I recently attempted an exchange of an item because my wife wanted a larger size bag than the one I bought her. Long story short, telephone customer service gave me erroneous information regarding the deadline for exchange, and also indicated they would call me back with a decision (they never called back). When I called a second time to pursue the issue further, they denied having ever heard from me previously and told me they would not grant me the exchange. A letter written to the Director of Customer Relations thats included USPS delivery confirmation was REJECTED and returned to me undelivered. An absurd company in my opinion. Are all LV employees dismissive and deceitful? Probably not; but I have yet to get ANYWHERE regarding the issue.
My husband bought a purse for me in the LV section of Selfridges, and was told it could be exchanged for a credit note. When I tried to do so, I was told the credit note was for LV only, not Selfridges as a whole. How is a customer supposed to guess this when buying in a big dept store? And they have a 'no refunds' policy, so I'm stuck with LV. Wouldn't mind if they told you that, despite being a counter in Selfridges, they are completely separate. When called, LV customer Services misinformed me. When I rang LV at Selfridges I was told that they refuse to accept phone calls. Shoddy company. Avoid!!!
Could you please let me know the email address for Ms. Firestone at LVMH?? I need to email them and can't find it anywhere. Thank you.
LV does suck.
And the people working at the stores think they're something special too.
In reality, they're nothing but LOSERS.
Get a life, you LOSERS.
Hi guys it was really interesting to read your comments, If any of you had a second to fill out my survey about Louis Vuitton that would be great! It is for a marketing report for my degree
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GVZT9FL
Thankyou so much!
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