Brooks Brothers Clothing

Please read below for our response to the complaint filed against our store in downtown ***. Thanks and have a great day!
February 11,
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Dear *** *** ***
I am writing in response to a complaint that was filed with you all via a customer of ours here at Brooks Brothers of* ***, SC. The customer’s complaint is in regard to a lavender French cuff dress shirt that was purchased as a part of a shirt package deal. The customer claims “two of the shirts were correct and the other (lavender) was a completely different shirt except for the color”. As a matter of fact, the cuff of this shirt in question is one that is clearly displayed on the shirt’s front as it is represented with a silk knot cuff link indicating the fact that it is the style known as “French cuff”. The client would have had plenty of chance to not only see this, but object to it at the time of purchase and request another. Additionally, since the shirt was requested to be monogrammed above the watch, which is where the cuff of a dress shirt always lands, it would have been obvious to the customer that the French cuff would be monogrammed. As a monogram is considered an alteration, once this process is completed, the shirt is no longer a piece of saleable merchandise and it clearly states on our return policy that altered merchandise will not be returned.
On receiving in the monogrammed shirt in question with the other two that were purchased, the customer, did not in fact call or return to the store personally, but instead sent over an employee of the customer’s business with the lavender French cuff shirt in question crumpled up in a bag with no receipt and a puncture hole in the front of the garment in question. I was brought into the conversation as the store manager at this point as my employees were at a loss of what to do with the damaged and altered garment. I spoke to the representative of the customer and asked what they would desire to be done. The answer I received was that a refund was wanted. I was of course reluctant to process the refund because of both my return policy and also the damage to the shirt. But, wishing to resolve the situation professionally, I requested the telephone number of the customer from this representative and gave a call myself. On reaching the customer, I asked again what the request was and how I could accommodate. The request was made that I refund the customer’s money because it was unbeknownst to them that this shirt was a French cuff shirt, despite the obvious indicators mentioned before. My response was that, as a company, Brooks Brothers had a return policy that prevented damaged or altered and non-saleable merchandise from being refunded. After speaking to this point, I was told by the customer that they had been in business for years in *** and “I didn’t want it to get out to the customer’s network that this was how Brooks Brothers did business did I?” As you can imagine, I did not appreciate this open threat from the customer. At the time, and throughout the process, when this threat was repeatedly uttered to myself and my employees, I didn’t tell the customer that I didn’t appreciate this threat or become ugly with this customer in any way. In the interests of professionally settling the issue and not stooping to the level of this customer, I agreed to replace the shirt at our cost, but only this one time for the customer. I made it clear that this type of behavior was unacceptable and would not be tolerated after this instance.
From here the customer claims that I assisted him in picking out another shirt to be the replacement shirt. I attempted to do just this, and in my efforts, learned that the only shirt matching this exact color was in fact the French cuff shirt in question that the customer didn’t care for. After letting the customer know this, I offered to get on our website and pick out another shirt for our customer that was in a comparable price range and that the associate originally helping the customer would order to be monogrammed. The customer said that this would be done and that they would get back to us with the selected shirt. After not hearing back from the customer and having to call him several times, of which he was almost always out of his office, I had my associate look up some comparable shirts for the customer and call him back with these styles in the hopes that he would make a decision of which one to order. When the associate never heard back from the customer, he went ahead and reordered the same shirt for the customer since the one he had brought back and rejected for being French cuffed was damaged. Upon arrival of the ordered shirt in store, I called the customer to let them know it was here. I didn’t realize at the time it was in fact the same shirt that had originally been rejected. Upon the customer arriving in store a few days later to pick up the shirt, we realized it was in fact the same shirt and had no monogram on the cuff because we had never heard back from the customer after several tries. Additionally, it should be mentioned again here that this was the first time the customer had set foot in our store since the original purchase date and had almost completely tried to communicate through an employee of his. Further, the associate that was attempting the help the customer at that point that day stated that he spoke to the customer and tried to order the “correct” shirt once it was realized we had the French cuff shirt again and the customer stated that they “didn’t have time for that and that the associate had to figure out what it was the customer needed”. After saying this and not giving the associate even the chance to assist, the customer left the premises. At this point, the customer claims “ I was called and advised today, 1/13/14, after waiting to see the manager for over minutes and finally heading back to my office, that I would need to come in again and go through the while ordering process a third time….”
After hearing of the customer leaving after refusing to be helped, I reached out to the customer by telephone asking what it was they would like for us to do, again attempting to accommodate. At this point the same threat about bad mouthing our store was uttered and the customer decided they would just like their money back. I agreed to refund the selling price and requested that the customer visit the store with the credit card used so the refund could be processed. The customer declined and stated very degradingly that someone from our office could bring it down to his office on our time or send a check by mail because he didn’t have time for us. I said I would be glad to refund the money, but that the customer would need to come to the store in person to receive the funds requested. After his refusing to do this, in exasperation at the uncooperative nature of the customer, I simply refunded the shirt in question (as a reminder had been altered and damaged by the customer) and had our corporate office mail a check to the customer. It was after all this that the customer decided to issue his complaint with you all.
Thanks so much for allowing me to provide the story in its entirety and have a nice day!
Sincerely,
*** ***
Store ManagerBrooks Brothers
*** *** *** *** *** ***, SC
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