Weddingbee boards

OK, bear with me, this is a bit long and I will try to sum up.....

Last weekend, I went with my 5 BM's to try on dresses at a store (which will remain nameless until I am ready to post a review about them.)  Bottom line - the experience was less than ideal...even though I told them that I had 5BM's trying on dresses (and they were all from out of town and some from out of country...so this was the ONE day we would all be together), they only let us use one room, while they let the party of 4 women next to us use 3 rooms..... other not-so nice things happened as well....but the bottom line is we were treated kinda like crap.

So, I ended my letter with this: "I was very disappointed with the way XX treated my wedding party, and I hope that you will make this right, and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else." 

This is the reply I received:

"Thank you for taking the time to write us about your experience that you and your bridesmaid had at our store on XX.  We are sorry that your experience at our store is not what you expected as it is not what we expect as well. As you stated this is a busy time of year for us.  When we book appointments, we can only set one fitting room per bridal party.  In your email you stated that there were some open fitting rooms as well as a bridal party that was allowed use of more then one fitting room.  If there were open fitting room, your bridal party should have been allowed to use them.  This information will be passed along to our Trainer and she will review this information with the store and coach them as needed so we can make sure that this doesn't happen to other customers."

How do I reply to this?  I WANT to say:  "Well, good for everyone else, but how does that help MY BM's?"  And something along the lines of "Never planning on using your store again....by the way, all of my BM's are still single - would you like their business when they get married???  (This is a national store)"

Obviously, I can't say that.  What I want is for them to give my BM's a 10% discount on their dresses....anyone have any good way to word a reply?

I think you should just order the dress from somewhere else.  Pearl's Place sells a lot of bridesmaid dresses for way less than the MSRP.  Since your bridesmaids are all over the place anyways, you might as well just get the best deal.

I would just not buy the dresses from there, I don't see why you should get a discount though. 

I apprecaite your comments.  In trying to keep my post brief, I did not mention that all 5 BM's did buy dresses there that evening....due to everyone being from out of town, we really were on a time constraint....and this is the only store that sells in the one country where one of my BM's is from.  If we had the time, I would have just said "screw it" and went elsewhere (because I try not to do business with people who are a-holes to me), but it was either get them there, or just give up on the idea of matching colors for the BM dresses.  So the dresses have already been bought...

Actually...here is the letter I originally sent.....(names removed to protect the store) (sorry it is long):

Dear Sir or Madam, 

I am getting married on June XX 2012, and I had an appointment for my 5 bridesmaids to try on dresses on Saturday, February 4 at XX store (I did not need to buy a wedding dress as I will be wearing my mother's dress for my wedding).  When I called and scheduled the appointment, I made sure to tell the woman that I would have 5 bridesmaids coming in to try on dresses.  I also stressed that we needed enough room for all the girls to try on dresses because most of the girls were from out of town (one was visiting from New Zealand for the weekend) and we only had that afternoon for everyone to find a dress.  I was told this would not be a problem.  When I called to confirm the appointment in early February, I again made sure that the store knew there would be 5 bridesmaids trying on dresses.  And again, I was told that the store was prepared for my 5 friends.

 At the appointment on Saturday evening, XX helped us.  I have nothing but praise for XX - she did a wonderful job (under the circumstances) finding dresses for my bridesmaids.  She was very helpful in suggesting dress styles for my friends and was very pleasant to work with.

 However, I am most displeased with the way the "store" treated us.  When we showed up, we were told that we could only have one dressing room, as the other rooms were booked for the evening.  I understand that this is a busy time of year, but for most of the evening, there were two dressing rooms that were completely empty.  There was another bridal party next to mine, and the bride was trying on a wedding dress.  She had all of her attendants with her too, and apparently was able to reserve two EXTRA dressing rooms for her bridesmaids that sat unused for most of the evening.  When asked if we could use one of the empty rooms, we were told that they were reserved for someone else.  I am sure you can imagine how frustrating it was to see my all FIVE of my bridesmaids trying to share try ONE dressing room, when someone else was clearly able to reserve three rooms even when they did not need them.  It was impossible for all five of my bridesmaids to fit into one room at once and what should have been a fun and exciting occasion rapidly turned into a very stressful and frustrating one.

 Additionally, there were times that my bridesmaids wanted to try on a larger/smaller size in a particular style, only to be told that someone else was trying on the dress.  Often times, it was 20-30 min before the correct size dress was brought to us.  I understand that you only stock samples in certain sizes and, during the busy season, we all have to share.  I have no problem with this. BUT, on SEVERAL occasions, as my bridesmaids came out of the dressing room, another sales assistant would come over to them and ask them to give them the dress ASAP, because someone else in the store wanted to try it on.  Again, it seems like we were given "second class" treatment.  If we were asked to patiently wait for a dress (which we did, with no complaints), then why were my bridesmaids not given the opportunity to at least look at the dresses they were wearing before being asked to pass them on to another party? 

Once again I would like to reiterate that our sales associated, XX, was friendly, polite and sympathetic, but the other sales assistants were rude, unpleasant and made us feel very unwelcome. This is certainly not the level of treatment we were expecting when we decided to come to one of your stores to spend large amounts of money. If we had had time to go elsewhere we would have done so, but unfortunately getting all five bridesmaids together will not happen again until the week of the wedding. All 5 of my bridesmaids bought dresses that afternoon, but I would be very hesitant to recommend XX to anyone else, and really felt like the way that we were treated cast a shadow over the whole experience.

 I was very disappointed with the way XX treated my wedding party, and I hope that you will make this right, and make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. 

Being in the customer service industry, I think that what the store's email said to you was sufficient.  They apologized, and I think that's what you were looking for.  I doubt they'll give you a discount, because presumably you were not the only group that day that had to use the same dressing room.  Did you speak up and ask why the other group was allowed to use multiple rooms when you were not?

What other 'not so nice things' happened?  I doubt they will give you a discount for this incident.