we’ve all done it—whether it’s impulse purchases or we’re just tempted by the 50% markdowns despite never trying on the item. final sale is final sale right?

…not always the case. if your items truly do not work out for you for any reason (defects, color not as expected/not flattering, quality isn’t up to standard, sizing, etc.) make sure to reach out to concierge anyways to see if it is possible to get a refund, store credit, or do an exchange. and do not be afraid to contact them via different methods like online chat and by phone.

each concierge employee will give different answers so it really doesn’t hurt to reach out again if you don’t get a good result the first time AS LONG AS YOU’RE KIND ABOUT IT! i think that’s the most important part that’ll get you some more wiggle room. it’s not guaranteed to work, but try your luck especially since you’re spending your hard earned money here!

feel free to drop your concierge experiences below regarding final sale items in case it may help someone else :)

If anyone is interested, I have an update from the email I sent to concierge yesterday re: their return policies and being granted a “final exception” return.

I received an email from someone who claimed to be in leadership at the company asking if she could call me today to discuss. She called me and started by relaying her understanding of the situation and acknowledging that the employee’s language in her email to me was not appropriate (in italics: “A friendly reminder again, this is your final return exception -- should this issue reoccur, we will not be able to provide you with the same resolution.” For context if you didn’t read my original post, this was written to me in an email I received after I was told via concierge chat that I would not be granted an exception to return a pair of jeans 2 days past the return cutoff date due to “numerous previous return exceptions”. Which is what prompted my lengthy email response I posted yesterday).

She stated that the situation could have been handled better and that the employees involved have been corrected. We then proceeded to have a conversation about Aritzia policies and inconsistent concierge practices. I told her that I am not upset with any one individual at concierge as I recognize they are doing their best to abide by policy, so it is really the policies that are the root causes of these issues. In particular, I voiced frustration over 1) sale items being “final sale” when purchased in store, 2) the short 14 day return window for full refunds on full price items only, return for store credit at 14-30 days after and 3) sale items purchased online being returnable for store credit only, within that same 14 day window.

She assured me that she understood how these policies can become barriers to customers, especially loyal and high spending customers, and that it is her expectation that staff treat these policies more as guidelines than as hard and fast rules. She also said that she does not want her staff going and referencing previous case note to find examples of previous “exceptions” and holding those against customers, as was the case here. She said each situation should be treated as separate and unique. She promised that both of these points would be shared back with staff, although she acknowledge the difficulties of consistent training when their team is large and spans accords 3 different centers across Canada.

Finally, I asked what this meant for me as a customer. I told her that I am at a crossroads where I can either continue shopping at Aritzia only if I can be assured I will not have a similar experience in the future (AND not be blacklisted from future returns, like was threatened by the agent) OR I can stop shopping there altogether. She assured me that I will not have a similar experience (at least with concierge) and it is her expectation that all of her agents work to make things right for the customer even if it goes against what is formally adopted as policy.

I also got her word that our conversation would be documented.

So, I’m not sure how much of that I believe but we’ll see. I appreciated the follow up and follow through but I’m doubtful it will mean any significant changes in the way of employee training and customer service. And I’m even MORE doubtful that we’ll see any changes to their return policy in the near future, even though she did assure me they are working hard to adapt to their growth and larger presence in the US, as well as to stay competitive with other retailers’ policies. As for whether I continue to shop there….I am definitely taking a step back. After hearing all of your stories, I am just so turned off by Aritzia and I’m optimistic about some of the other retailers you all mentioned as being more reminiscent of the old, pre-pandemic Aritzia in terms of quality.

Original post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aritzia/comments/vrcxhv/i_am_fed_up_with_aritzias_terrible_return_policy/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Hi all. Where is the location of the Aritzia support office in Toronto? Google seems to come back with three different locations, one of which is a house. There's a lot of Tiktok videos inside the office, but also don't say where it is.

Hi piggybacking off the recent post from u/hunnybunny25 about working concierge to give more tea on what it’s like to actually work there and why the turnover is so high. Hopefully some of this also explains the complains you have about Aritzia! The job listings do not begin to encapsulate what is expected in this role. I was drawn by the clothing discount / voucher and ok pay, but HOLY this job was not good for my mental health at all, and I overall not recommend either. If you’re applying, please keep these things in mind!

1. Ridiculous expectations for what you’re paid

We have 3 channels; phones, live chats, emails. I thought phones was bad because you had to get yelled at live… Live chat you have to maintain 3 chats at once, emails you have to solve a bunch of cases per hour and publicly say in zoom how many you solve every hour or so. It’s almost impossible to do sometimes, as we manage multiple customers at once, talking to them while also solving their problems all at once but only having one set of software. Sometimes, we are on “multi routing” meaning we do more than one channel at once (on the phone while also on chat, on emails while also on phone etc). Every interaction, we have to make very detailed memo notes about the call; we get 3 maybe 5 minutes per note. I have had to work past my shift just to finish my notes that I couldn’t and I was not paid overtime. You also have zero breather between customers, even if it’s a really hard case. As soon as you click wrap up (after you’re done your 3 minute notes), another customer pops up and you have to accept it. And this is for 9 hours straight.

2. Programs don’t work

Our computers are laggy AF! We use a combination of a million programs and applications to get shit done. A lot of things are way more complicated than they need be (for example customers will assume we can see basic info about their order when a lot of times it takes alot of digging in various programs). And half the time, our programs are frozen or don’t work properly. A customer can be on the phone asking about her order, and I’m here trying to find things to say while the order search software is completely down or frozen (we’re not allowed to disclose that it’s not working to the customer). It did teach me how to lie and how to be quick thinking on my feet, since we can’t have the call be silent.

3. MICROMANAGEMENT

This is the main reason I quit. Im very tolerant person and generally mild temper, but I almost lost my shit multiple times due to the micromanagement. Every few minutes you are messaged by the managers if you take longer than 5 minutes to write a note, and you have to communicate literally EVERYTHING in the channel wide zoom group chat. Stepping away for literally 30 sec - 1 minute to grab a water from your fridge you need to message on zoom, and you need to message when you’re back too. You want to take an additional minute to send out some emails? Message on zoom. Everyone also messages you under a very thin veil of pretending to help but has huge undertones of being judgemental and really is just telling you off and makes me highly uncomfortable. Ironically, the few times you ask a question in the group chat and need a manager to reply asap, they don’t, so we have to make stuff up to the customer if we don’t know the answer.

4. Sales targets

As Hunnybunny25 mentioned, we have sales targets of minimum $50 an hour LOL. And to make it even better, returns DEDUCT FROM YOUR SALES! Most people call/message concierge for return assistance (because of our infamous shit return policy), and we try very hard not to have to help you because it fucks up our sales which are hard af to get to begin with and we get punished for it. I don’t even know how this makes sense, wouldn’t you want to incentivize your workers to actually HELP customers with their needs, and not punish them for it?? There were times where customers have told me bad circumstances and I want to make a return exception for them SO BAD, but I can’t, because it’s a pricier item and will completely ruin my sales for the week and land me in hot water, or we are not allowed. It stresses me out so much and makes me feel so horrible. Not to mention sales get stolen all the time, you finally make a sale and someone else has to put in the process, instead of writing your employee number they write their own. SIGH. We have to make sales from making it sound like we’re doing something that the customer can’t do themselves (i.e “I can help you order it from the back end so it’s processed quicker’ when it doesn’t make a single difference), or by pressuring our customers when they just want to be left alone and helped with their order.

5. Disorganization

Sometimes I wonder how Aritzia is still a functional company. A FUCK load of disorganization at all levels. I have gotten in trouble for doing / saying one thing how I was taught during training or by a manager, only for another manager to tell me something completely different. Half the time it’s just rolling the dice on whether the way you’re doing things is right or not. I am a diehard Aritzia shopper but some things do not make sense at all! For example, a lot of times people will call asking about an order they placed in lets say, July 2021. The special order is due for September 2021, and by November, they message asking why their order still hasn’t shipped. I check our delayed orders report (which is an excel sheet lol), the order isn’t on there…. there’s zero record of why / where the order is and I obviously can’t say “oh I don’t know”. Sometimes the schedule doesn’t have our name on it so we don’t know where our desks are, sometimes someone gets sent a totally different item, a lot of times there’s miscommunication between people… I can go on and on and on about this!

6. High levels of cringe behaviour

Ok maybe I’m being petty but some of this stuff is really cringe. We have to use what’s called “Aritzia Voice” and are constantly reminded by upper management to do everything with our “Aritzia Voice”. The company has WAY too many unnecessary acronyms (ex. Info is called A and you have to say A instead of info). Everything is worded in a way that seems really fake, I’m not quite sure how to explain this one exactly but other concierge employees probably know what I’m talking about.

Other random weird stuff (almost tempted to do an AMA now because there's so much and I keep coming back to add points)

• if you ask for a manager, a lot of the times we are not allowed to actually send you to our manager. This is awkward because the customer is mad and refuses to speak with us, but the manager refuses to speak with the customer so we have to find a way to tell the customer that they have to talk to us without pissing them off more.

• People are VERY gossipy!! I've seen people get a weird or annoying customer and then look up their house in google maps to shit talk them... it was really unnerving because now I don't trust CS. Feels like a big invasion of privacy

• super culty - from verbiage overload to "Aritzia University" to "Our Best Way" you literally have to live breathe and shit Aritzia

• We don’t have restock information at all / product measurement information, so when asked about product knowledge it’s a little awks at times

• Training consists of like 2 days of going over programs then you’re working with real clients even though you have no idea what or how you’re supposed to help

• Corporate stuff sometimes is incorrect / missing (I can’t be specific here)

• much more but this is getting way too long

TLDR; 2/10 wouldn’t recommend, when you guys call in complaining about us, it takes everything in us to not be like “GIRL HONESTLY SAME”. At least the discount was lit for the 2 days that i got to use it for though.

Has anybody had any luck with concierge? I’ve tried to do chat and they can never get me into contact with a stylist. I’ve called three different times on different days waiting up to an hour until I give up. Im trying to figure out how to put my gift card info on the app so I can also get the 20% off but haven’t seen any other posts about it 😅 help!

Update: I called and used pressing 2 (modifying order) instead of other questions and they said there is no way to add the giftcard on the app and can’t be done on their end either. So it’s between using the giftcard card no sale or 20% lol this is so dumb!!! Lucky to whoever was able to use both.