Unprofessional Staff at Angadi. Review on Angadi silks, Bangalore

I had a terrible experience at Angadi Silks recently. Believe me, the store is an attractive place, but without a soul. The store is well placed and very spacious, but the people who run the store don't share the same kind of open-mindedness. A simple saree exchange turned out to be a full-fledged argument with the managers of the store accusing us of being unreasonable and unprofessional. I have bought sarees at several places in and around Bangalore and my experience has been that the shop owners place the highest premium on customer friendliness. Even if the situation is impossible, there is always an attempt to find a solution to the problem to the satisfaction of the customers. The more organized the store the more customer-friendly they become.

But Angadi silks is an exception. They take pride in being professional and being computerized and always going by the rules. What this translates to for customers is that (people behind) the store are wooden-faced, rude, inflexible, unhelpful, customer unfriendly and lack even a semblance of human touch. Maybe Angadi doesn't care about small clients, maybe they don't need to worry about losing insignificant ( in terms of worth) customers, but they are forgetting that the opinions of many such small customers form the overall opinion about this store. If they want to disregard it, it is their loss. I will not gain anything by highlighting these points, but if the owners of this store are serious about their business they will take these suggestions seriously.

We took a saree that was gifted to my wife by a relative for exchange. We travelled more than 25 kms for this only to be sent back by the store without an exchange. Of course we didn't have bill for the saree, but we had the actual saree with Angadi Silks packing. The person at the exchange counter refused to even look at the saree or hear our request. All he kept repeating was that he can't do anything without the bill or the bill number. We tried to reason out that we couldn't possibly have the bill as it was gifted and if they can recognize this as their own product, they should exchange it. But the person at the exchange counter refused to even look at the saree. When insisted, he asked us to talk to a tall lady in one extreme corner of the saree hall. We then went to this lady who didn't even acknowledge our presence at first. We then, started conversation by requesting her for the exchange. Without a smile, the lady retorted saying she cant do anything without the bill and item code. This is not what we had expected from the person who managed the store. We expected a more patient hearing and an attempt to find a solution. She flatly refused to talk to us any further and we had to go out. We were very disappointed with her behavior, but since this was a gifted saree, we thought we had no say and came out of the store.

But I still felt that we could talk to the owner and sort this out. So, I came in and spoke to an elderly gentleman sitting at a counter near the door. Even before I could explain the situation, he gave a pre-meditated response that he couldn't do anything without the bill and the item code. He also told me that they were a professionally run store who could not entertain such things. I was shocked to hear that response. I always thought professionalism meant understanding the human needs and working towards customer satisfaction in a service setup. In this case, the people running the store felt that everything depended on the computer which made them more professional. I tried to ask if there was a possibility of finding out the details of the purchase by searching the date and time of purchase in the computer, they refused to even attempt that solution saying that their computer never maintained the time of purchase and it was impossible for them to exchange the item. The tall lady was seen advising this elderly man not entertain 'these people' in Tamil. A third person--a lady--volunteered to help, but when we explained the situation, we heard the same familiar response, that she cant do anything without the bill and the item code. Only that she had a smile on her face was a saving grace.

This felt like poor management and a pathetic excuse. After this experience this is what I felt:

1. The store is poorly managed with little or no concern for customer experience. The store manager is more interested in rules rather than customer satisfaction

   
   




2. There is bureacracy without common sense. The store attendents are not empowered to take any decisions and simply refer the case to their superiors

   
   




3. Nobody seems to own the company. Everyone acted as though it is some job to be done and everyone was more interested in educating us on the rules rather than giving us a solution.

   
   




4. Non-co-operation was evident with none of the so-called responsible people wanting to identify

   
   

themselves with names nor did they want to reveal the name of the owner. I could make out that none of the 3 people we spoke to were owners, but mere managers. If they were owners, they wouldn't have allowed me to go out without a solution.

1. If a customer comes for exchange without bill, the people in the store look at them suspiciously. This is a great disrespect shown to customer/potential customers.

   
   




2. They wereready to fight in public. They wanted to win the argument battle at all costs, but sadly

   
   

they dont realize that they have lost the war of gaining more customers.