Gasp Jeans, a retail store located in Melbourne stoked a PR disaster last week. The store failed in their PR relations in two ways: one, through the inappropriate behavior from a staff member and the other from their response to the incident.
Keara O’Neil sent an e-mail complaint to Gasp after a crude encounter with one of the store’s sales assistants. Keara stated in her letter that the sales person was pushing her to purchase a dress that did not fit her, and that she didn’t like. He stated things like: “With your figure I really think you should buy it.” He ended up telling her to leave if she didn’t want to buy anything, and stated as she left, “Have fun finding something at Supre.” This comment was used to insult her fashion sense.
If Gasp was thinking about the customer’s well-being in their response to Keara they would have avoided any public disasters. Unfortunately, that did not happen. The response letter was Gasp’s obituary. The response letter was embellished with viral comments, such as;
“[The person] whom served you is a qualified stylist whom has a sixth sense for fashion, and [his] only problem is that he is too good at what he does, and as I am sure you are aware, people whom are talented, generally do not tolerate having their time wasted, which is the reason you were provoked to leave the store.”
This doesn’t sound like an apology letter. The store owner should have apologized for the unforgivable behavior of his staff member, and should have reassured Keara that her business is always welcome at Gasp. In reality, the staff member should have been fired. However, the owner continued to praise the staff member’s fashion talent and went on to say:
‘‘[He] is a retail superstar, who possess unparalleled ability, and I am sorry you feel upset by him, but he knew you were not going to buy anything before you even left your house.”
‘‘Our range is worn by A-list celebrities to the likes of Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez and Katy Perry to name only a few.”
The letter is basically outlining Keara’s lack of fashion sense, and that “her kind” is not welcome at such a high end retailer. I am not sure if it was just the snooty personality of the store owner that aided in writing such a disastrous response letter, or if he was drunk under the table when he wrote it.
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