fantastic customer service (John Lewis)

Member Name: k8eh

Product:	John Lewis
Date:	18/10/09 (224 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: everything

Disadvantages: only that they couldnt alter this particular watch there and then

The John Lewis store I am choosing to review is located in St David's Centre, Cardiff. John Lewis Cardiff recently opened it's doors on the 24th September 2009 and is Wales' largest department store.

Myself and my boyfriend live in South Wales, so to visit John Lewis we would have to travel to Cribbs Causeway, Bristol, each time paying a small fortune in petrol and bridge toll. When the new John Lewis, Cardiff opened we were thrilled. It is only 10 minutes down the road from our house so we decided to check it out and also search for a watch for my boyfriends birthday.

As John Lewis is such a large store with such a range of products and services I have decided not to babble on with lists of departments and so on, as most people will already know that it is a department store, instead my review will focus on the Watch department as this is where I made my first purchase.

The watch department is located on the first floor and is the area you meet once stepping off the escalator. It's an array of black shiny surfaced stands with lots of stylish watches sparkling at you. It has a collection of designer brands such as D&G and Diesel and the A-Listers of Watches such as Tissot and Citizen.

Although it was a birthday present, I refused to spend a fortune. And given my 'tight' attitude and the fact that I was in John Lewis (which we all know isn't the cheapest) I was pleasantly surprised to find that there were watches available within my budget.

My boyfriend is quite a quirky guy with an individual style. He likes bright colours and like to wear things he knows noone else would be wearing. Within a minute or so of browsing, a lady approaching and asked if she could help. I gave her the above specification and told her I didn't want to spend too much. She nodded and left us, only to come back with 3 watches in hand.

The first was quite funky, a D&G silver bracelet watch with colour hands and face. The second was unusual, quite chunky and actually reminded me of a broken tv due to its colour stripes and the third was perfection, I knew it was my boyfriend as soon as I saw it, and the way his eyes lit up I could tell he agreed.

I was very impressed with the assistant as she had found us the watch we wanted within minutes of arrival and she knew her product inside out. She asked questions I wouldn 't have thought to ask like, "Where on your wrist do you prefer to wear it?" "How tight/loose do you like it?". She was very practical and very helpful.

We had established early on that third watch would be the watch we'd be leaving with, it was a bracelet style Diesel watch with a large purple face and metallic green hands, sounds quite hideous but it's gorgeous and suits my man completely!

Now it came to fitting, he's only got little wrists we knew it would probably need altering. The assistant took it away to have a link removed, "Feel free to look around the store and come back when you're ready, we'll be about 5 minutes." Again, I was happy with this, as instead of expecting us to wait she gave us the option of coming back and the flexibility of coming back when we wanted.

When we returned we were disappointed that they didn't have the right tools for the job. But we knew we wanted that watch so decided to purchase anyway. We came to the agreement that we would buy the watch and have a link removed elsewhere. The assistant then told us that if we wished to do that, keep the receipt from the link removal and they would reimburse us. An unnecessary service in my eyes but a kind gesture indeed.

She wrapped the watch for us and explained about the warranty, took note of our names and what we bought and the reimbursement agreement and told us to come back and ask for her.

Overall I was very impressed with the service I received. I found what I was looking for almost immediately with her help and would be reimbursed for any alteration costs. If we had any problems we could refer back to this particular assistant as she had given us her name.

A few days later we had the watch altered, but it cost a mere £3 so we didn't return for the reimbursement.

I would definately recommend John Lewis, our assistant was very helpful and knew her product inside out and I know that this applies in every area of the store. The staff are very professional and friendly and make it a pleasure to shop at John Lewis.

Summary: ...