HoF Update

What a crazy week. After sending my personal shopper post to House of Fraser, and the subsequent comment from a member of their staff, I was emailed by the executive director of brand who had seen all your comments and blog posts about the item.

(Thank you SO much by the way – I was so amazed by the reaction I got, both on here and on Twitter.) He apologised for the comment, and reiterated the womenswear managers offer. I replied back, but politely declined the personal shopper appointment – its going to be a while before I have to dress up for anything (next event planned I think is the Chap Olympiad – which I think the Boy is going to need more help dressing up for than I will. I think I’ve already got a few dresses for that!)

So, he replied, copying in the general manager of the Bristol store and asked for my phone number as they has something they wanted to suggest to me in person rather than via email. I sent it over, and as I was walking home from work, the GM called, to offer me a “VIP Experience”, of spa treatments, manicures and a meal for me and a friend. This was so unexpected, but very very lovely.

I did not write the original post as a complaint, as I’ve said before. I didn’t email House of Fraser to tell them about the post in order to get something out of them. I did it because if I’m going to talk about you, then I want you to know, especially if its not something praising you! (Because if I didn’t tell the person or company I was saying stuff about them, its like talking about them behind their back. I don’t do that.)

I called the Wife (for the uninitiated, the Wife is the best friend.) and told her the update on it. I was informed (!) that of course I would be taking her with me (although that was partly why I was calling)

Everyone I have dealt with at House of Fraser since the comment made by “Marie” has been incredibly apologetic, and has made it clear that the comment was made by “Marie” off her own back. (I don’t blame them by the way. Can any company control what an employee posts online?)

Thank you again for the comments, I found it interesting that so many had felt the same way I did about the personal shopper service, and I hope that this will bring about some changes. It really has shown how powerful social media, word of mouth, etc can be!

Thank you House of Fraser as well – it is unfortunate that things had to go so high up in the chain (when I read that the CEO and Chairman of the company had been made aware of this, I nearly fell off my chair!) but I hope that they are able to take on some of this stuff when dealing with social media in the future.