POOR CUSTOMER SERVICE
I'm writing my review on here after Capital Gardens ltd failed to respond to my customer service complaint from their site regarding absolutely poor service at the Wandsworth centre.
I love coming to the Wandsworth centre, so much so I travel quite far on public transport to get there and have spent a ridiculous amount of money there as an avid house plant collector. The plant quality and price is second to none however sadly I don't think I'll be coming back due to such poor poor customer service I experienced recently.
Two weeks ago I visited to collect terrarium plants and various bits to create them as gifts for Christmas. As I entered the gates I immediately saw the horticulture gravel and collect a large bag, is was of course extremely heavy so I saw four green baskets on wheels and picked one up to put my gravel bag in. I happily wandered indoors peacefully listening to my music when I was stopped abruptly by an angry older women (whitish grey hair maybe in her early 60s). She shouted "where did you get that basket!?!" At this point all other customers stopped to look. In embarrassment I explained I had collected it in the customer car park. She shook her head still frowning and said "well you shouldn't be using those they're old!!" Surprised at how she was treating a customer I didn't know what to do I just carried on looking hoping she might offer a replacement and perhaps grab one for me but no, she shook her head again and carried on replenishing shelves. Another customer looked at me confused and amused so I carried on into the houseplant home ware section. It completely tarnished my shopping experience so I just wanted to get what I needed and leave. If I hadn't traveled walked so far I would've left.
I got my plants etc and decided to walk outdoors as I remembered I needed to buy a friend a birthday gift too and thought an alpine succulent arrangement would be nice. As I made my way over I saw that section had been blocked off as they were having Christmas tree deliveries. However, I could still still other customers shopping in that area so assumed maybe I had to follow a one way system to avoid the delivery unloads. So I asked another older lady who was wrapping Christmas trees for customers how I might enter. Abruptly she said "you can't!! We have deliveries". She didn't even look up or explain at what time I might be able to enter which would be BASIC customer service. To be honest, in my opinion, I thought she might ask what in the area I was interested in and perhaps offer to bring it over but no. She just ignored me.
So that is two very very poor customer service interactions within the space of 10 minutes or less. I work in customer service in a very intense role and I know this is a testing time for everyone but wow, manners are just super basic that anyone should have in a role such as this. A garden centre should be a friendly environment, a little bit of escapism and be welcoming. After all they are being paid to represent a company and quite frankly they're doing a terrible job.
At checkout, of course I ran straight there eager to get the hell out. One women looked insanely miserable I stood there a while waiting politely to be called forward to adhere to social distancing and she just sat there staring into the abyss. Realising she clearly couldn't be bothered to serve anyone I walked around to the second checkout by the exit door and was eventually greeted by a lovely guy who was very happy to help and made up for the absolute crap experience.
When I came home I told my partner about the experience and she said "well what were you expecting, they were rude last week too" - we had actually gone for a Christmas tree the week before and didn't get one with our experience and I had totally forgot.
It's cheaper but pay a bit more elsewhere for better service.
