Pottie Awards: Buy Buy Baby

Yes, it is true, my beloved store, has won a Pottie … it may just be a one flusher, but the store I used to value as much as www.revolve.com gets a poo…
 
I am a huge, huge proponent of customer service.  When I went in this past weekend to purchase a new umbrella stroller (I will review) for my son for some upcoming travels, I thought I would run in and run out … but NOOOOOO.  Of course a Saturday is the busiest day of the week in the land of malls, Paramus, NJ, but boy … get a grip.
 
I walked into the stroller department to be greeted by … nobody.  The one sales associate dressed in his royal blue Buy Buy Baby uniform was helping a couple who were on their third baby, with their two other kids, father who was negotiating a deal with his secret service headset exploding from his ear, and a mother who kept rubbing her belly as if that baby needed comforting, in unison with periodically grabbing her toddler daughter by the arm.  The associate kept explaining the latch vs the seatbelt installation, and I was now standing in the group as if I were an in-law, trying to get attention.  I just wanted to know where this one stroller was located.  I was apparently invisible.
 
I strolled around the department to see, if in the mecca of baby and children’s needs there existed another associate to help me with something so obscure as  stroller.  Alas, there was, but she was explaining some car seat system to a young couple who kept repeating questions.   Is it possible a car seat or a stroller was that foreign when you were having a baby?
 
Feeling even more ignored,  I approached the information desk.  “Is there anybody else working in strollers?”  The associate grabbed her lapel mike like she was about to use it for a SCUBA expedition, and whispered, “Associate to strollers…”   She said to me in top secret form. “He will meet you by strollers.”   I felt like I was a CIA agent on a reconnaissance mission.  I ran over to my spot in the sea of strollers where, if you were having a nightmare that you were being attacked by strollers and car seats, this is what it would look like.  And sure as hell, as I was on my way over there, the new associate was snagged by another first time couple who needed help with the car seat curriculum as if tomorrow they were defending a thesis on five point harnesses or they would have to give their baby up for adoption.
 
I said, “excuse me, they just called you for ME.”  He looked at me blankly, “Oh, someone else can help you.” GEEZ..I was losing my cool.  If I didn’t need the stroller, I would have left.   Another blueberry associate approached me…”I NEED YOU…..I said.  Please do not move another inch.  She stared at me.   I need this stroller…”  She pulled one from the display so I could play with it and give it a treat like I was adopting a puppy.   I said, ok, “I need it in blue…” but she was now talking to another couple who were on a Buy Buy Baby date.  So, while she was talking to them, she stared spewing information into her SCUBA apparatus about my purchase. She was helping me and them at the same time.   I thought for sure I would go home with their infant car seat system and breast pump, and they would get my umbrella stroller at check out.
 
Did I get what I came for?  Yes, I did…after almost 45 minutes…it was unacceptable.  Not enough help, organization or decorum that afternoon from a store I have trusted for about 15  years.
 
Poo…Buy Buy Baby…work on your customer service and realize it’s busy in Paramus on a Saturday…hint…every spot in the parking lot is filled, and yeah,  people have off.
Hire a few car dealers ... they know how to make a sale and work the Saturday crowd. 

---