my letter to Dicks Sporting Goods.

My daughter and I went into Dicks Sporting Goods at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake yesterday. We wandered all over Ladies Apparel looking for volleyball shorts. We couldn't find them. The store seemed deserted. We are always short on time so we looked all over the entire lower level for someone to help us. Desperate times call for desperate measures and we happened to pass a ladder. If you climb a ladder in a store people will swarm to you like flies and you'll get in trouble. It is a safety hazard right? I'm not a little woman. I'm getting close to 50 and my idea of exercise is a nice brisk sit. I am, however, a protective mama bear and I'm certainly not going to send my young, sleek, athletic daughter up the ladder because I wouldn't want her to get in trouble. I climbed the ladder fully expecting to get swarmed by people telling me to get down. Nothing.
I started to take things off the display wall and wave them around. Oh my, what a silly goose.
Nothing.
No one came to help . I figured the ladder was in an area that was too isolated and no one could see me making a fool of myself. I carried the ladder out into the isle between Lady's Apparel and Shoes and climbed up again. I don't know how you could not notice a large woman on top of a ladder in the middle of a large isle. But no one noticed me. There were some very nice neon socks on one of the end displays and I asked my daughter to throw them to me. Now she's a senior and a 3 sport varsity athlete, volleyball, basketball and softball and has played on the varsity team as early as her freshman year. She can really throw. We started throwing back and forth across isles and over displays. Still nothing. We got a little louder and sillier. Every minute of the anticipation of getting in trouble was just making the flying neon socks seem more and more tense. At this point you have a large older woman standing on top of a ladder in the middle of the store throwing neon socks back and forth over isles and displays. Someone is going to notice any minute....
Nothing.
Doesn't this store have any security?
By now I've been making a fool out of myself for a good 20 minutes and still nothing. I asked my daughter to toss me a mannequin.
It's a good thing she has a good head on her shoulders or I would have been tossing a mannequin.
By now it obvious to me my tactics aren't getting me anywhere and I'm not going to find help in the store. I looked up the number of the store and called while I was still sitting on the ladder. I talked to Nick, who was very nice. I told him I was standing on a ladder in the middle of the store and if someone didn't help me soon we were going to put all the sports equipment on my daughter that she could possibly ever need and leave.
No one was going to see us anyway because there wasn't anyone in the store.
He told me to head to the rock wall and turn right. Volleyball shorts aren't in Ladies Apparel, they're in team sports. Duh. Of course he didn't believe me. Who would take anyone seriously who claims to be standing on a ladder in the middle of the floor and claims they're just about to steal an entire wardrobe of sporting equipment. We left Ladies Apparel and wandered team sports still looking for volleyball shorts.
By now we've been in the store for over an hour part of the time making complete fools out of ourselves, still we have not seen an associate and we're still having trouble finding volleyball shorts. I knew the brand the size and the color etc. I should have been able to find an associate and get what I wanted and be out of the store in five minutes. OK, that's pushing it. Maybe 10 minutes and with a little extra shopping 15 minutes max.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied a green shirt. If I wasn't a hunter, trained to look for movement on a vast canyon on a mountain reaching to the limits of the earth, I doubt I would have seen him. I raced as quickly as a vertically challenged waddling woman can race and I found Kyle.
Kyle stopped what he was doing and actually took me to where the volleyball shorts were. My experience and keen ability to spot my prey got me the ultimate prize. A sales associate who knew where the volleyball shorts were.
With Kyles help, we had our shorts and now all we needed was the ability to pay and leave.
But our adventure had just begun. We still had to make it through the check out.
There were two sales in front of us. The man directly in front of us had a shoe box in his hand and the clerk was helping one other couple ahead of him. From what I could tell from the phone conversation the clerk was having, the couple had purchased something and had also purchased a warranty. However, they had returned the warranty. Now, whatever it was they had purchased had fallen apart and they were there to try to get an exchange on it. After we heard her explain this to several different people on the phone and also to the couple, I had the story down pat. We stood... and we stood... and we stood... and we stood. Finally the woman who was part of this couple stepped away from the cash register to sit down. I realized then we were going to be another long while.
Another man came to stand in line behind us.
That's when I notice there was another sales associate standing by the door. where was he when we were trying to get some assistance. After a few more minutes of waiting for this return/exchange or scam that was going on at the front of the line the associate by the door came over and said hew was trying to get us another cashier because he wasn't trained on the registers. Cool. That was almost like customer service. After several more minutes, Kyle came walking up to a register. Since we were such good friends by now, we addressed him by name. "Hello Kyle!"
Behind Kyle was a family carrying their purchases with them. It seemed to me it was coincidence they walked up together. Kyle had not been helping them, they just happened to walk up at the same time. Kyle stepped behind the register and said, "I can help the next person in line who is paying with credit or debit."
To me the next person in line would have been the man with the shoe box. The shoe box man handed his shoes to Kyle, but Kyle said the shoe box man had to walk around the counter to the other side of the register. In the meantime the family, who had the advantage of not having to wait for people behind them to move in order to walk around the counter to the other side of the register, placed their items on the counter and Kyle checked them out. We waived the shoe box man to come in front of us, but he kindly declined, set his shoe box down and walked out of the store.
If shoe box man had been having the same kind of day in Dicks that we had, could you blame him. If I didn't have to have those shorts that day, I would have left too and as it is, I doubt I'll be back. It's one thing to not have someone available to help you right away. It something completely different to be so understaffed or to have your staff so undertrained that a 15 minute shopping trip ends up taking an hour and a half..
You always hear that when someone has a bad experience they tell 3 people. You need to understand my family in order to know how many people I will tell.
My husband helps coach all of my daughters sports. He played football and baseball at the U but his love is basketball. He's 50 years old and plays on 4 softball teams. He majored in commercial recreation in school. A major where the final job is making sure people know how to recreate. My oldest daughter is the three sport athlete and my younger daughter also plays basketball and is on a swim team.
My entire family and extended family hunt. We take several weeks off during different times of the year to hunt everything from spring turkeys, deer, elk, moose, buffalo and even coyotes and we camp the entire time. My oldest daughter shot a bear when she was 12. We are not a family of one shot sales and we have a lot of friends who share our interests.
Although I'm not as athletic as the rest of the family, my forte is being the team mom and I have the ability to bring attention to things that need attention, if it's fundraising or increasing spirit. I'm not afraid to stand up and let my voice be heard, or stand on a ladder and throw neon socks all over the store to try to get help. Last year my daughters high school team even had a jersey made for me with "Mama Russell" printed on the back because I'm a staple at all the games. We are very involved in sports of every kind. We are very active with people who are involved in sports and everything your store sells and I am very unhappy with your customer service.
I also work at a large corporation with hundreds of people every day. A full time job, a full time mom and a full time fan takes a lot of time and I'm involved with a lot of people.
This weekend is the big "East West" volleyball tournament at my daughters school. I'll be working in the concession stand and have a chance to speak to girls from all over the state.
I'm going to give you a chance to change my mind. Make me think you care about my experience and my opinion. A corporate sponsorship to women's sports at East High School would be just the ticket.

Thanks,
Karen Russell