Complaint Review: Dillard's - Oklahoma City Oklahoma

Everything said about the Dillard's corporation is true!! We are forced to sell used returned merchandise. The clerk will try to keep with store policy and tell the customer no, but if you call a manager for a second opinion they will tell the customer "why yes, we will take it back." This usually involves taking the time to hunt down a similar item so you can compare prices. I've seen clothes with ink and soda stains get accepted not to metion clothes that were shrunk, smelled like body odor, or were frayed and faded from being washed improperly. Don't forget the fact that a two faced manager makes the clerk look like a liar.

One department manager at my store got her position simply because she was friends with the store manager (she took daily walks with his wife). Another manager is so bad that she has been passed off to every Dillard's store in the Oklahoma City area over a 16 year period. Nobody has the nerve to fire her for fear of a discrimination suit. While no one is perfect, doesn't a good business want managers who are fair and who have some knowledge of things like merchandising, customer service, and consistency?

The first manager mentioned will only give schedule preference to one of the clerks under her management. There are several parents working under her, but this special friend is the only one who gets entire weekends off at least once a month. The other workers have to beg and when they do, they are usually accused of sniveling. This manager belittles her workers in front of the customers and she has also refused to speak to a customer after they had demanded her attention. During Christmas she let her buddy come up from junior's (her usual area) to work in jewlery. Mrs. Manager would give her big $95 sales while all the other co-workers got a measly $10 dollar sale. That really doesn't help in keeping within that 70% margin.

There are also several instances of reverse racism. The manager of my department is African American and will only give breaks to memebers of her own race. A black woman who has been working at Dillard's for only two months has already been suggested as the head of Woman's World. This would be just fine, but the thing is that she is being placed ahead of three caucasian women who have credentials such as Dillard's Pacesetter and Liz Claibourne consultant. The few black women that work in my department can be absent for any reason as long as they like. If it was a white woman she would be asked to come back as soon as possible and she would have to provide a iron clad excuse for her absence. One black woman was out for two weeks because she had a DHS court date. A white woman would be placed under severe scrutiny and quite possibly fired. This woman was let right back in.

As you can see, the personal politics at Dillard's are ridiculous. They see who the top sellers are and they let them work where they please. Those who lack in skills are usually left in the low traffic departments. If you try to negotiate with a manager for better placement, you are usually ignored. Even a talk with store managment doesn't help! The good salesmen are allowed to be late as much as they want. There are some women up there with 11 or 15 tardies which well exceeds the alloted 9. They can also get away with not cleaning the dressing rooms or keeping the department clean.

Fighting among co-workers is encouraged. There is one woman in my department who will yell at co-workers in front of the customers, steal sales, drum co-wrokers out of her area, dump work loads, and tattle over the slighest little thing. However, management won't discipline or talk to her. They keep her up there simply because she is agressive. Several workers in ladies have tried to get help from mangament, but we are often told "it's just her way." I've seen co-workers who clearly don't like each other get put in the same department in an attempt to drum up sales. The management will tell you how bad your sales figures are and try to spook you into being more agressive. Dillard's will assign departments to various employees, but then tell everyone else to barge in there and "get sales!". Basically the people who can get to it first and keep a hold of it can keep their base pay. Either that or people who have no problem with stealing sales.

The friction among co-workers is so bad that there have been shouting matches on the store floor in front of customers. If a customer complains, it does no good. The angry workers will be kept apart for a week then at the end of that period they will probably be working in the same department again.

The tardy and attendace policies are strict beyond reason. Dillard's refuses to acknowledge the fact that car wrecks, family emergencies, and bad weather happen. They say that's what the 5 minute grace period is for. The tardies do get rolled back, but it's after a 6 month period.

The cash registers and markdown guns are, indeed, ancient. When items are at a special price that price will not be programed into the machine. Instead, the clerk has to take the calculator, punch the numbers, and then do a price overide which involes more button pushing. This was real fun when we had our consolidation sale and had to figure the prices on 30 pieces of clothing. It's up to the clerks to do the markdowns, but between making sales and cleaning dressing rooms, things can get overlooked. Needless to say, many items won't have the correct price on them and the customer gets overcharged and/or very upset. Either that or the clerk has to call a manager to do a price check, which is often a waste of time, being as the managers at my store never seem to answer a page of any sort. On any level the customer gets gyped out of their time, money, and effort.

Another hindrance to markdowns is that fact that our 10 year old markdown guns will break down in the middle of scanning a rack. Either that, or they freeze and you have to reboot them. The cash registers are so old that they break down during days of heavy business. Sometimes they stop all together or they will stop performing such functions as returns or gift card processing. More hassle for the customer, not to mention the clerks!

The return policy is too strict for its own good. There have been customers who couldn't return items in the alloted 30 days because they were sick, lived too far away, recieved it as a gift and couldn't return it where they lived, the list is long. However, the manager will tell them "tough." If the pop label is past thirty days you get a lousy gift card. If you actually have the time, you can go down to customer service and see if they will give you your money back, but that takes too much time and effort. The only time this rule is overlooked is if you can contact the store manager or assistant manager. Again, this is time consuming and a matter of whether you can contact either one of the two.

If a customer wants to order something using the MIDD program, they need to keep their fingers crossed. The workers in this department usually don't bother to see if they got the right pant length, shirt color, etc. They just see the brand name and find an item that remotley resembles the requested purchase and then ship it out. There have been customers who have been ripped off 4 times over through this method. The customer then has to take the time to go to their nearsest Dillard's and make a return. That's real easy for those who live in rual Oklahoma. And the thing is, there is no other way to handle a MIDD return.

Finally, while stores like JC Penny's hire a company to come do inventory, Dillard's has their own clerks do it. A shift during this period starts at 3 in the afternoon and lasts until 2 in the morning. You are often expected to come in the next day and tend to business as usual. Our last inventory count was off by thousands of dollars and that was the ladies department alone.

Employee protection is a laugh. For a start employees are not assigned a number, but have to use their own social security number. This is used for every piece of paperwork you fill out and is also typed in when you ring a sale. If you have to go to lunch or the restroom you can miss out on a sale, that is unless you are brave or crazy enough to leave your SS number at the cash register. There has been a case of identity fraud at the Dillard's that I work at. There are lockers for your valuables but there aren't enough to go around. They are also kept in the loading dock so somedays you have to move three racks of frieght just to get to your locker. I had to stop using mine because something got slammed into the door, hence making the locker unusable. Purses are being stolen constantly and the rub is that it's usually a co-worker who does the stealing. Employees aren't screened for anything. They only care about good salesmen.

Our store manager and many co-workers only want a certain type shopping at our store. During a meeting our manager made a comment about the type of shopper that was in our store during a consolidation sale: "Folks, I know we're making sales, but if I held up half the people that were shopping with us last night, I don't think I would have gotten a hundred dollars off of them." He's alwyas on about how he wants "quality people" shopping in our store. I've had African American customers come up and tell me how the clerks ignore them or argue with them. I've also heard the same complaints from Joe and Jane Average as well. You are most likely to get good service if you are white and look like you come from fifth generation wealth.

Dillard's wants to be on the same level as Macy's or Nordstrom's but has neither the competence or willingness to do so. Save your time and money and shop elsewhere.

Amanda

Edmond, Oklahoma
U.S.A.