Why You Might Not Receive Great Service at Chicago's Neiman Marcus

I normally don't shop at Neiman Marcus, but I decided to go there a couple of weeks ago in hopes of finding a cute summer dress and a few accessories. Though Neiman Marcus is a high end specialty store, it is just a place to shop, so I didn't know that I had to be dressed to impress in order to receive great customer service. Since the weather was pretty chilly and I was running errands I just wore a pair of jeans and a sporty overcoat, and though I looked neat and presentable, I wasn't wearing anything that reeked of wealth like a designer handbag or expensive shoes. While I was greeted when I first entered the store by a couple of women in the cosmetics department, when I got to the upper levels of the store I was ignored completely.

I wasn't greeted or even given a friendly smile by any of the three or four associates that I passed as I moved along the store, which was below my expectations for a store of Neiman Marcus' caliber, but I've had that experience at other stores so it wasn't a big deal. But the longer I browsed around the more I felt like people were going out of their way to avoid me. When I went over to a salesperson to ask her a question about where I could locate an item, she quickly hopped over to a phone and then proceeded to have a conversation. Even though she saw me walking towards her before she went to her phone, I decided to wait a few feet in front of her for about thirty or forty seconds thinking that she would acknowledge my presence, so that I would know that she was interested in helping me. But that never happened I was standing right in front of her and instead of looking at me, she actually looked over me and then turned slightly away from me, as if I was bothering her. So I left her station and I wound up finding what I was looking for on my own. Later on I spotted this same salesperson smiling and being friendly to an older, and more expensively dressed customer. In fact all around me I saw other people who looked like they frequented the store being greeted and assisted.