Andrew W.
Yelp
In a nutshell: Decent selection of books, bad customer service.
I pre-ordered a book several months ago that was just released on Tuesday of this week. I hadn't received any notice from them stating that it was ready to be picked up, so halfway through the day I called them to see if it had come in. The person I spoke with checked, and told me that it hadn't, but that I should expect a phone call that day or the next. Not great that they couldn't secure a copy of a book on its release date, but it didn't bother me that much.
I still hadn't heard anything the next evening, so out of curiosity I pulled up the website to see if there was any indication of whether they had received copies, or what. Their site indicated that they had, and that it was at the location that I had requested to pick the book up from. I drove over there to try to sort it out, and realized that I got there seven minutes after their new closing time, and the few staff that were present arduously avoided acknowledging my existence. That alliteration makes me sound pretentious, and I swear to god, I'm not-- sorry. I sent an (admittedly heated) message to them through their website letting them know that I thought it was shitty that they apparently had a copy of the book I had ordered and hadn't contacted me about it, and asked that they cancel the two other pre-orders I had placed with them, as I didn't have a lot of faith in them being able to fulfill them, based off of this experience.
The next morning I called the store again, and spoke with someone who told me that they actually *had* received a copy of my book, well in advance of the release date, but it had been damaged, and they hadn't submitted an order for a replacement until just recently. Look: I understand things can get damaged, and replacements would need to be ordered. What I *don't* understand is not communicating that to the customer when something like that happens, and I also don't understand just putting the damaged copy of the book that was pre-ordered on the shelf without contacting the customer first to see if they wanted it. The person I spoke with (Anya?) was nice enough, and offered to sell me the damaged copy at a 20% discount, or said that I could wait for the replacement that was supposed to arrive that day. I told them I would wait, and that was that, until I received an email from the general manager, who referenced the earlier phone call, saying that "since this doesn't seem acceptable to you" they would just cancel the orders and refund me. That phrase implies that I was the one being unreasonable, which is a lousy way to treat a customer that you've made multiple mistakes with, even if they've sent you an email with (a singular) swear word in it.
Every dickhead that feels aggrieved by a place of business always says "well *I've* work in customer service and blah blah blah", but I have two decades of customer service under my belt, and there are a couple of pretty basic concepts that you theoretically learn really quickly when you're doing that kind of work:
1) If someone is pissed, even if you think they're being unreasonably so, don't turn it around on them.
2) APOLOGIZE. If someone had bothered express anything remotely close to that, I wouldn't feel nearly as irritated with them as I am. I don't expect someone to grovel for forgiveness, but when I had to call Erin to give her my payment information to process the refund, she acted like I was being an inconvenience to her, handwaved my frustration with the situation away by stating that books get damaged, and tried to get off the phone as quickly as she could, not getting anywhere within spitting distance of an apology in the process.
I've been buying books from them for a long time, and was happy to have moved really close to their Lake Forest Park location a few years ago, but screw `em. There are tons of other independent bookstores in Seattle, and I'm spiteful enough to go a little further out of my way to give those stores my money instead.
Also, the food in their cafe isn't that great.