H&M Sandton City / Terrible Customer Service Experience

For the past 2 months I have been dealing with the H&M Sandton City store, with regards to a refund query. From word go, the service from their head office was great, as I was put in contact with the correct people at the Sandton City branch regarding the query. After the back and forth communication with head office, and the Sandton City branch manager, the refund was approved. I was asked to come into the store to receive the refund at my own convenience, and was reassured by the branch manager that her team was aware of the issue. Little did I know what was in stall for me; Due to the branch manager being off on the day I went to the store, I had to be assisted by someone else. That someone else turned in three people, with neither of them aware of the query and what I was there for. I now had to explain the entire situation to these staff members, and that the refund approval was given by their branch manager. Clearly, this was not enough. The 3 staff members then disappeared for 25 minutes, in the hopes of finding someone to assist in place of the branch manager. For 25 minutes, I watched H&M staff go in and out of these 'mystery doors' and not once was I informed about what was going on. I proceeded to ask a staff member on the floor if she had any idea as to when they would inform me of what was happening. Due to my anger, she proceeded to laugh at me, shrugged it off and said "they are trying to solve the issue". Finally, 30 minutes later, two ladies appeared. Needless to say, they had no answer for me and proceeded to ask me every question in the book - you would think I was being questioned as a witness in a court case. This is when I lost it! It is clear that this query was not communicated by the branch manager, and at the end of the day, all I wanted was my refund - simple! In the hopes of making sense of the situation, the 2 ladies disappeared behind the mystery doors with no hesitation to mimic my actions. 15 minutes later, the 2 ladies reappeared from behind the mystery doors, ready to give me my refund. What an absolute joke! Based on this experience, their lack of communication and dismal customer service, I will NEVER ever shop at the H&M in Sandton again. Besides this particular experience, I have never had a pleasant experience at this store. I would recommend that instead of having so many staff on the floor doing nothing that they actually get behind the counters for paying customers. I have always had to stand in a queue to pay, due to one person working at the till, out of 8 available POS stations. The Sandton City H&M staff are ****y and arrogant, and in future should worry about serving their customers as supposed to checking themselves out in the mirror. I have worked in retail, and yes it is hard. However, this experience was unacceptable for a brand such as Hennes & Mauritz.

I would however, like to the thank Chesna at the H&M head office. Chesna was absolutely fantastic in connecting me with the correct people, and for following my entire customer experience. She was constantly in contact with the H&M store in Sandton, wanting to tackle my query head on. Thank you Chesna, H&M are very lucky to have you.