One of the worst customer experiences my family has ever had.
Irina reached out to me through the Nextdoor app offering help with my kitchen remodeling project. I visited their store with my parents to look at quartz options for our kitchen.
During our visit, I asked a few very common questions that I ask every business I work with:
Is this the best price you offer?
Can I pay in cash to save on tax? (Many businesses offer this.)
Can the work be completed by a specific date since I’m on a timeline?
None of these questions are rude or unprofessional. I’ve spent 15–20 years working with people in customer-facing roles, and I fully understand that customers have the right to ask questions — even the ones that may seem repetitive or inconvenient.
The next day, I received an email from Keren Fugate stating that Irina felt I was “unkind” and “unprofessional” and that I should take my business elsewhere. This response was shocking. It made it seem like they only want customers who come in, stay quiet, place an order, and leave — no questions asked.
I tried calling Keren multiple times to clarify the situation. Her only response was to refer back to that email, effectively refusing to have a real conversation. If someone asks about discounts or cash payments, a simple “No, we don’t offer that” is enough. That’s exactly what they said — and I respected it. Even if I had asked again to negotiate, that’s still not being unprofessional. That’s just business.
This experience reflects a very poor attitude toward customers. If asking simple, reasonable questions is considered “unkind” here, then this is not a place that values or understands good customer service.
I ended up not giving them any business — and I’m glad I didn’t. I can easily spend my money elsewhere with a company that actually respects its customers.
I would not recommend anyone even step into this store.
Reply to your comment - If you think asking for discounts, giving you a timeline to complete the job by and asking if you guys accept cash makes your environment hostile, unsafe and unprofessional, clearly you are in the wrong line of work where you deal with all kinds of customers. I am not sure what kinda SAFETY issues you are mentioning in your comment. We did not come in the store as squatters. We came in as a FAMILY to make a deal and for SOME ODD REASON Irina thought we are acting weird disrespectful unsafe unprofessional and whatever.
Its no less than insane. I work in a company where we treat our employees as number 1 priority coz they are the ones who bring in customers for us, but if you treat your employees like babies and so delicate that they cannot handle different kind of customers, then management needs to rethink how the store is run. YOU are the one who lost a customer. YOU are the one who lost an opportunity to make money. YOU are the one who is getting this kinda review where YOU are the one effected.
My family still thinks what happened that day which got escalated like this.