I’ve always been very particular about them, and I attribute it not only to a concious decision but also to the fact that I have a very keen sense of smell — trust me, when you can smell everything, how things smell becomes very important to you!

Anyhow, I sent Guerlain a short email asking if they had an Albertan retailer for Jicky and/or Mitsouko, or if they sold samples online — I’ve been told I “need” to smell them, and neither are sold in the province, according to the SA I spoke to the other day!

This is the response I recieved:

Subject line: Lodge a complaint about a product
Right off the start I have a problem with this. I wasn’t lodging a complaint, I was asking about product availability.

Dear Miss,

I acknowledge receipt of your mail from 11/9/2009 and I thank you for sending it.

I am sorry to inform you that Guerlain is not able to send samples by post. They are kept exclusively in our shops and given out depending on the availability of stocks. Moreover, Mitsouko and Jicky are not declined in samples and samples are not for sale.
Really? Because… that sentence does not make sense.

In order for you to become familiar with our products, I advise you to go at your Guerlain distributor to discover or rediscover the Guerlain lines of fragrances, skincare and make up.
“Go at your Guerlain distrubutor”? So not going to happen — I might just have to have a go at you, though.
Also, I started the email by specifically stating that my distributor (the largest Guerlain counter in my city) told me that my province doesn’t carry what I’m looking for. Which is why I emailed Guerlain in the first place — to ask if she was wrong, by some slim chance.

You will find all the addresses of our boutiques, our institutes and our points of sale in France as well as the rest of the world in our website www.guerlain.com
How does that help me? I’m not going to travel to France, or anywhere else for that matter, to sniff a perfume and then come home. I’m not asking where I can find Guerlain in the world, I’m asking if there are any retailers in Alberta that my SA didn’t know about.

“Guerlain Boutique & Institut
110 Bloor Street West
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 2W7
Tel / Phone: 416-929-6114″

“Guerlain Boutique & Institut
1350 Greene Avenue, 2nd Floor
Westmount, Quebec
H3Z 2B1
Tel / Phone: 514-933-6114″

Thank you for your interest in our brand.

Yours faithfully,

Isabelle ROUSSEAU
Customer Relationship Department
irousseau@guerlain.fr

I have to say it, Guerlain: I’m a little bit ashamed for you. I wonder how Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain, the original Guerlain, would feel if he knew his company was being run that way? The LVMH group really needs to knock their companies back into line — this isn’t the first time I’ve had issues emailing one of their companies. As they say… you’re only as good as your weakest link. And this link? It’s pretty damn weak.

If any of you have solutions or your own customer service stories to share, I would love to hear them in the comments! Confession: on a bad day, sometimes the best part is reading all of your comments and/or blogs. There are some pretty awful people on the internet, but there also some amazing ones.

(You guys are the awful ones.)

(I MEAN AMAZING! AMAZING! *shifty eyes*)