Goodies in return for fright!

Last week I had what I would describe as a 'lift trauma' in my local House of Fraser. I have never been the sort of person to worry about lifts, nothing has ever happened to me before for me to have reason to be cautious. I am not claustrophobic or fearful of the lift getting stuck. The main thing that would worry me would be how long I might be stuck for in case I should need the loo!

So I got into one of the lifts with Beastie as I regularly do and went up to the top department, had a mooch around and got back in again to return to the ground floor. Shortly after I pressed the button, the lift shuddered, which was a little alarming but I told myself to remain calm.  Then as I thought it was going to go down at a normal speed it suddenly lunged down, what seemed an entire floor, then stopped. Then all these malfunction messages starting playing, swiftly followed by 'you are safe, please remain calm'. Which of course made me panic, those messages always have the reverse effect. Then it shot down again. By this point I felt a moment of dread and my only thought was 'no please don't crash to the ground as I have my baby in here'. 

The lift then carried on as normal and reached the ground floor where the doors casually opened announcing we had indeed arrived (in one piece). I walked out of the lift on automatic and passed a sales assistant stopping to tell her that no one must use the lift as I had just had a scary experience. She was very apologetic and then I left the store. It wasn't until I had reached another shop before I realised how much it had affected me. I picked up a dress and my hand was shaking all over the place.

My husband was very angry about what had happened to me and complained to the store. The reason being that the lifts have always been unreliable and unacceptable considering it is a reasonably new store. We are not complainers on the whole, we don't try and get a free lunch just for the sake of it but it was the principle that mattered here. The store manager replied very quickly and she was extremely professional, even if she may have doubted my story. The very next day she confirmed that the engineers had indeed found a fault, not a serious fault but a fault non the less that would have caused the lift to terrify me malfunction.

To cut a long story short, we have been thoroughly pleased with the way the manager handled our complaint, acting promptly and showing compassion. I know they have a reputation to uphold at the end of the day but customer service like this goes a long way...I can safely say I have used lifts since and I am not a jibbering wreck. I honestly don't know how I would manage if I had developed a fear, I can see how people do.

Incidentally we were offered a 'free lunch' and I received this box of beauty treats as a way of apology.

Beautiful box 

With some lovely goodies inside