Looks like I'm not the only one unhappy.
By Connie Thompson Sep 19, 2014
The CEO of Seattle-based nail polish and beauty product company Julep says she had no idea her customers had taken their complaints to the Better Business Bureau until the bureau issued a news release this week.
Jane Park insists Julep is not a company that would intentionally ignore its customers and the issues that prompted the complaints have been addressed.
"I think what happened is they just advertised very heavily and didn't expect the response they got," said Mia Cooledge.
Last June, Cooledge decided to add Julep nail colors to her collection by joining a Julep membership program called Maven. Maven subscribers automatically receive monthly boxes of Julep products -- for a monthly fee that's added to their credit card account. But after receiving her first box this summer- Cooledge decided to cancel her membership.
"It took a while," Cooledge said, explaining the cancellation process was supposed to be simple, but wasn't. She says she tried repeatedly to stop the monthly deliveries, and the monthly charges on her credit card but no one would respond.
"By the time it was finally cancelled, I'd sent about seven emails, I'd called five times, left three messages, sent a Facebook message, which was what finally got it cancelled," Coolege added.
Cooledge says she also ordered a stop payment with her credit card company and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau before finally getting a refund. The BBB's David Quinlan says his organization got 173 complaints, with 113 customers claiming they'd gotten no response from Julep.
"It's an alarming amount," said Quinlan. "I mean, think about it, 113 people have complained abut this company to us and not one of them has received a response back. When a consumer complains to us about a company we let the company know, we send them letters, we try to contact them."
But Quinlan says the staff at the BBB got no response either, which is why they finally issued a news release and gave Julep the lowest possible rating of "F".
Julep CEO Jane Parks, known for her high online visibility and social media engagment with her customer base- told me she never knew about the BBB complaints until this week. She says Cooledge and other customers got caught in a perfect storm of events that started in July. The company was heavily promoting the Maven program and also launched a new Julep product, sparking what she called a "crazy growth spurt". At the same time, she says a shipping technicality with USPS triggered 2 months of shipping delays.
"We were not prepared for the customer service calls and questions that came out of all of the orders," Park told me by phone.
Park acknowledged the customer service staff was not large enough to handle all the inquiries and requests coming in simultaneiously online and on the phone.
"We are dedicated to our customers," Park said, adding that most customers problems are resolved at this point, and she's hired new managers to improve the customer service response.
She specifically mentioned her new Chief Delivery Officer, Dwight Gaston- who later sent me the following statement by email."
STATEMENT FROM JULEP - 9/19/14
Julep has been in business in Seattle more than seven years and has a large, loyal customer base. We experienced a surge in demand this summer due to the popularity of several new products. At the same time, new policies from one of our shipping partners caused a delay in some deliveries. These issues impacted our customer service.
Recently, we've taken steps to ensure customers have a positive experience as the company grows. I was recently hired as Chief Delivery Officer and am committed to improving logistics and shipping for the long term. We've also doubled the size of our customer service team, adding weekend and extended hours to our call center, and hired a seasoned senior director of customer service.
At this time, we are working with the Better Business Bureau to identify all customers who were negatively impacted and will do whatever it takes to rectify these situations. We have also changed our shipping procedures to expedite delivery times.
We urge any customers with unresolved issues to contact us at [email protected]
Dwight Gaston, Chief Delivery Officer, Julep Beauty
The Better Business Bureau says it looks forward to working with the company and helping consumers resolve any outstanding complaints.
"If Julep wants to clean things up, we're more than happy to work with them, re-open the complaints, try to get this cleared up and settled. We're more than happy to do that," Quinlan said.