Toys R Us and the 4 months of hell and disappointment IT IS IMPORTANT THAT YOU UNDERSTAND THIS REVIEW IS NOT BASED ON ALL 'TOYS R US' STAFF AND IS REFLECTIVE ONLY OF THE MANAGEMENT, CUSTOMER SERVICES AND THEIR COMMUNICATION AND MANAGEMENT OF THE SITUATION. First, let me begin by saying this is a very long story. I will save you the burden of reading the essay that follows by putting it into a few points; • The Milton Keynes Toys R Us management staff mislead me • There is a major issue of miscommunication between Milton Keynes Toys R Us staff • The whole process of dealing with customers in a proactive and positive way is mute and not of consideration by customer service staff • Customer services do not communicate well with each other and do not take relevant information sent to them into consideration • You are ignored • You the customer are made to feel at fault and to blame • There is little empathy, consideration for the efforts made or reasons behind requests • Toys R Us let my students, my school and me down at the end of 2016 and they did it a second time at the start of 2017. If you want to know more, please do read on. I am being honest and true about what happened and hope that you, the Toys R Us customer, manages to make their own mind up about the company and how it works. In no way am I saying ‘never set foot in there again!’ I am simply telling you about the hell they have caused me and my school since October 2016. So, here we go… It all started with a trip to my local Milton Keynes store. Here, I saw a feature wall based on ‘Captain America Civil War’. It was a stunner. Simply amazing. Now, I am a teacher of art and graphics and I believe that as a teacher, it is my job to inspire, excite and encourage my pupils in different ways. I have spent many years gradually building a collection of resources that are based on my subjects. These include many cardboard standees, point of sale items and posters. I usually go to supermarkets and shops to see what they will give my school. Many are free, some I have had to pay for. You need to understand that a lot of these standees and point of sale items end up in the bin. But why can’t a school use them to inspire their pupils? This is often my point when I talk to the companies and many like my local Sainsbury’s, Odeon, ASDA and others are fantastic contributors. I am amazed at what they offer my school. And these are always for educational purposes. Due to copyright, they are not allowed to be sold. This is clearly understood. So, I saw the Captain America feature wall and thought that this would be a stand out piece in my department that the pupils would love to see. This is the short version of what happened next; • Talked to customer services and asked if my school could have the display • Told by THE MANAGER of the store that they do not own it and that I had to contact marvel who were responsible for coming in to take it down • Many members of staff at the store are aware of my schools interest in the feature wall. Even a current student who works there has talked to staff about it and asked me about it too • Contacted Marvel on 5/10/16. No response so contacted DISNEY who own Marvel. • 6/10/16 and 7/10/16 talked to Disney about the feature wall and its use. They would get back to me. • 12/10/16 Disney are looking into it. • 14/10/16 Disney themselves say YES, we can use it in school! • 14/10/16 Go into the Milton Keynes store and it is gone. Where is the 20 ft by 10ft display? No one knows. But, earlier that day, I had spoken to the manager just to make sure that it was there. She said it was and was available to me and my school. • 15/10/16 I get a call from the assistant manager who says that the display, that was saved for my school as so many staff knew of us wanting it, was ‘destroyed’ earlier in the week. • So here comes the confusion….how can such a large display go ‘missing’, staff not know about its whereabouts and staff not communicating with each other about the schools wish to use it and Disney’s acknowledgment that we could (they contacted head office to give their permission, something Toys R Us deny)? This is something I have fought to understand for months but have got nowhere. We will continue; • 19/10/16 Toys R Us customer services are ignoring me. They do not respond to my emails regarding the destruction of the display. • 22/10/16 Toys R Us are STILL ignoring me. They don’t respond to two emails sent again asking why this could happen and why there was so little communication between staff at the Milton Keynes store. • It is at this point that a message is sent to me that makes no sense and ignores (that word again) my questions. I ask for clarity (24/10/16) but they simply send the exact same email again, copy and pasted. • It is obvious that what started as a lack of communication at the store is now a full on company wide lack of communication. • 28/10/16 Toys R Us are ignoring my emails asking what is going on and whether or not another ‘Captain America’ wall is available? • 31/10/16 They still won’t answer my questions but they ‘recognise my disappointment’. • 3/11/16 They offer my school a ‘goodwill gesture’ of a Batman display or a Star wars one. Now, this is important because in my response, I mention that my school would like the Batman one ‘now’ and we will wait for the Star Wars one as they don’t know when it would come down. So I clearly mention we want BOTH. They do not question this. • 6/11/16 Toys R Us are ignoring me again and won’t respond. • 8/11/16 Toys R Us are ignoring me again and won’t respond. I point out, again, that my school would like BOTH the Batman and Star Wars displays. There is NO indication from customer services that we can’t. No one says no. • They ignore me again. • And again. • 9/11/16 They ask for my contact details so the store manager can deal with me directly. It is at this time though that I find something out. And it is going to be put in capitals as it is a major part of the issue; DISNEY DID NOT OWN THE WALL. DISNEY DID NOT MAKE THE WALL. TOYS R US OWNED THE WALL AND MADE THE WALL. I DID NOT HAVE TO ASK MARVEL/ DISNEY FOR PERMISSION, I NEEDED TO ASK IN STORE! THE OPPOSITE OF WHAT TOYS R US TOLD ME! • This is part of an email I received from DISNEY; "When you contacted us with your query, we reached out to the Toys R Us head office to grant permission to the Milton Keynes staff that you can take any of the Disney, Marvel or Star Wars displays from the store at the staff's discretion. We unfortunately do not produce these POS units ourselves and therefore don't have any that we could provide you directly with. Toys R Us are printing these displays themselves…” • So, we now have Toys R Us telling me one thing about the ownership and who should be giving permission to use it. They misled me. Toys R Us Milton Keynes staff misled me and it is this that started much of the problems (and the individual member of staff who gave permission to bin the wall) • 13/11/16 Toys R Us still aren’t willing to answer my questions that now relate to the ownership of the wall and why I was misled by staff at the MK store. • I go into the store at around this time to collect the Batman display. This is a quarter of the size of the Captain America wall. I mention to the MANAGER again that we would be waiting for the Star Wars display once it is finished with. This is all done professionally and politely. • 15/11/16 Again, Toys R Us won’t answer my questions on the ownership. • 17/11/16 Oh what a surprise, Toys R Us won’t answer my questions. • OK, so Christmas comes and goes and I go into store to find out about the Star Wars display. • 9/1/17 I email Toys R Us mentioning again the Star Wars display (the third time). • 10/1/17 They reply but again, ignore my comments and questions about the Star wars display. • Toys R Us then GO BACK on their goodwill gesture and refuse to let my school have the Star Wars display. They make it sound as though it is all my fault (in that I wanted it investigated why this happened) • I speak to the director of customer services who must have apologised a number of times for the ‘disappointment’ but simply would not listen to my comments. He wanted a line drawn under the whole matter, he said that Toys R Us have moved on and that no material would be passed on the any third parties and that included me. I said that an end to it all is exactly what I wanted, and the Star Wars display was it, but he disagreed. He made it clear that nothing was going to be given (so actually going back on their ‘goodwill gesture’) and that the matter is technically ‘closed’. So that is it. I mentioned quite clearly that I would be making my ‘disappointment’ heard and that how I have been managed as a customer was disgusting. At the end of the day, all I wanted was to give my pupils a new and exciting resource. Claiming that I had been given the ‘Batman’ one out of good will is a joke. This is nothing compared to the Captain America nor the Star Wars displays and they know it. They just don’t care about it. They do not care that I have fought and fought to get my students something no other school has, to give them something exciting and inspirational. I have had to apologise not once, but twice now for Toys R Us and their communication, their management of the whole situation and their total lack of empathy.