The store itself is pretty cool, with loud upbeat music to grab the interest of teenagers and young adults with shirts and accessories that is geared toward fans of music and popular movies/shows. It’s one of the stores we tend to always visit whenever we are at our local mall. However Hot Topics customer service and shipping departments over the last year have suffered. I have had my share of complaints about customer service departments of different companies. I have also worked in customer service and have had my share of irate customers. However I have never been so disappointed in a customer service department as much as I am with Hot Topics.
We placed the Hot Topic order on November 29th and patiently waited 2 weeks for a shipping confirmation. When nothing ever arrived in our email, we decided we need to reach out to them. Our Daughters Birthday is right around the corner followed by Christmas and we got a lil worried that it wouldn’t arrive in time even though we ordered in time.
Here is Terry’s review on Facebook which is very similar to others.
The worst customer service I have ever experienced.
Ordered 3 items on nov 29. Got a order confirmation. Over two weeks later shows not shipping and 1 item says pre sale shipping eta null even though no where on the order page does it say it’s a pre sale item. I use chat feature. After 20 min I get connected. The person writing from a script just said all items show released and there should be no problem making it by Christmas. 3 days later no update. I call. After 15 min I get connected. They said the order should have shipped 12/7 and they will call the warehouse to get it expedited. Check today no update. I call again. Wait 15 min to get connected. This guy didn’t have any info. He said he can release a task to ship. I said it should have already been done. I asked to escalate to a manager. He said it will take some time. I said ok. After 30 minutes of him coming back on the line every 2 min to say it will take some time i said 30 min should be enough time to get a manager just cancel my order. He said he can’t cancel the order. What? I asked what can you do then? He said release a task to ship and give me a $30 credit for waiting. I said can you send that to me in writing? He said no and i’d have to call back after it ships to get the credit. What? I said no I don’t trust you guys. Asked for a manager again. After another 20 min I just told him to write in the notes how horrible the company is and that I feel bad that he is put in a position where he can’t do his job or servicing the customer. He can’t escalate, he can’t expedite, he can’t email me a credit, he can’t cancel my order.
I don’t know what happened to this company. Ordered before with no issues. I will be ex slaying after the holidays and if they ever do ship it I will be fighting it with my credit card.
You have cool products but it’s not like I can’t get them hundreds of other places on the internet. Bye Hot Topic.
The customer service rep couldn’t update the shipping on our order to expedite it, he couldn’t cancel our order and couldn’t send us an email confirming we would get a $30 credit if we called back after it shipped so that we would have it in writing.
So what can the they do except put us on hold and come back every 2 mins saying it may take some time for almost an hour. I surely would not want his job.
Their Facebook page currently shows a ranking of 1.1 stars out of 5.
