Lisa Hudgens sent a message to Edward W. Stack Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Dicks Sporting Goods Email Address that said:
Hello Mr. Stack,
My name is Lisa Hudgens, I am a Human Resources Manager and long time Dicks customer. I was looking to email your company and I found this website so I thought I would contact you and tell you about my recent experience. I have many years of retail customer service/management so I have deep compassion for those who work in retail as I have personally lived the holiday season madness and staffing challenges. I am not an angry customer; I am a frustrated and disappointed customer. Last night my daughter and I took my husbands very extensive wish list (in which 90% of the items were Dicks merchandise) to the Dicks store in Novi, Michigan. Majority of the items on his list were in the fishing, hunting, camping and outdoor adventure departments. I dont fish; I dont hunt; I dont camp, so I am not familiar with this type of merchandise. We tried to find the items on our own for about 20-30 minutes since we did not see any Dicks staff in the departments we were shopping. Not a big deal, I really do understand, maybe they were in the backroom, staffing is thin, its a big store, I get it. However, after 30 minutes we were unsuccessful at finding ANY of the items we needed. We found some similar items but not the items my husband wanted. I started to look more aggressively for assistance but could not find anyone to help, anywhere on the whole 2nd floor.
Feeling a bit panicked because we had a lot more shopping to do that night, I asked my daughter to just see if any of the items were available through Amazon Prime because I didnt have anymore time to waste. We literally stood in the Dicks fishing department and she searched Amazon for the needed items, we found 14 of the 18 items and decided to just place the order with Amazon since it had been too frustrating to find what we needed in the store or even receive the help we needed at Dicks. To be honest I felt bad, like I was cheating, standing in the middle of Dicks and ordering from Amazon. After we placed the Amazon order we still needed the other things. Eventually a Dicks employee appeared when we were hanging out at the gun counter for a period of time trying to figure out how to buy shot gun shells. He then helped up and sold us the box of shells and suggested a gun cleaning kit, which we purchased.
I came in with the full intention to give you my business as I have been doing for many, many years in the past. Your stores employ people in our community who need their jobs. Whenever possible I try to visit the stores first before using Amazon. I think its more personal and means more to the community. I dont know what the answer is for staffing brick and mortar stores and combatting%
