A Message to our Clients about Epic Rewards

[sephoraadmin2]

Sephora is committed to offering our valued Beauty Insiders exceptional rewards to thank them for their loyalty and for being part of our community.  Yesterday we held an Epic Rewards promotion, and while we have held similar promotions in the past, yesterday’s promotion was the largest number of Epic Rewards we have made available to date.

Despite our best efforts to predict the response, demand was overwhelming, resulting in our being out of stock very quickly. We deeply regret this and apologize to our Beauty Insider clients who did not get a chance to participate.  

At Sephora our first and foremost priority is to give our clients an exciting and fulfilling shopping experience.  Those Beauty Insiders who were unable to get one of our limited quantity Epic Rewards, please email us by Tuesday, August 25, 2015, to epicrewards@sephora.com and include your Beauty Insider account number or email address associated with your account. 

Beyond that, please know that we are committed to learning from this experience. Thank you for your ongoing support. We greatly appreciate you.

Sephora is committed to offering our valued Beauty Insiders exceptional rewards to thank them for their loyalty and for being part of our community.  Yesterday we held an Epic Rewards promotion, and while we have held similar promotions in the past, yesterday’s promotion was the largest number of Epic Rewards we have made available to date.

Despite our best efforts to predict the response, demand was overwhelming, resulting in our being out of stock very quickly. We deeply regret this and apologize to our Beauty Insider clients who did not get a chance to participate.  

At Sephora our first and foremost priority is to give our clients an exciting and fulfilling shopping experience.  Those Beauty Insiders who were unable to get one of our limited quantity Epic Rewards, please email us by Tuesday, August 25, 2015, to epicrewards@sephora.com and include your Beauty Insider account number or email address associated with your account. 

Beyond that, please know that we are committed to learning from this experience. Thank you for your ongoing support. We greatly appreciate you.

**********************

Updated August 17

Thank you to everyone who has been reaching out to us about Epic Rewards. We value your feedback and recognize your ongoing loyalty to us, and we are working to get back to you quickly.

To that end, please know that if you have contacted us you will hear back from us in direct response to your inquiry during the period between Tuesday, August 25th through Tuesday, September 1st. The timing of the response to you will depend on when we received your initial contact regarding Epic Rewards.

If you haven’t contacted us yet, please email us at epicrewards@sephora.com. We’ve set up this dedicated mailbox to collect the right information quickly and accurately, separating you from the queue for general Sephora inquiries. When you email us at this address, it will generate an automated response that confirms we’ve received the message. You can then expect to hear back from us as quickly as possible with more information.

Please know that our team is listening, and we take your concerns to heart. We value your support, and we will be in touch soon.

With our sincerest thanks,

The Beauty Insider Team

*************************************

Updated September 1

Thank you to everyone who reached out to us about Epic Rewards. We have reached out to all of those members who emailed us on or before August 25th, and are no longer accepting new submissions. epicrewards@sephora.com has been closed. Please contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672) regarding any other questions or concerns. We have reviewed your feedback and are taking it into consideration as we plan for future promotions. Our loyal Beauty Insiders are enormously important to us.

[Grahamcrackers]

[pixiedust2]

Dead. 

[greenchilli]

You called?

[Grahamcrackers]

PSA: do not image google Bum Jones. IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK.

[greenchilli]

Here is the trend:

1.  Majority of disappointed customers are Rouges who were tricked into buying beauty essentials in the $100s and $1000s leading up to the event.

2.  Most of the disappointed customers spend "THOUSANDS" at Sephora every year.  And not just Sephora alone.

3. All angry customers spent several hours (from the night before) clicking on the website and refreshing.  For HOURS!  No breaks. 

4.  The disappointed folks don't care that they didn't get a perk or that the quantities were limited.  Only that it lasted for such a short time.  Cuz Time here is the Independent Variable you see.  They just wish Sephora didn't mess with Time.  Why couldn't it just last maybe 30 minutes?  That way everybody would get a chance of nabbing a limited quantity item successfully.  So easy.  All this aftermath could have been prevented with just one change.

[meganlisa]

The whole thing is annoying.  I obviously don't need a reward (I don't need the great majority of the two many such items I have).  I do get really annoyed GC for exactly what you identified...the time thing.  I did get sucked in a little ...again.  And I'm annoyed at myself and Sephora.  I really like the suggestion of releasing the number of items...if I'd known that there were only 50, 100 or whatever total items (and seemingly it might have been a lot lower) I wouldn't even have spent a second.

But thinking "this time will be better" reminds me of too many relationship stories we've listened to over and over again.  And when is it ever different?

As long as we're human...we will get sucked in...and we will get mad for wasting our time.

Yes, it is the time...

[wheeeee]

Everyday I wake up and want to forget Epic! Then I get sucked back into this thread! 

Please, take it off the front page!

[etscore1]

I blame the schools and literacy education! Sephora gave a date and time range and people still weren't having it! I know 99% of the most self-righteous would fly off the handle here about what time the last perks went online and they will NOT be having any of your fancy "logic" or "facts."

Whether you like it or not, Sephora didn't specify a time for the last reward release. They gave a date, which they stuck to, but no time. Not offering information is NOT the same as lying, being deceitful or being misleading. Just because you choose to infer any amount of information based on what was or was not stated does NOT make it someone else's fault that you inferred incorrectly and decided to rely not on what information was out there but what you thought would happen. You thought wrong, but it's nobody else's fault.

BUT BUT SEPHORA MADE ME.... What are you, a lab rat? Sorry you stayed up all night like a moron, but nobody told you to. In fact Sephora told you NOT to! Sorry you didn't listen or didn't believe, but I have yet to see a detail from either of these last perk releases where Sephora didn't comply with the information given - regardless of how limited it was (which has no bearing on whether they adhered to their marketing). Time to assume some responsibility for your decisions! Isn't being an adult fun?!

[lovesmakeup0210]

The bigger issue that I have is with having a reward in your cart and it "falling out" as you check out.

[whatrewards]

I am still trying to process my frustration with Sephora's marketing of these rewards and these are some points I would like to share with their marketing department:

1. We are part of numerous rewards programs - Aeroplan, Privilege Visa, Shoppers Drug Mart, Grocery store, et cetera and the common denominator for these successful programs is that the points have value and the longer you hold on to them and the more you spend, the more value they have. Sephora's reward program is inherently dissatisfying - the more you have, the LESS you can do with them, beyond being part of a no-win lottery system. I have over 6400 points, but seriously, what is the point of the points?

2. The marketing of the Epic Rewards was confusing - when were they available? Can't tell you exactly - stay tuned. How many are available? Extremely limited but beyond that, can't tell you. This was a serious disregard for Sephora's customers' time.

3. Sephora offered bonus points on purchases the week before announcing Epic Rewards encouraging their customers to buy with the hope of redeeming these points for products that they knew would likely be unavailable. They have created a distrust in their customer base as a result.

4. For customers, like myself, who decided "OK, I have over 6000 points and nothing else to redeem them for - I'm going to try for an Epic Reward", and misguidedly stayed glued to our computers, refreshing constantly, Sephora added to the disappointment by removing items added to our baskets in the seconds it took to go to Check Out.

5. I am trying to determine what Sephora's intentions were for offering the Epic Rewards in this manner and if alienating their loyal VIB/VIB Rouge base, is somehow worth it for Sephora? Does the hype of fabulous but extremely limited rewards overall improve the company's bottom line? I can't help but think any financial gain would be temporary but perhaps I am wrong.

You only have to look at your the Sephora Facebook page to see the hundreds of disgruntled VIB/VIB Rouge customers. There is actually a Sephora's Epic Fail Facebook page (that I chose not to join), which has over 800 members. I could understand if this was an isolated mistake, but this already happened in May (I wrote in then, as well) and last year, too.

Sephora is actually a great company. Their staff is lovely and their products are for the most part, excellent. I know I am a very good customer - very few returns and I obviously spend too much money on skin care and cosmetics. That's why I don't understand the self-sabotage that Sephora chooses with this Epic Rewards program. It makes me want to choose to shop elsewhere and I feel that I should, on principle. I want the companies that I support to respect me as a consumer and to value my business. As I have said in previous emails, I will still likely shop at Sephora from time to time and I don't support a boycott based on this "epic disappointment", but I don't think it will be my first choice anymore.

Just to be clear - I am a responsible adult and we own our own business and part of our success is making our customers feel valued and well taken care of.  etscore1 I think it's admirable that you are wanting to defend Sephora but they can and should do better.  No company can afford to upset the majority of their best customers.  This marketing and the execution of the rewards was a failure and I am really interested to see what they do to make amends ... perhaps you do not feel this is necessary, but I think there are many responsible adults who do.

[wheeeee]

What are you, a lab rat?????? Hahhahahaahahahahahahahahaha!

[Tamara76]

I may be in the minority, but I think the execution was possibly better last time when they didn't give us as much info in advance.  I didn't stay up all night and still snagged a 1,000 pt reward last time around 5:30 or 6:00 am CST.  With all the hype and built-up expectations this time, it is no wonder that everything sold out so quickly (I suspected this would happen).

Maybe they'll send each of us an item someone returned as our consolation prize... (jk - please don't!)  🙂

[pixiedust2]

[hackneyfl]

Love It!!!

[rachelrachel]

Seriously. Don't people understand what LIMITED, and "between business hours" mean??

yet you see people posting about staying up since midnight, or people buying (and returning) massive amounts of products thinking they were definitely going to win.

[MissAlinaMina]

Various people attempted to contact sephora to find out what "business hours" means. It doesn't just mean 9 - 5 p.m anymore. These people never got a clear answer. Because of this, people went off of what happened in May, which was the release at 1 a.m. pst. "just in case" 

[KaBla]

No, no they do not understand what those words mean.

[trishavt]

How much does Sephora pay you to troll the beauty forum and make condescending remarks about people's frustrations? Just wondering. It's pathetic to undermine people's complaints, whether you like them or not. People want to vent. Let them vent. It will pass and you can go back to doing whatever it is Sephora hired you to do. Good luck.

[etscore1]

Darn. Did my hair color give me away? I can never quite get all that neon green to go away. 

[annec322]

Look etscore1...we will all forgive you for secretly being a Sephora employee undercover...because no one could have any of these opinions without working for Sephora apparently.  Also, how are people who are regulars on here the ones trolling?  Just saying.  

[trishavt]

I was being facetious in regard to that individual being employed by Sephora. The comment was intended to communicate amazement that someone could invest that much time creating posts ridiculing people and responding to posts by disgruntled people on here unless they were paid in some shape or form. Obviously that's not the case but it begs the question, why would anyone care so much that people are upset?(this is rhetorical). I do apologize if I was out of line with how I communicated my thoughts. Consider this apology a gesture of wood will.

Many of us were introduced to this forum as a result of Sephora sending us links to this thread. Those of us that are complaining obviously aren't regulars and a central part of the online Sephora community. I understand that this has altered the mood but please recognize that Sephora provided this platform for everyone to use as a means of expression. If they didn't want to see people's comments, they would have disabled the comments sections. Regardless of your position on the epic rewards matter, I hope we can all express ourselves (myself included) in a more cordial manner. 

On a positive note, there are other threads in this forum with some good information about beauty products. Those seem like more worthwhile (and fun) pursuits on here.