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.

[dapt529]

I appreciate that Sephora is doing something. Like many of you I had the Becca in my cart and went through checkout, when I got my order confirmation 2 seconds later it was not there. I emailed them , let!s see what happens. 

[keypersss]

They just give you more points haha

[Anonymous]

In 10 days they'll tell ya.

[Anonymous]

I am so upset and devastated. I spent 15 hours straight on 4 different devices....not 5 seconds past without refreshing. I understand limited quantities, but my issues is the links provided and every thing I tried, they NEVER even became available. If I would have saw them sell out, no problem I will move on but they didn't go one by one, they stayed "out of stock" the entire time. I think the real reason we are all so upset is because no numbers or amount of the rewards available are ever released, which is extremely sneaky and suspicious. Not to mention you got thousands and thousands of clients to spend a TON of cash trying to reach certain rewards... which was done purposely and knowing how little you were actually going to give us. If this was the first time this happened, maybe a pass... but the same thing happened last time. With an amazing marketing team and every thing Sephora does no one is buying this "oops". I spend thousands a year with Sephora and that doesn't make me feel initialed, but it does make me feel scammed like a sheep and wolf game that CONTINUES year after year with the rewards. Not to mention the COMPLETE downfall of even the 100 point rewards, or the super TINY 250 point perfumes (I do like the bags being added, that is great) - I am really upset about the 500 point perks that use to have at least 5 items, but now only seem to have 4 and everything is more and more the same!! We want and need variety, rather then a bunch of small stuff give us some FULL SIZE stuff, please!! Even if it is only Sephora brand... make it 500 points and up for full size lipsticks, a blush, whatever, we love you Sephora and that is truly why we are so hurt, we feel you took advantage of our bond and relationship - that doesn't feel good. After it happened last time, we gave you the benefit of the doubt, and not only that you could tell by the sales increases, ALL of the hype on your own beauty board, you knew what you were doing and thats why people are so upset.... so make it right.

[wheeeee]

I like your post. This is the thread to tell Sephora to change its rewards program.   Not so much gripe about not getting a reward.  99.9% of qualified BIs did not get one!!!  No need to beat a dead horse or kiss Sephora's behinds.

[chelssss]

I would like to give my two cents for what it is worth.

Every time I place an order with Sephora, I am aware of how my money is being valued AKA it isn't. I choose to shop at Sephora for a one stop shop, brand exclusivity, and overall I like the atmosphere at Sephora.

What I would REALLY like to understand from some mod or something is this:

These rewards caused a HUGE fuss. They were extremely limited, I understand that. You had many VIB's and VIB Rouge's trying to get these. There is no way a BI could really get even a 1000 point perk even if they had been saving for a while. BUT, I have heard and seen you giving away 1000 points to keep everyone happy. Is it just me, or is this not productive? Now, you will have WAY more people mad at the next go-around(if there even is one), when they don't get a reward, and to me this is unfair. I don't mean to sound butthurt because I am not, but how is it fair to the ladies who have kept quiet and just went on about their time to now see in the next wave of rewards that I will have to fight at least 1000 more people to get even a 1000 point perk. I don't mind Sephora, but Sarah Choi and all your marketing team should be fired. They are not very logical people. 

[EllieyJelly]

Let's not blame Sarah. According to LinkedIn, Sarah Choi has moved on from Sephora to another LVMH entity. The former VP of Beauty Insider and CRM  left Sephora 6 months ago for Marc Jacobs International. 

[ExquisiteGypsy]

Ok folks, I tried my best to stay away from this board today but I couldn't take it anymore and had to give my two cents on this. Personally I think the fact that Sephora is addressing this issue at all is a massive improvement after the last rewards event, and even though this time there were still thousands of people disappointed, I think that they're taking a step in the right direction. Is the process imperfect? Certainly, but I'm hopeful that the learning will continue. Let's try not to lose our heads over this and keep everything in perspective. The world will continue to turn.

For what it's worth, here is my email that I sent off to Ssphora:

I am writing this email in response to the post on BeautyTalk by Sephora today regarding the Epic Rewards. First of all, I wanted to thank you for responding to the overwhelming feedback about how many of us were disappointed by the rewards selling out within minutes (or seconds, for Canadians, as I myself experienced). I personally managed to add a 1000 point perk to my cart but it disappeared halfway through the checkout process, and by the time I got back to the rewards page to add another everything continued to sell out before my eyes - I understand that this happened to hundreds of other people as well and know that I am not alone in this.

Despite the overwhelming negative feedback, I do think that there were some significant improvements on this rewards release versus what happened the last time in May. I appreciate that Sephora wants to offer exciting perks & rewards for their loyal customers (and continue to raise profits during multi-point promos leading up to these events), and I am looking forward to seeing more improvements in the future to ensure that all of us have the opportunity to be 'awarded' fairly. In particular I hope that Canadian customers will be given as close to equal treatment as Americans as possible; while the system is imperfect and there are several limitations, I believe that much more can be done in this regard.

Thank you again for your attention and your commitment to improvement.

[Anonymous]

Same thing happened to me. I had the YSL in my cart, and when I hit Submit it was sold out. So I went back to add another reward and nothing was left.

Definitely agree that Canadian Sephora clients don't get all the perks of the US ones. We have WAY less samples to choose from (I believe we are down to 8 now?), we get less stock, longer wait for things to launch. We're trying to support this store and they are making it really hard to.

[redheadto]

The same thing happened to me during the event, I got to the payment page as well with the perk I had wanted. Thank you for pointing out the disadvantage us Canadians are at for so many promotions I couldn't agree more.

[beauty2sample]

Thank you, ExquisiteGypsy.  So rational and polite!  🙂

[c2636]

Telling others not to lose their heads, to keep perspective and that the world will still turn tomorrow is not polite. Especially when saying this right before giving your own opinion.  I cant think of any irrational opinions hat I have read. Really no one that needs to be reminded not to lose their head. if anything just a few condesending ones. 

[k617]

Wow. 

[ExquisiteGypsy]

I'm sorry if I caused you any offence, c2636 - it certainly was not my intention. This is absolutely 100% my opinion alone and I don't expect everyone to feel the same way. After the last rewards debacle in May I felt quite differently, but time and perspective changed my attitude and my expectations towards these types of events.  

No hard feelings - I wish you well.

[vegchililover78]

My opinion may draw the ire of many, but I want to get it out. I'd like to thank Sephora for having a second rewards opportunity. This is coming from a person who tried both times to cash in for a reward and came up empty handed. The mega rewards were not without incident, but I feel that Sephora heard their customer base and made improvements for this second epic rewards offering. The time the rewards were available could have been handled better, but I really appreciate that the reward descriptions and terms were provided in advance. I went in knowing that quantities were limited and even though I didn't score a reward I wasn't mad. I wasn't mad because I went into this experience fully prepared and ready to be ok if my attempts weren't fruitful. I think it's commendable that Sephora is stepping up due to the enormous amount of backlash and I also think it's wholly unnecessary as well. Congratulations to the winners of each reward category! I hope that the winners enjoy the rewards and come to BT to share their experiences especially for the destination offerings. I'm ready to move on, who's with me? Sincerely yours, Veg. 

[vegchililover78]

Thank you ladies. I think the BT community is the best part of Sephora and it's disheartening to see all this negativity when normally it houses the most funny, diverse, beautiful, talented, caring and supportive members. <hugs>

[Yuumei]

I completely agree... I remember seeing almost 17,000 users on BT that morning... how many rewards would Sephora have to offer to please everyone? I just don't think that's possible... BUT they really put together some awesome perks this time that I would have been very happy to get my hands on <(^.^)>

[ExquisiteGypsy]

I'm with you 100%, Veg.

[msrs5]

The email I just sent them:

Hello,

I saw your disclaimer asking any who were unable to get an Epic Reward to email you at this address.

I had an Epic Reward in my cart. In. My. Cart. It was still there when I clicked "Place Order." I could SEE it in my cart as it processed.  And then lo and behold, once the order has been processed, it was gone.  I had pulled an all-nighter and began refreshing the page every minute from 11:30pm PST on the night of August 9th onwards.  I was desperate to get an Epic Reward, ESPECIALLY because the last time you released the rewards, I had not been notified.  And I'm VIB Rouge, am I not the kind of customer that would like to know about these kinds of things?

So for 12 hours straight, no sleep, I had just been refreshing refreshing refreshing refreshing... only to have it swiped right under me.  How am I supposed to feel about this?

Here's my story: when I was 12 years old, I bought my first tube of mascara ever at Sephora and I never looked back.  While my peers were shopping at Ulta, Macy's, CVS, etc I was a devoted Sephora shopper.  I have never, NEVER bought anything (hair products, perfume, body products, etc) outside of Sephora unless Sephora didn't carry it.  I defended Sephora to the death, convinced all my friends to go shopping at Sephora, and naturally qualified for VIB Rouge the instant it became available (having immediately qualified for VIB the instant it became available as well).   For Christ's sake, I have a Polish Sephora membership- I couldn't even live abroad without shopping at Sephora!

And this is where my problem lies: if you hadn't promised exclusive perks and rewards for VIB Rouge members, I may have never given it a second thought.  Sephora was in my blood.  But I have yet to gain anything unique or exclusive as a result of my being a VIB Rouge (I did attend a VIB Rouge event but did not receive anything there that I couldn't have received otherwise).  It's been 12 years that I've spent all my time and energy into Sephora and I just feel so sad to be so disappointed.

I work in customer service myself, so none of this is of course directed at you, the reader.  This is directed at your Beauty Insider program and its continuing efforts to alienate its most loyal and devoted shoppers.

I will be returning the item I purchased yesterday, as well as a few items that I had purchased during your 4x the points promotion (which of course, I spent quite a lot of money on in the hopes of getting an Epic Reward.  Look where that got me- I feel quite played).  And it was with an extremely heavy heart that I opened an Ulta Rewards account this morning.  I've just made my first purchase there and while it was difficult to do, I already feel more valued there as a customer now than I have in my several years of being a VIB Rouge.

And this is where I leave you: an ex-VIB Rouge (I was planning on renewing my status this year, but I will no longer do so) hoping that one day the message will come across and you'll start treating your die-hard fans with respect.

Until I see some meaningful changes in the way you handle your rewards program, I am out. Goodbye, and good luck.

[wheeeee]

I completely agree!   Please don't send points or deluxe samples.

 Change the Rewards program! It is NOT working!

I have never been able to cash in ONE point because even for 100 rewards both times they arrived damaged and another order the Nars Orgasm Mini was missing.  Later I was told it was OOS.

Go cash rewards like Ulta and many other department stores selling the same merchandise as Sephora.

I missed the Extraordinary Rewards in 

May when y'all failed to release the date and yesterday I saw the link go live and when I clicked it all I got was an OOS message.  Crazy!!!!!

[butterblume]

Someone else said it better than me, but I think the reason most people were so upset was not that the rewards were limited, which of course we all knew they were - but that they were so limited as to be almost non-existent. We stayed waiting for it and refreshing expecting that at least we would have something of a chance to get one, when in reality the chance was so small as to be infinitesimal. I think that's why we felt deceived - because had we known just how SMALL that chance was, we probably wouldn't have bothered to spend so much time refreshing and waiting.

Let me put it this way - there's a big difference between thinking you have a 1 in 10, or 1 in 100 chance to get something, vs 1 in 10 000 000. For a 1 in 100 chance, I'd sit around for hours and happily click refresh - but if I'd known it was such a tiny chance I probably would have wandered off to go read reddit or eat some ice cream or something. Much less satisfying but it would have been a better use of my time.

I hope that makes sense. I certainly appreciate Sephora giving us the opportunity to provide feedback in this way.