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.

[HotGeekGirl]

Ugh, my heart goes out to them actually. I wouldn't have wanted to be the one answering the phones this week. I bet every last one of them got screamed at endlessly... I probably would have been a little grumpy too 😔😔

[jellybean917]

I bet they're burnt out by now from people chewing them out. It would be awful to have countless people calling to complain to me for what someone else did.

[Anonymous]

That's customer service, it's not for the faint of heart or thin of skin.  I know someone who worked the phones at the power company when they electrocuted several dogs in a short span of time with arcing metal covers on the sidewalks.  Sephora's people are having a cakewalk compared to that.

[Anonymous]

Wow Heartless.....

[heartsmyface]

Gasp!   

[Anonymous]

Yep.  In a state with some of the strongest felony animal cruelty laws in the country and that banned dog racing by ballot initiative.  People were insanely angry, there were death threats.

[heartsmyface]

Aww, big hugs!  I completely understand the emotions involved.  I cried in May at around 4:05. And I kicked things when I found out Canadians were excluded even though we were told we weren't.  And I was shaking from the adrenaline too!   Not pretty!   

i'm glad your second customer service call went much better.  

[Tracib1981]

omg i am so glad i am not the only one who cried. I got a super sweet chick when i called in too. Maybe the same one!

[Tirah]

They will probably be determining just how close people were to actually snagging a perk before loosing it. Did it make it into their cart? Did it get snatched away while checking out? Did it drop off of their confirmation? I would imagine the closer each individual got to snagging a prize, the higher the compensation for losing it.

[jellybean917]

I'd be pretty angry if that was the case. The MJ perk I wanted was gone first out of the 10k perks, along with the Paris perk. I never saw it in stock, but saw others in stock and, if I were going for those, maybe could have gotten further in the process. I don't think we can compare experiences like that because we're talking about sub-second differences and utter chaos.

[chesea]

I think that they might not care as much about people already in the program as about luring the next generation.

So, in a year, they can advertise to someone- "Join VIB! Join Rouge! look at the fabulous perks! (picture of insane YSL 2k perk, or trip to paris)

And while it's technically true they gave away a couple of these it will be advertised as the norm for becoming part of their loyalty program. A cheap way in the long run of getting new loyalty.

[heartsmyface]

I can't help but feel that's backwards.  The older generation would have more expendable income would they not?  That's what my lifes financial pattern would seem to indicate.  

[jellybean917]

Right, if there was one thing I learned from The Office, it's that it's better for the company to keep an existing customer than to grab a new one.

[ohsotattooed]

Welcome to Sephora, where they take all your money and the points don't matter!

[liv545]

Rofl waffle!

[katyinok]

HAHA! Thanks for the laugh!

[Anonymous]

So right on the money ohsotattooed!!! So right!!

[mchan86]

The lack of ability to clearly state when the launch time is quite frustrating. Regardless, I belong to a group of Canadian Beauty Bloggers, and we had a few people who pulled an all nighter, refreshing the redemption reward screen. Then during the day, we had at least 10+ of us refreshing the screen together literally any chance we got. But somehow, only 2 of us in the group managed to put something in their cart, which was already pre-filled with product to check out, but with the next click to the checkout screen, the perk was gone. I mean in seconds, EVERYTHING was gone. Yes I understand you can't have an unlimited amount of each 1000-2000 product, but to literally make it feel like there was ONE of each or something for everyone to get, seems honestly unattainable. 

Everyone here is a lover of Sephora, and thats the only reason why we would have enough time and energy to really let you know our thoughts, however Sephora really needs to step up their game with their competitors. Department stores offer free gift(s) with purchases over $35 for specific brands for e.g. and at sephora, the perks are quite minimal in the sense that even if we had thousands of points......... the things to redeem it for are quite average. For 100 pt - which means i spent $100, i get a small sample of a face cream that I can only use 3-4 times. 

Please take this as constructive feedback and offer better point perks (the regular 100, 250 + 500 ones) so that when the EPIC rewards come out, we all don't feel like its our only chance to get something good.

[MUAStephM]

The last paragraph sums up about 90% of peoples frustration I imagine. 

[Tracib1981]

I think that this is going to be used to guage how many people actually tried to get a reward.  As opposed to how many people actually got one. But that is just a thought.

[Lunality]

Can't they just base their number off of how many accounts have more than 1000 points banked? Why go with this stupid email thing....I don't even want to take the time to send them anything. Also like heart said, they should be able to see how many people are interested based on the traffic on the website on the 10th.