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.

[notcreative]

That's my favorite, too. My second is:

"You, you're okay. This one: real f*cking ugly!"

[SydBristow]

Thank you for encouraging feedback and for listening to our responses!  Fingers crossed that such reward offerings in the future are available to more of us!  🙂

[Nikol1]

I am going to chime in here. I appreciate Sephora contacting me on twitter (@nikolnolan) and instagram (@knikolnolan) and asking me to e-mail them about my horrible experience with the epic rewards. I am not happy at all, but they did specify that these rewards were extremely limited. It was almost like Black Friday in my eyes after reading how little of each reward they had. I didn't even see the rewards show up because they were gone so fast. I honestly think everyone is blowing it way out of proportion though. Calm down and try again next time! I didn't get anything, but I do know a few girls who did, and they just got lucky. Good luck to everyone next time! Stay positive!

[joycep]

My problem is that they didn't release the time the rewards would be available.  People have jobs and cannot sit in front of a computer all day to keep track of the rewards.  

It's only fair to release an actual time so people know when to get online, check the site and get it over with.  A lot of people were waiting all day...........this part is completely absurd.  

Hopefully they will listen.  And improve next time! 

[Adriadne]

I just spent $70 at Ulta rather than Sephora.  It was doubly satisfying. I got my eye shadows, a free Michael Kors gift set, double points, and fragrance samples. I also got the little thrill of not shopping at Sephora.

I was willing to give Sephora a chance to make this right, but if they're just throwing points at this as some people have indicated then I'm even more ticked. More points that we can spend to get samples that other companies would give us gratis is not the answer.  Your best customers deserve something attainable that's worth spending thousands of points on.  At least Ulta's points can be redeemed for money off your purchase.

[yumixpeach]

The Michael Kors reward was MUCH better than any Sephora 500 point reward I've seen for awhile!  And you only had to spend $50!!

[scarletmaeve]

I received 2 form letters and one asking me to call them. I sent a message from their "contact us" on this website and e-mailed the address they provided... Still no real response. At this time I will not phone them as I cannot spend an hour or more on hold, and I feel that I have fulfilled my end of the responsibility by messaging them twice in the manner that they requested. What is irking me a little though is once again they cannot be fair and handle all the Rouge's equally... 1000 pts for you, 1000 pts for you, 250 pts for you, oh and we wont even respond to you- you're not throwing enough of a fuss. How can they make a rewards system fair, when they can't even approach the apology in a uniform manner. My disappointment continues...

[meganlisa]

I got 100 points and a form email...saying that they had received my email.

[Slavago2]

I got 100 points and an automatic reply. And then they took the points back when I asked them if that was how they're dealing with it lol. 

[mely25]

No - I am sorry but you don't get to just apologize. You better re-vamp this reward system ASAP. Period. No more chances... You sold this idea of buy buy and get extra points so you can get these rewards and I am sure you made a LOT of money...

I honestly hope a lot of people just go return all they got... you deserve it!

[LCResz]

I get, I get it, people are tired of this, but my biggest gripe (because truthfully this is all rather trivial in the grand scheme of things, I know) is that Sephora claims it wants to hear from clients, but I have left a message on this very site and on their Facebook page and have received no acknowledgement. As for the email I sent, I received a canned response and will await to see if there's any further contact. Just don't make a big deal about how special you want to make your customers feel if you're not actually going to live up to your claims. 

[hydee77]

I am all for letting this thing whole fiasco die so I'm sorry for the bump but I just wanted to reply to let Sephora know I sent an email to the address provided and explained my "issue" which I won't rehash here for the sake of our sanity.

[StephaniLynn]

Can we please just let this thing die down already.? I would really love for all our regular BT users to stop leaving/come back...

[Blondissima777]

ROUGE members mean nothing to Sephora and the Epic rewards was the perfect example of it. Other than free 2 day shipping (which Nordstrom's & others offer EVERYONE), being a Rouge means nothing.

You can pay Sephora $10 a year for their 2-day Flash shipping or spend $1000 to be a VIB Rouge. As a Rouge myself, I feel no difference. 

I have no access to better rewards year round (and I don't mean 2 or so red lipsticks 'exclusive' to Rouges). I don't really wear red lipstick, so I could care less about this.

1 YSL eyeshadow book per FOOTBALL stadium full of VIB Rouges once a year won't cut it either. 

All my points came from spending. Not a single one was gifted to me, so basically, I paid for them. Sephora is not gifting or rewarding me anything, by giving me a zero in none chance at getting a 'reward' that's paid for (2000 points @ +- $2000. YSL Eyeshadow book $600+, Sephora cost $300+?, if not $0, since this free advertising for YSL). 

Remember, we had to SPEND A LOT AND DIDN'T EVEN GET A CHANCE to get something worth a lot less!

It's funny to see people are UNHAPPY with the way Sephora replied to their message or how mad they are when they were offered 1000 points on Twitter or Facebook as an apology.

HEY, GUYS, DON'T GET MAD BY THE 1000 POINT OFFER OR AN APOLOGY. I CONTACTED THEM EVERYWHERE AND DIDN'T EVEN GET A COURTESY REPLY.

Rouge = Nothing. That's how valued I feel.

[senorabombon]

Feeling the same way.  Rouge = sucker.  I wish I would have spent my money at Neiman Marcus or Nordstrom.  I could be enjoying some awesome Tom Ford lipsticks right now instead of feeling pissed and deceived.

[mely25]

I agree with you 100%!!!!!

[itsarapp]

It seems hard to believe Sephora didn't anticipate demand as it was hyping the 2/3 and4x points leading up to the epic rewards.  I think you need to do something significant for your customers, particularly Rouge members, and everyone who spent extra money in the days leading up the promotion.  You should not call them rewards, which implies they are there for you to collect the way your 100 and 500 rewards are available.  That was misleading.  It was more like a lottery.  You also need to take to heart what many Rouge members are saying, which is what is the value of that status?  Nordstrom has free shipping and they offer plenty of samples and you earn points that are worth cash.  Very disappointed in spending my time and money.  

[ExquisiteGypsy]

[MonicaYS]

There was little to no information on this promotion. As I was not even aware of last year's Epic Rewards I thought these were just massive rewards added to the Rewards Boutique. I was excited as the rewards up till now were extraordinarily meager and not worth 100 or even 5 points (If each point is equivalent to $1 aren't we effectively placing a $100 value on a 100 point perk?)

So, it turned out these were just for one day. Okay. I was appalled to find out Sephora couldn't even give their customers (loyal enough to spend such a large amount of money) a time the rewards would be live. 

To add insult to injury they did not have any procedures in place to prevent inadvertent basket snatching or enough inventory to appease many people. I cannot imagine that Sephora had absolutely no idea that these would not be popular.

When Sephora releases popular products on the website don't they already have release dates for VIBRouge, VIB, BI and the rest? This is not a new system for them. Why couldn't they do the same exact thing with the Epic Rewards? 

In theory, these rewards were nice but the plan was poorly executed and changes my opinion of Sephora. Over the past few months I noticed a sharp decrease in customer relations and services; the rewards system is just for show as members get nothing quantitative from it. Why isn't there an option to redeem points for store credit like most other retail stores have? That would be a good way to retain customers.

[roro25]

I also thought the epic rewards were a revamp of their current reward system. I was so disappointed when I realized it was a one time per year promotion.  I'm actually really glad to know I wasn't the only person who thought better rewards were going to become the standard at Sephora. 

[sfm1328]

I do not mean this to stir the pot, but I don't know of any store where the rewards are equal to the amount spent.  If the 100 point rewards had a value of close to $100, then sephora would not be making any money, since you spent $100 to get that hypothetical reward.  The money they make has to cover the cost of products, labor and overhead, cost of samples/events/rewards, and a profit - since they are a company, after all.

I think the 100 and 500 point rewards can be improved too, but would imagine that there's a certain value range, and after that value it's simply not cost effective to them.