Any customer-facing job has its good days and bad days. The overwhelming majority of the clients we see at Grail are amazing and just phenomenal to work with. These interactions make our jobs fulfilling and uplifting (no pun intended). Occasionally, folks will be upset with us over common issues like wait times or our inability to accept returns on certain items. Every once in a blue moon, someone is just seemingly inexplicably mean. I’ve cried, in the office, and even once in front of the person. These are rare occurrences, though.

Back in August, a visitor left an extremely negative review for Grail on Google. Bad reviews happen, sometimes deserved and sometimes not. They can be an opportunity for understanding parts of the customer experience that may need improving. This was a different situation than anything I’d encountered before, though, because the review included a mix of truths and some very malicious untruths. I felt like we needed to get our side of the story on record and left a much-too-long, TLDR, response on Google. Others suggested to me after the fact that I should have read this individual’s equally angry reviews of others businesses, dialed back my response, and avoided making myself a target for additional rage. This may indeed have been the better choice. At the time, I did not want to acquiesce to the Grail staff having said and done things that we did not in fact do.

We are in the process of growing, and with that comes growing pains and occasionally stumbling, even to the point where we might fail to give every customer the kind of service that we’ve earned a reputation for. Running a small, and thriving, business is a process and it doesn’t always go smoothly as we are whole people, just like our customers.

It is a fact that this would-be shopper was unable to reach us by phone on the day of their visit because we were on the other line with other clients. It is absolutely true that no one greeted them when they arrived, because I was meeting with folks from a community group, and my one additional team member that day was trying to juggle four other customers who were already in fitting rooms. It was an impossible situation for my employee, and I am still eaten up with guilt for not rescheduling that meeting until after the back-to-school rush. I thought we had things under control, but I was wrong.

I did a lot of mental gymnastics trying to figure out any possible good-faith honest-misunderstanding explanation for the reviewer’s other accusations. Maybe there really is such an explanation, but I can’t wrap my head around it. At work and in life, I strive to give people the benefit of the doubt. But, absolutely no one was crassly body-shaming anyone that day, and we take the privacy and personal boundaries of all of our clients extremely seriously. Our whole fitting process hinges on consent.

After I responded to the review, I received a voicemail from the reviewer saying that they intend to contact a list of Athens-area nonprofits to tell them that Grail is LGBT-unfriendly and that we’re not a safe space for women, whether cis or trans. I have no appetite to list counterexamples here, as it’s just too easy to veer into seemingly performative territory. I will say that the Athens Queer community is literally our community. Our staff are LGBT+. Our family, friends, clients, and loved ones are LGBT+. We put our time, money, and attention where our mouth is. This customer did not get the prompt service and personalized attention that we strive to give everyone, but that had absolutely nothing to do with anyone’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

I’ve been deeply upset by this incident. It’s still kind of tough to talk about. If any of you have further questions about what occurred, please reach out. Looking ahead, we just added two additional employees to the Grail team, bringing our fitting team up to 5. This was already a step that we were planning to take, but the situation really underscored just how serious the consequences can be when our staff is stretched too thin and someone feels ignored. My sincere hope is that every Grail customer will benefit from these changes, and we can be more efficient and effective in serving our ideals as we wrap up this year of huge changes.