BBB Escort

marichella21

My fiance and I went to BBB today to register and while I thought it was going to be a fun experience it really wasn't, we were exhausted and it was only because we had someone with us the entire time. That wasn't even what I disliked about it, she was super nice but it took us over 3 hours to just get through kitchen ware and accessories because she kept telling us to look at this and look at that. I'm not all that great at cutting people off, especially when they're so nice so when I said I wanted a blender and picked one she said well i've gone through at least 5 of them so i can tell you that this was good but after 2 years this, the rubber wore off of this one after 1 year, etc. I really appreciate reviews but I can look them up online. Even when I said i didn't want something I still got a story on why i should have it.

Does anyone know if this is their standard procedure to have someone with you the entire time? If that's the case I would rather just register online because I can't justify spending an entire day to get through one or two rooms when we're still living in an apartment. When she asked us when we wanted our appointment for the next time we just paused and said we would have to check our schedules lol.

JoanE2012

We did not have anyone walk around with us.  I don't even think anyone offered.  I did go in with a list of items we had already researched and looked at reviews.....so we were just going into the store to see the item in person, make sure we liked it, and add it to our registry.

Avion22

The consultant wanted to walk around with us, and we told him we preferred to do it alone.  He backed off.   Why didn't you just ask the consultant to leave you alone?

marichella21

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_registering-gifts_bbb-escort?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:34Discussion:1862232a-29ce-4ae2-a08e-d94a12c8bf26Post:98af79aa-f7f3-4ea2-9904-c3dae0bbf948">Re: BBB Escort</a>:
[QUOTE]The consultant wanted to walk around with us, and we told him we preferred to do it alone.  He backed off.   Why didn't you just ask the consultant to leave you alone?
Posted by Avion22[/QUOTE]


I thought she was just going to start us off with some tips, hand us the scanner, and then go. I'm not very good at cutting people off and she did gave us some good advice in the beginning so I was kind of waiting for the right time to say please let us do this on our own. I think that we let it go on for so long that i felt i lost my opportunity to tell her without sounding rude. My fiance is good at that but instead he decided to take a phone call as a way to cope lol. Now that I know you can do it without their assistance, I'm more comfortable going in and saying from the beginning, if they try to join us again, that we'll be doing this alone. Thanks for letting me know!! Hopefully round two will be more efficient lol.

udream05

I've heard this happening to some people.. and I was quite scared of it when we went to register there, thankfully the woman only stuck with us briefly and then went on to do other things. FI would have freaked out otherwise, he's very big on his privacy and personal space

Avion22

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_registering-gifts_bbb-escort?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:34Discussion:1862232a-29ce-4ae2-a08e-d94a12c8bf26Post:7daf1e99-6072-4cef-a7d2-f4c013eb8a3b">Re: BBB Escort</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: BBB Escort : I thought she was just going to start us off with some tips, hand us the scanner, and then go. I'm not very good at cutting people off and she did gave us some good advice in the beginning so I was kind of waiting for the right time to say please let us do this on our own. I think that we let it go on for so long that i felt i lost my opportunity to tell her without sounding rude. My fiance is good at that but instead he decided to take a phone call as a way to cope lol. Now that I know you can do it without their assistance, I'm more comfortable going in and saying from the beginning, if they try to join us again, that we'll be doing this alone. Thanks for letting me know!! Hopefully round two will be more efficient lol.
Posted by marichella21[/QUOTE]<div>
</div><div>Ah, you're too polite:-)  </div><div>
</div><div>The other way to do it is to tell them that you are short on time and just need to update a few things.   OR, with BBB you can update your registry online, and it's really easy.  </div><div>
</div>

hoffse

It varies store by store, and every once in awhile one of these threads will pop up - from what I can tell it sounds like it tends to happen more at the large BBBs with the dedicated bridal departments (not just a bridal counter).  FI and I initially went to a BBB with a bridal dept, and the guy not only followed us around the whole time, he wouldn't let us use the scan gun.  I was really hoping that the scan gun was a way to get FI into the process, because shopping online just doesn't always cut it if you need to see/feel the quality in person.

When we returned home, we also found that he had gone ahead and scanned a bunch of very very very expensive stuff we told him we didn't want.  It was easy to delete, but the whole experience irritated us so much that we actually eneded up deleting our entire registry there and going with amazon instead for our small-ticket kitchen gadgets, kitchen electrics, etc.  Amazon's prices were, in many cases, much better than BBBs we found, and everything we wanted had either free shipping with Prime or over $25.  

We got to use the scan gun in macy's, and that was a much better experience overall.  BBB was just far too aggressive for us, and while we know it's a common store it just wasn't a store we wanted to give our wedding business to after that experience.  Weddings often generate several thousand dollars for a retailer, so we were trying to be conscientious of that when registering.

jessicabessica

At the BBB near us, we just went in, asked for a scan gun (we started our registry online), and walked around ourselves.  We told the man that offered to help us that we wanted to walk around alone, but we would find him if we had questions, and we had him talk to us about fine china at the end, because our local store didn't have any on display.  

Peledreamsofrain

Hrm, this is a toughie

People aren't psychic, your sales rep probably stayed with you because you didn't tell her otherwise.  You may think you are being polite, but not expressing your wishes is actually not very nice to do to salespeople.  She probably would have been happy to leave you be and go take a cigarette break, but you seemed interested.  Learn to speak up, it'll serve you very well throughout your life, and it's not rudeness in the slightest.

Our salesperson stayed with us for about 15 minutes, then let us roam free because we asked to.  Everyone wins, nobody's unhappy.

Ali092011

I can sympathize with you, OP, not with my BBB experience but in general. I have a very hard time cutting people off or expressing that I'm not interested. FI gets frustrated with me sometimes--once I stood on the street for half an hour listening to someone try to convert me because I couldn't find a polite way to tell them I wasn't going to be attending their church.

As far as BBB is concerned, I think there are some overly exuberant consultants who feel gratified when their customers register for lots of high-ticket items. However, I think the majority of them are just there to help, do their job, and go home. Our consultant listened to us and didn't push anything on us. As soon as we said I'd inherited three sets of china, she immediately backed off and showed us something more in line with our interests. She showed us the sections of the store with the widest selection so we felt reassured, and then she let us do our thing. We had a good experience, but I can see how you might get turned off with a pushy consultant.

GoodLuckBear14

DH had to tell our BB&B consultant that if we so much as saw her on the floor we were walking out and registering at another store - and letting her manager know why we were leaving.  That is the only thing that finally stopped her constantly coming out to tell us what we missed.  No dear.  We didn't miss anything, we are not twenty years old and moving out of mom and dad's house.  We already have it.

divinemsbee

Yeah, when I did our BBB registry I had someone walk around with me and while it was just me and her, it was a little weird because I felt like I couldn't pick things up and browse around because I was taking up her time. And then, after we got all the way through, it turned out the gun had stopped working in kitchen stuff, so we had to go back through and re-scan everything. It probably took about 2 or 3 hours total. My consultant was pretty good about backing off  when I said that I already had certain things.  I do know that there are things I never would have registered for had I not been with a salesperson (matching bathroom soap dispensers) and I just took them off the registry when I got home. I generally cleaned up both of my registries, though. 

My friend who got married earlier this summer started her BBB registry online and when she got to the store they just set her loose with a scanner. That's a common thing I've noticed, that if you go ahead and start it they tend to leave you alone. 

rlavach

Like mentioned, it seems to really vary by store. Some girls get really pushy consultants & others have more normal ones. Mine was great. She showed us how to use the scanner & asked if we wanted her to escort us. I said no & she stayed back. She did kind of shadow us and linger like 1 dept away. That way the 2-3x that I was looking for her to ask a question, she was right there to answer it or find it. Not pushy in the slightest. I also went to the fine china dept of another store & the consultant was just as nice.

acaponi87

Yeah ours tried and after about 5 minutes I was like "Yeahh no thanks" and she just popped in on us here and there the rest of the time. Sometimes they can be really pushy.

No need to make an appointment next time just show up, ask for a gun and if someone wants to come with just say you'd prefer to just go with your FI and you'll find them if you have any questions.

snowdaisy822

The same thing happened with us! It was sooooo annoying! She had to explain everything! My fiance was so annoyed so he didn't help pick much out. I've added everything else online so I didn't have to deal with the store anymore!

ShelbyGT21

I started my registry online, but went to a local store that had a dedicated huge bridal department. The lady was a tad pushy on checking on us every 20 minutes, but other then that it was fine! I've just been doing it online cuz I like seeing reviews though.

OliveOilsMom

We started our registry online.  But I wanted to go check things out in person (shower curtain, etc.) and to finish registering.  I also wanted to make sure that everything I registered for was easily available for purchase in store, not an online only item.  Neither time were they pushy, but the 2nd time I went in store to finish, I saw they had googled me and found my macy's registry, which was a tad creepy. 

OP - go to a different BBB for your next registering trip.  You can go to any store you want to continue.  You don't have to go back to the same one.

AustinFr

I'm so glad for this thread so I can be prepared. I have no problem telling people to back off, but it would make it harder if I was surpirsed by this. It will be nice to warn my FI about this so he'll know why I'm being so firm. Thanks Ladies.