Marks & Spencer cafe: breast-feeding mother asked to leave & feed baby in toilets:OK?

Pollycat

hollydays wrote: »

From facebook-after someone commented on this incident

Marks and Spencer Hi Barbara. I understand your concern and would like to assure you we'd never intentionally make our customers feel this way. This incident was a one off and the members of our team involved in this complaint believed they were doing the right thing to accommodate the customer quickly as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time. Our staff are genuinely mortified that they have caused such embarrassment and upset, as mothers themselves they understand the importance and difficulties faced and are very regretful that the customer didn't feel they were sensitive enough to her needs. We also offered to send an email or letter to apologise further. Please let me know if you need any more help. Thanks, Donna.
1 · 16 hours ago

This sounds to me like the Mum asked for a seat so she could breast feed.

If there wasn't a seat available, what was her expectation?

M&S staff would shift some old biddy who was having a cup of tea and scone?

However, if there were plenty of spare seats in the cafe, I agree that the response of M&S staff was totally wrong - and if I had been on the next table, I would have spoken up in defence of the Mum.

hollydays

The problem is there seems to be two different stories being offered-

themull1

I breastfed my kids for a while, but never in public. I would have felt too self concious. There should be breastfeeding areas for mams to go to, people might not be comfortable having someone sitting next to them in a cafe breastfeeding - i wouldn't enjoy me tea and scone!

hollydays

Oh no , god forbid YOU should go hungry..

likelyfran

Azari wrote: »

Hmmm, so it looks as if the OP wasn't strictly accurate.

The mother wasn't 'asked to leave', she was simply made aware of somewhere she could sit down to feed her baby.

Makes the staff look a lot less insensitive than the picture I suspect most people initially got of someone comfortably sitting at a table feeding their child and then being turfed out by some thoughtless idiot.

Even so, you'd have thought they could have found a spare chair from somewhere so that she could continue in more salubrious surroundings.

So they say.
Just because they say that, you automatically believe them and imply OP is lying or twisting things.
This is not an uncommon reaction from companies/people who were not 'on the ground' when an incident happened.
I once had Holland and Barrett write to me and tell me that I was not allowed to change a faulty product instore (tablets) because 'a valid receipt was not presented'.
The very first thing that was done instore was the production of the receipt for the item so H&B were telling a bareface lie. Well, either they were or the store staff were. Either way, disgusting and it seems to me, a fairly common 'customer service' reaction/attitude these days.

likelyfran

Doc_N wrote: »

Thanks - that's helpful. They've deleted all that very promptly from Facebook, haven't they? Along, I see, with any other critical remarks that unhappy customers have dared to post!

Their response is particularly interesting, though:

"This incident was a one off and the members of our team involved in this complaint believed they were doing the right thing to accommodate the customer quickly as there was no available seating to offer in either cafes at the time. Our staff are genuinely mortified that they have caused such embarrassment and upset, as mothers themselves they understand the importance and difficulties faced and are very regretful that the customer didn't feel they were sensitive enough to her needs. We also offered to send an email or letter to apologise further. Please let me know if you need any more help. Thanks, Donna."

Given that I haven't named the store in question (because I wouldn't want to risk any further possible embarrassment to the young woman in question), and no complaint has apparently been made, I'm wondering how much of a 'one-off' this actually was? How many more incidents like this have there been?

In this particular case, my wife spoke to the woman and there was no doubt whatever that she was asked to leave. Once on this occasion, and once on a previous occasion. And it wasn't a full cafe, either.

This sounds to me rather more like a policy (possibly local) than a one-off. The age profile at this store is predominantly 60+ (perhaps even 70+) and I'm wondering if they're ignoring the needs of young mothers and babies to pander to the prejudices of some of their other customers.

Either way, they're clearly breaking the law and it's odd that it always seems to be M&S that features in threads like this. About time they sorted it, once and for all.

The very fact that M&S has removed the comment in question from FB, is deeply dodgy.
Why would they do that if they had done nothing wrong?
No swear words in comment, nothing 'offensive' - oh dear, M&S!

tomtontom

likelyfran wrote: »

The very fact that M&S has removed the comment in question from FB, is deeply dodgy.
Why would they do that if they had done nothing wrong?
No swear words in comment, nothing 'offensive' - oh dear, M&S!

The post is still on the FB page, you just need to go a long way back to find it.

Azari

likelyfran wrote: »

So they say.
Just because they say that, you automatically believe them and imply OP is lying or twisting things.

There is a bit more to it than that.

The OP's evidence is hearsay and from someone who, to me at least, lost credibility when he made a gratuitous comparison to Waitrose in his initial post.

On the balance of probabilities, which is more likely?

1) A major national retailer trains its staff so badly that they undertake some action that is almost certainly against equality legislation and would be very likely to unleash a wave of seriously detrimental publicity.

2) Someone posting second hand hearsay on a web site has it a bit wrong.

I find the idea that M&S are lying about what happened absurd. All it needs is one reporter to sniff out the 'victim' and they would be subject to the most horrific publicity imaginable. Not only picking on a mother trying to feed her child but also lying about it.

Note that neither of these objections in any way presents M&S as being any more honest and caring than anyone else. They are straightforward commercial and logical considerations.

Doc_N

Azari wrote: »

There is a bit more to it than that.

The OP's evidence is hearsay and from someone who, to me at least, lost credibility when he made a gratuitous comparison to Waitrose in his initial post.

On the balance of probabilities, which is more likely?

1) A major national retailer trains its staff so badly that they undertake some action that is almost certainly against equality legislation and would be very likely to unleash a wave of seriously detrimental publicity.

2) Someone posting second hand hearsay on a web site has it a bit wrong.

I'm sorry you feel that a 'gratuitous' comparison with Waitrose in some strange way results in lost credibility, though I can't quite see the connection between the two. If you take a quick look at the business results being achieved by M&S, and compare them with those being achieved by John Lewis you might get a sense of where I'm coming from. I use both retailers, as does my wife. The John Lewis ethos is incredibly customer-centric, and they bend over backwards to provide excellent customer service. That's why I can't imagine it happening in a Waitrose caf!. M&S used to have that same ethos, but I'm afraid that the need to cut costs has driven it out.

As for the hearsay comment, I do, of course, agree with you. I am reporting the amazed reaction of my wife to a discussion she had just had with the young woman in question, who was sitting feeding her baby in the toilets. She had been asked to leave the cafe (and not for the first time) and there was no question of the cafe being full - they simply did not want her to feed her baby there.

Now, I could be lying. Or maybe my wife is lying. Or perhaps the young woman was lying. But why would any of us choose to do that? It all started with a simple chat between my wife, who was puzzled as to why anyone would choose to feed a baby in a toilet, and the mother. I've no reason to doubt what the mother said, and I certainly haven't exaggerated or embellished it in any way.

You may choose to doubt my credibility for reasons of your own. I leave others to decide for themselves. M&S have past form on this issue, and I find it surprising that the problem is still continuing.

Doc_N

Pollycat wrote: »

This sounds to me like the Mum asked for a seat so she could breast feed.

If there wasn't a seat available, what was her expectation?

M&S staff would shift some old biddy who was having a cup of tea and scone?

However, if there were plenty of spare seats in the cafe, I agree that the response of M&S staff was totally wrong - and if I had been on the next table, I would have spoken up in defence of the Mum.

There were plenty of seats - she had a seat, but was simply asked to leave and feed her baby elsewhere.