My experience at Teavana.

For general/other topics related to tea.


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Jun 13th, '13, 11:14
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by amaranto » Jun 13th, '13, 11:14

I'm sorry to hear your story. They sound like they have done a good job of attracting some of the most unpleasant people to work in management. I hope you can fix your problems soon.

Jun 13th, '13, 20:07
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by DragonSong » Jun 13th, '13, 20:07

Actually, surprisingly, I don't think my managers are that bad... but they're desperate. The one who yelled at me? Since she became management she had to deal with being the youngest manager and trying to manage all of her friends. Her and I were at least friendly before she became a manager but after she did I think she felt threatened and disrespected. She wanted to do a good job and had no experience so she went too far. A lot of her decisions seem to be based off of this need to do things right so the GM doesn't yell at her, which he does often.
The manager that stole my sale is very competitive; he's consistently one of the top sellers and even he's had a rough couple months with sales.
Even our GM is a nice guy outside of work but he was young when he was thrown into the position. He's driven and wants to move up but he knows that the only way to do that is to have the best team and he's seen our sales drop so he's doing the only thing he can think of to motivate us; tell us to lie.
I think Teavana is very good at cultivating the kind of people it thinks will be the best sellers and weeding out the less likely. I've known for a long time that this was a bad place for me to be but it's hard to get a job. I'm lucky I have parents that support me but most of the kids that work with me (None of us are over 28) aren't so fortunate. They're desperate but not bad people. The company however... I think they're poison to their workers.

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Jun 17th, '13, 15:23
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by SlientSipper » Jun 17th, '13, 15:23

DragonSong wrote:Actually, surprisingly, I don't think my managers are that bad... but they're desperate. The one who yelled at me? Since she became management she had to deal with being the youngest manager and trying to manage all of her friends. Her and I were at least friendly before she became a manager but after she did I think she felt threatened and disrespected. She wanted to do a good job and had no experience so she went too far. A lot of her decisions seem to be based off of this need to do things right so the GM doesn't yell at her, which he does often.
The manager that stole my sale is very competitive; he's consistently one of the top sellers and even he's had a rough couple months with sales.
Even our GM is a nice guy outside of work but he was young when he was thrown into the position. He's driven and wants to move up but he knows that the only way to do that is to have the best team and he's seen our sales drop so he's doing the only thing he can think of to motivate us; tell us to lie.
I think Teavana is very good at cultivating the kind of people it thinks will be the best sellers and weeding out the less likely. I've known for a long time that this was a bad place for me to be but it's hard to get a job. I'm lucky I have parents that support me but most of the kids that work with me (None of us are over 28) aren't so fortunate. They're desperate but not bad people. The company however... I think they're poison to their workers.
This company is run by sociopaths and greed.
This is a job that's best left short term for your sanity and ethics.

Jun 20th, '13, 06:12
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Joined: Jun 8th, '13, 03:08
Location: Baltimore , Md

Re: My experience at Teavana.

by lordmage » Jun 20th, '13, 06:12

sucks to read this but it so makes sense. my only times there are for german rock sugar and maybe an odd sample or two when i have the extra green and each time they try to sell me on some new fangled tea infuser or gift set. most of my current teas come from adaigo and i can say one thing for certain if they ever opened a local spot similar to teavana i am there.

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Jun 20th, '13, 10:58
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by amaranto » Jun 20th, '13, 10:58

They still owe me around $200 for an order I placed a while back. I thought I had finally gotten it back, but no. Very bad customer service. Crappy tea, too, IMHO.

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Jun 22nd, '13, 17:50
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by SlientSipper » Jun 22nd, '13, 17:50

amaranto wrote:They still owe me around $200 for an order I placed a while back. I thought I had finally gotten it back, but no. Very bad customer service. Crappy tea, too, IMHO.
I know they have dishonest "honest" policy when it comes to refunds and exchanges. They are trained to delay you as much as possible before actually honoring their policy.

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Jun 23rd, '13, 19:55
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by amaranto » Jun 23rd, '13, 19:55

Perhaps I should bug them some more :lol:

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Jun 24th, '13, 14:27
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by Geekgirl » Jun 24th, '13, 14:27

Perhaps in your next communication you should tell them they have 5 business days to resolve the matter or you are opening a dispute with your credit card company.

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Jun 24th, '13, 14:58
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by Chip » Jun 24th, '13, 14:58

Geekgirl wrote:Perhaps in your next communication you should tell them they have 5 business days to resolve the matter or you are opening a dispute with your credit card company.
... and reporting them to the BBB!!! :evil:

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Jun 25th, '13, 00:23
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by amaranto » Jun 25th, '13, 00:23

Good advice, guys. I've heard the BBB is quite familiar with their "customer service."

Jul 28th, '13, 08:01
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by oolong » Jul 28th, '13, 08:01

@earthprince: I know the story is several years old but I still found it very interesting and have just completely read it.

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Jul 29th, '13, 11:05
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by Suz » Jul 29th, '13, 11:05

I'm so glad I read this thread. I almost bought some things from this site.

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Jul 29th, '13, 14:53
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by IzzieBot » Jul 29th, '13, 14:53

I had a bad online experience last Jan. I ordered about $20 dollars worth of items that were allegedly delivered but I never received. I tried calling them about a month after the order and they had no record of it.

It also vanished from my purchase history in my online account but I had a record of the purchase on my credit card.

I went back and forth between Teavana who told me to get my bank to refund the money, and my bank who told me Teavana had to take care of it. I gave up after two weeks of this and no resolution. Teavana refused to re-ship the items and neither them or my bank refunded me the money.

I will never shop there again, even after all these claims of restructuring cause of Starbucks acquiring them. Damage is done : /

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Jul 29th, '13, 15:59
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by Suz » Jul 29th, '13, 15:59

I had two Bodum espresso glasses from Amazon stolen from me after the mailman left them on my doorstep. I lived in an apartment at the time.

Not as bad as your experience but still very upsetting. :(

Nov 23rd, '13, 15:02
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Re: My experience at Teavana.

by Coffey » Nov 23rd, '13, 15:02

I actually had a pretty good first experience at Teavana. The first time I went there, I had never tried loose tea before. The people were nice and didn’t stalk me around the store trying to make me buy things. I told the person at the counter that I hadn’t tried loose tea before, and she was content to let me buy 2 oz. of one of the cheaper teas they sold (I think it was Moroccan Mint) and a little box of their tea filters, since I didn’t want to buy a proper strainer until I knew whether I liked their tea or not. I spent somewhere between ten and fifteen dollars, walked out totally satisfied, and wound up coming back for the next several years. The employees at this particular Teavana were always nice and generally weren’t overly pushy (except for this one annoying guy who wouldn’t take “I already have a cast iron teapot” for an answer, because the fact that my teapot didn’t come from Teavana apparently means it isn’t as high quality). They sometimes measured .2 or .3 oz more than I asked for, but I was always okay with that because I knew I’d drink the tea anyway.

Then I came into Teavana one day planning to buy 2 oz. each of several teas, because I would be going off to college soon and there isn’t a tea store anywhere near my college. I told the guy at the counter exactly how much money I had to spend. He seemed nice at the time, but it turned out that he measured more than I asked for, then quickly picked the bag up off the counter and showed me tea in it and asked if that was okay. He over-measured all the teas, but the standout was the one where he measured a full 1.5 oz. more than I’d asked for. He told me that if I bought a full pound of tea, I’d get a discount, and since I figured I’d wind up drinking that much tea sooner or later anyway, I bought a little more tea. I was pretty ticked off when I looked at the receipt later and found out that with the way he measured, I’d already had a full pound of tea before buying that last bit. I noticed at the register that I was paying more than I’d planned to, but he said that it was really hard to measure exactly, and that the total was still pretty close to what I’d have paid if it had been exact. I wound up using some of my clothes budget to pay for the rest of the tea, since I figured that once he’d rang up the tea, it would be really inconvenient for him to have to go back and change things around, plus my parents were saying it was almost time to leave anyway, so I was in a hurry. Besides, it wasn’t like the extra tea would go to waste.

I probably should have stopped going to Teavana after that, but I assumed that it was just that one guy, so I avoided him the next few times I went in. The last straw was a year later, when I mentioned to one of the employees that I really wished I could have an electric tea kettle in my dorm room, but the rules specifically prohibit it. She asked what school I went to, and said that they had actually just checked with the school, and the school had recently agreed to allow any water heating device that didn’t have a hot plate, which included one of the devices Teavana sold. My mom was suspicious and wanted to check with the school first, and she talked me out of buying it until after we’d done so. Good thing my mom was there, because it turned out that the school still did not allow any sort of water heating device in the dorms, which the employee would have known if she’d actually checked. Now I’ve officially sworn off Teavana. I'm not shopping anywhere where the employees outright lie to me to make me buy their products.

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