Otte

My experience at Otte has sometimes been spectacular and sometimes downright lame. Ultimately, they carry some of the most interesting, refreshing merchandise and have terrific sales. Sometimes they can be friendly. Other times they are very disinterested in you. Such is life.

I give Otte on the upper east side five stars for great customer service. Contrary to other reviews, whenever i have entered the store on 3^rd avenue on the upper east side, the salespeople are extremely friendly and yet not overbearing. I bought a necklace here recently that I love for about $ 300, but when i wore it, the clasp kept becoming undone. I brought it back it back to the store. Being the last necklace of that kind, they sent it back to the designer to fix the clasp for me. It was ready only ten days later, and when i expressed how difficult it would be to pick it up because of the store hours and being away on the weekends in the summer, they offered to drop it off at my place. That is amazing service to me!

I am so disappointed with Otte. Yes, they have great items but their clerks were so full of themselves and plain out rude. It really disgusts me on how rude they can be to their clients. Honestly, I have been trained in the retail business and we were trained to respect our clients, but they completely dismissed me and acted as if I was stupid. It was just plain out mean and I will never ever shop here.

I love boutiques. I do not love high-​priced junk. I promise this is not a bad review in disguise but rather a markup of the great customer service I received for some very poorly made merchandise. I visited Otte on a trip to buy a pug in NYC. As we were enjoying the best fish and chips across the street at A Salt and Battery and ran across to pop in.
I dawdled in front of the jewellery case for a lengthy amount of time and ended up loving these very frail looking bracelets, My Poupette, I believe. One was half string, half teensy tiny gold chain with a tiny diamond in the middle and the other was some pretty greenish purple beads braided together. The total for some handmade bracelets… a whopping $ 375.00. With boutiques I generally slap my card down and close my eyes because it can be painful for what you get.
While that wasn’t too bad it was painful when a couple weeks later, back in Chicago, the green one fell apart. I tried to fix it and couldn’t and then 3 days later the one with the diamond broke too. I contacted the boutique and they said to send them back so I did.
I was offered new ones and I politely declined thinking this would just happen again and then a flurry of e-​mails offered me store credit, which is useless to me, and I finally just asked for a refund, which was honored. Seeing as this is a boutique and no refunds are given to begin with I certainly appreciate that the girls knew the merchandise was faulty and a refund is more than fair given those circumstances. I appreciate that and am willing to go back when I am in town for something that will hold up better than those flimsy bracelets

I give Otte 3 stars for having the dress I wanted in stock and for reserving it until I got there to try it on.
I deduct 2 stars because the salespeople were snotty and disinterested.
When salespeople are snotty and disinterested, I have this perverse desire to INSIST that they pay attention to me, and that they find the minimum of politeness indispensable for making a sale. I ask many polite questions, I request other sizes, I make comments. I engage them with a will! Then I purchase my item, say thank you and leave.
It’s actually more fun and less disheartening than trying to match their frigidity.