Dear Ikea--
I know that you're a company that strives to keep things inexpensive, and thus some things are cut from your daily operation--like having pre-assembled furniture or people to help you move 100-lb boxes onto your flat cart that is never truly controllable because it has those stupid gliding wheels, so you spend half the time hauling against it with all your weight so that you don't crash into the poor, little old lady wandering through the picking area with her cane.
I understand that you've built a reputation of quality, inexpensive furniture designed on principles of minimalism and customization. I get it.
And having always lived in various places where there was never an Ikea, I looked upon your store like a home-design mecca, overwhelming in its glory and stymieing plethora of items.
But here's the deal. You have a lot of choices. I mean, a ton. If you were to create some sort of computer algorithm, I bet a person walking through Ikea with the intent to purchase a boat-load of stuff would face the possibility of a million decisions or more with colors, doors, configurations, items, additions, whatever. So we did our research, my husband and I. We figured out what we wanted to buy, and bookmarked some stuff we wanted to see on the floor so that we could decide. It turns out that a lot of the stuff we wanted was in your "Besta" line. And we have compact cars, so no way was that going to work to haul all the stuff we wanted to buy all the way back home. Here we were, so dedicated and excited to deck our house out with Ikea goods that we woke up at the crack of dawn, drove 2.5 hours into New Jersey (I mean, Jersey! Do you have any idea what the drivers and the highways are like in Jersey? It's terrifying!), rented a UHaul cargo van, and showed up an hour after you opened.
We had a list. We had a plan. This was going to be easy.
So Ikea, imagine our chagrin, if you will, when every single item on our list that was not related to a closet was "temporarily over-sold." The desk. The shelves. The entertainment center. The cabinets. So we looked at other things we thought we could use as Plan B. Oversold. Oversold. Oversold.
And, now that we're feeling so under-slept because we woke up so early to get that UHaul and make it to your store at opening time, imagine how we felt when we couldn't find anyone to ask about this mysterious plague of overselling. After three laps of the sofa/wall unit/ kitchen departments, we finally found someone--who told us that she has no idea about this "oversold" thing, and that we should go back to wall units. Which we did. And when we still couldn't find anyone, we stalked some other poor Ikea employee to the office section and asked him for help. He was actually quite nice, and called the people in the wall unit section and told them that we were coming. So we went back to the wall unit section for the third time.
Guess what? Your Besta line had quality issues, so you couldn't sell it. In any color. And it's been this way for at least a week. And guess what? Your web site still said that you had all these things in stock, which is why we drove for 2.5 hours at the crack of dawn to get to JERSEY to buy this stuff. We stood in the store and checked the website again, and it still said everything was in stock! Is it too much to ask, Ikea, that maybe you could have put a note on your website letting people know? And I know she meant well, but the lady that told us to call the wall unit department before we came "next time" was really unhelpful. You're just lucky that my husband can recognize the signs of impending uncontrollable rage and steered me away before I could do something I would later very much regret. I mean, is it too much to ask to offer to ship this stuff? Or make some sort of accommodation? I know you're a busy kind of place, but surely you can spare some effort for us.
It's okay, Ikea. We came up with a different plan. We could get over the fact that nothing that we had checked on your website or had planned on purchasing was going to work. In fact, maybe what we came up with as Plan C was even better than Plan A, now that we think about it. Score for you!
But I have to say that you lose points on efficiency. We would have paid you to pick our stuff for us. We were exhausted. Our blood sugar was low. We didn't want to play "Frogger" with the carts. But you couldn't do that. Nope. Can't pick orders for people unless you're going to deliver it... even if they're willing to pay the "local" delivery price...and even if another employee of yours (who happened to be in the wall unit department) said that picking was one fee, and delivery was another--we could pay for one or both.
And you lose major points for customer flow. Can you explain to me why, when there are 12 closed checkouts, and a wait time of more than 15 minutes at each open register, that you don't open more checkouts? And what is up with those cramped check-out lanes, anyway? You do realize that people are coming through with gliding flat carts that they can't control, stacked high with hundreds of pounds of disassembled minimalist Swedish decor, with old ladies with canes wandering through at random intervals, right? Why make it more challenging for people by putting over-sized pallets of stuff in the way, so that the customer feels like they're negotiating a game of Pac Man just to be able to pay you for the chance to go home and try to assemble this furniture with instructions that have no words?
Oh, but I did enjoy the free lunch. Thanks for that. After the four wardrobes, and the mirror, and the entertainment center, and the bed frame, and the canvas painting, and the nightstands, and the office chair, and the dishes that we bought, that ten bucks of meatballs was appreciated.
I'm sorry, Ikea. I'm being snarky. And bitter. Really bitter. I really do appreciate the free lunch. In fact, over lunch, my husband and I repeated over and over again how lucky we were that we were able to be able to get all this furniture in the first place. And that our plates of meatballs were more food that a lot of people would see in a week. For a while, reapeating this mantra of blessings helped us to be much more Zen about our experience while we were visiting you. But you see, then our second gliding cart in a row was broken. And we couldn't get through that damn check out line without banging into people. And we had to pick one load, check out, load the van, and go back in and pick another load, check out, load, and be gone. But some of your stuff is "full service," and we really couldn't figure out the logic behind which is which. So after our second time loading, we accidentally drove away without realizing that we had forgotten a chest of drawers that you had to pick for us as a "full service item," and which we paid for. In fact, we didn't realize it for 170 miles. And then you put us on hold for 15 minutes when we called to see if we could refund it, before you transferred us to a new department where we were on hold for another 15 minutes, and then your employee--who was really trying to be nice, I'm sure--says something like, "whoa! Why is this so expensive?" And really, that's simply not what you want to say to someone who has just spent 6 hours in your store, trying against all odds to buy enough stuff to fill a cargo van.
And when we looked online to see if we could just ship the stupid chest of drawers to us, the shipping cost more than the drawers! More than it would be for us to drive another 5 hours round trip, with tolls and gas. Really, Ikea? You're going to charge us $300 dollars to ship a chest of drawers that we're buying--that we really already bought--because all the other stuff we wanted to buy was oversold and you couldn't help us out with any alternatives?
But seriously, Ikea? Seriously? Throw a girl a bone, here. Or at least some free shipping.
Sincerely,
Bested by Besta
OMG. I actually laughed out loud when I read this. I had such a similar experience when I was 8 mos pregnant. They refuse to help pick. It finally came down to another customer helping me. I'm guessing it's in their employee contract. . . .
ReplyDeleteWhat a horrible experience! I don't think being the mecca of home-design allows a company to have such poor customer service. I've had better experiences buying at yard and estate sales, so I'd expect more from Ikea.
ReplyDelete