Ikea
Posted: Wed 4 January, 2006 Filed under: Customer Services, Thoughts 2 Comments »Well, we did end up at Ikea in Brent Park last night – and all told, it wasn’t too bad. Amazing, I know – I wouldn’t say it was good, as the blue and yellow monstrosity still seems to act as a magnet for all the braindead fuckmonkeys in North London, but at the same time nor was it awful. Which makes a change.
I’m never going to like the place – but at least Ikea seem to be finally doing something about the more heinous cock-ups at the store – the car-park has been redesigned, they’re making a new entrance to the place , and they’ve eliminated the awful blockade that was the area for collecting purchases.
Of course, the ordering process is still nightmarish, and the customer services doesn’t deserve the title. But the stuff’s good quality (in general) and popular. I just wish that the customers had brains that stayed active…
I love the way IKEA constantly moves it’s design and styling on, I love the bright, modern, contempory, elegant (in some cases)furniture they produce………….but i fuckin hate picking it, assembling it and most of all I hate IKEA staff, useless MF’s, but as they say, if you pay peanuts you get monkeys.
I’ve just had the worst experience of my life, thanks to the so called Customer Service Dept at Ikea Croydon.
You know when you buy a pair of shoes they check that you have bought two the same size – well no such common sense at Ikea. I managed to buy a super king size mattress and a king size bed all with the help of Ikea staff.
Imagine my dismay when on returning 60 miles to my home to find that I can’t fit the mattress in the bed. Over the next couple of days I debated what to do and then telephoned the customer service line to see if I could return the mattress. I was told that as it was unwrapped they could not do this. I was also told that to get a replacement delivered would be £95!! So after a little haggling I managed to get them to agree to take the mattress for 70% of it’s value, costing me £57 for the privlege of returning it. This was agreed by Carol.
On entering the shop with my receipt, reference number and any other scraps of paper I could find associated with the purchase, (oh, and a borrowed van, driver and helpful friend) I was told that I could not return the mattress. Not only was this a nightmare, but it was suggested to me that I could return the bed frame, that was sat 60 miles away at only 70% of it’s value. I told the imbecile quite clearly that the bed frame was 60 miles away and that it would take over an hour to collect, not to mention time and fuel and his reply was, “Well, we are open ’til 12pm and it’s only 8pm now, so you’ve got time to go back and collect it”. I couldn’t believe how rude he was being over a simple mistake. By the way, he was so spineless that he wouldn’t give me his surname, but he’s Aaron and is supposed to be head of customer services. I think he must have been a banker by day – I think you know what I mean!!
Now you could say that I shouldn’t have unwrapped the mattress, or that I should have checked all the packaging, but when the mattress comes in two pieces and won’t fit up the staircase, you don’t have much choice (unless you want to refit your sash windows!). The reason I didn’t check all the packaging for sizes is that the Ikea staff had helped to locate the correct items as they all had the wrong isle reference. So silly me, I trusted them. Well never again!!
I will be writing to their MD, as I now either have to return the bed frame I don’t want and cost myself and my friends time and money to return an item that they will only give me 70% for, or take it as a loss.
So, anyone out their bought an Ikea mattress and want the bed to go with it? It’s a Malm 160cm x 200cm in white.
Happy shopping!!