Annoying CS. Just so happens I filed a complaint this a.m. with the BBB (on a different business). Just so you know, there is a 'category' of choices on-line filing w/BBB, simply poor CS with no monetary loss.

footnote: I, personally, find it annoying when posters, somehow, feel compelled to not so subtly slip where they just happen to be 'globe trotting.'
Not equally as annoying as poor CS, but hey, count your blessings.
You have money to SPEND. Some of us have really horrific stories AND ARE out the money too.

You got your couch and a globe trotting trip.
Chin up, life's rough

send her a bottle of painkiller and say, "sorry for all the head and back aches we have caused you"

The first rule of service recovery is to fix the problem for your customer. Since that doesn't seem possible here, count it as a lesson learned about doing business with Ikea and move on. I guess the question is would you do business with them again, and if not what, if anything, could they do to make you change your mind?

@falconree:
"I, personally, find it annoying when posters, somehow, feel compelled to not so subtly slip where they just happen to be 'globe trotting.'"

haha!

i had a couple of problems with Lowe's when we bought our refrigerator. called + talked to the manager. he offered to send me a $50 gift card. felt that was fair.

I think philosophy #1 applies here. A good manager will hook her up with a gift card, but they are under no compulsion to reparate you. That's volume based businesses.

From the letter: "The guy was young"

Was this really necessary? Amara has a legitimate complaint, but making petty remarks about an employee's age is only going to hurt her case. Why would the IKEA CSR who has to read and process this be inclined to go out of their way to take care of the problem after reading through the snarky insults?

I would ask for what you believe is a good enough compensation for your troubles. You were given a date that it would be delivered on, whether that date was correct or not isn't your problem that's the store's, and it wasn't which caused you grief (and a sore backside).

I recently had a problem with Alltel's service, it wasn't something I would cancel over but it was a background noise in some calls that bugged me. After 8 months Alltel finally got it fixed and I asked for them to pay a month's bill (which they did). I figured that was good enough compensation for what I experienced.

@hoo_foot:

I would go so far as to say I found the entire letter from her 'snarky'

I think what got to me was the combination of the fact that I filed a BBB complaint this morning, I have read far worse and real valuable complaints on Consumerist,
then to come across this one where she actually got her couch (seemed to arrive fine she didn't mention any defects on top of her ordeal) but she just had to put up with some flaky attitude, boo hoo
and she just 'had' to slip in her correspondance that they took a trip to Africa - that had absolutely not one stinkin-snarky thing to do with her CS experience.

Suffice to say, no sympathy over here.

Some years ago, I received a couch by delivery that showed up with a stain on one of the cushions.
Looked at it, thought about it a second, immediately computed in my noggin, "Hey, I got it on sale anyway and there are worse things to worry about." flipped over the cushion and carried on with life.

OK, now I'm gunna get it ;-)

Wow... it seems there are a few IKEA "fan-boys" responding to this post. Bottom line IKEA is not the store it used to be, their growth has turned them into just another big box retailer trying to post sales growth.

I think writing "the guy was young" was in fact quite kind. I would have typed "...the ignorant snot-nosed kid with an exposed eyebrow piercing..."

Anyway, I've grown tired of IKEA's god-like status in retial America and the declining quality of service they have been dishing out lately will be their downfall.

As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap. -Galatians 6:7

Or not.

I think that it's pretty ridiculous that you expect to be compensated when you suffered no injury, no monetary loss, no property damage, nothing measurable. You were frustrated by your effort to purchase cheap furniture from a major discount company, who doesn't care about you or your frustration. If you can afford to travel to North Africa, you should be able to afford to buy a couch from an actual furniture store if you expect to be treated like a customer. The idea that you deserve compensation is unreasonable. Expect an Apology and move on.

@bradg33:

You ROCK.

@webwbr: think writing "the guy was young" was in fact quite kind. I would have typed "...the ignorant snot-nosed kid with an exposed eyebrow piercing..."

That's an incredibly arrogant comment. What does the employees age or "eyebrow ring" have to do with how he treated the person? What if it had been an overweight black woman? Would you have some sort of politically incorrect description for her? What if it had been a person with a disability?

That's it? That's her troubles? It's IKEA. You get what you pay for. And, honestly, a little miscommunication and a couple apologetic managers does not poor customer service make.

You don't deserve compensation you do reserve the right to never do business with that company again though.

Just thought I'd throw in here that IKEA does, in fact, offer healthcare to all their workers.

So you thought it would be at most 12 days and it ended up being 20? At least once I've tried to make a purchase at my local furniture warehouse and abruptly changed my mind when I discovered the item wasn't in stock at the moment. Now you've learned your lesson: if you really want the furniture now, don't trust that it will necessarily be there when the salesdrone says it will.

If you're having problems deciding what to ask for in compensation it's probably because it's not reasonable to expect much in compensation for 8 extra days of waiting. Go ahead and write them and tell them how cheesed of you are. I know that one of the rules of complaining is to say how you want to be compensated, but, if I were you I don't know that I could bring myself to actually ask for anything.

If sitting on the floor for so long was a hardship, don't complicate matters more by returning the sofa. File a couple complaints if it makes you feel better, tell people when it comes up that you had problems getting your sofa from IKEA, but, other than that, let it go and enjoy your new sofa.

Compensation? It amazes me when people think they are entitled to somethting for free because of poor service.
If you are that upset then compensate your ass out the door and never do business with them again.
But you won't do that, because one day soon you will need a Stoopedbazturd or Schmakenzediken and you will go right back to IKEA and buy one.
Compensation...... My Ass.

Sigh.

"I find this person's attitude slightly objectionable, so she deserves bad service."

"I think IKEA sells cheap crap, so she deserves bad service."

"I hate people who mention things about themselves, so she deserves bad service."

Okay, no matter how you feel about this woman's letter -- at this point I think I could get shot in the face by an employee and someone would find fault with the complaint letter I wrote (too melodramatic?) -- there are two major things wrong with this:

1) The employees communicated poorly, both with the customer and with each other.

2) The policy of not calling unless there's a note to call doesn't make much sense (why no, I'd rather not know when my sofa comes in, thanks) and should be changed.

These are issues that have nothing to do with North Africa, or eyebrow rings, or ageism, or IKEA's healthcare policy, or whatever. No, it's not disastrously bad service, but I don't see why someone has to lose a limb before they get to complain.

Here's the thing about compensation: When you go to write a formal complaint letter, it feels odd not to ask for the company to do something for you. Generally I think you should only ask for compensation directly related to your problem: if you lost money, ask for money. If you're trying to get something fixed, make them fix it for free. In this case, there's nothing to ask for -- but I understand the impulse to say "well, I should ask for something, or else why bother writing?"

Instead of asking for compensation, why not treat the letter as a chance to make a policy suggestion? "This was our experience, we found it frustrating that the store employees seemed to have different ideas about whether or not we'd be called upon the sofa's arrival at the store, could this please be standardized so it is less confusing for staff and customers?"

@falconree: They don't say where in North Africa they went, but "North Africa" is generally not what *I* think of as a "touristy" destination.

I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt on "having money to spend" given they live in an "apartment" and are shopping at Ikea and Target for furniture...

To quote a rather well-known movie:

"I should get a free hat...and a keychain...and some gift certificates...and some sundaes."
"I'll get your information and have our corporate office send those out to you."
"You're gonna mail me a sundae? I want it now goddammit!"

Just as long as you weren't those people...you should be ok.

I think she pointed out going to North Africa to help answer the questions "Why didn't you have a couch already? Why would you sell your couch if you didn't have another one ready to put in its place?"

Mentioning the youthful customer service guy. Well, it is one of those things that tends to come to mind. He's young and acting like he doesn't want to be there. For good or ill, we had a bit of a mental picture from him.

As for the letter, were it me, I would detail my dissatisfaction, and leave it for IKEA to respond. At the minimum, she should receive a letter of apology. If IKEA is wise, they will give some sort of gift card, to ensure her continued business. Just an apology would be good, a card would be 'more than right.'

Her complaints about the service are justified. No calls tied with delays. One wonders, if she had waited for the call, and it didn't come, if they'd have shipped the couch back away again.

As an American now living in Europe I find it a bit odd that IKEA service is actually as bad as described. Perhaps it's just that store.

In Sweden, home of IKEA, it's quite different. I had a problem with a kitchen faucet that started dripping after 9 months of use (and couldn't be repaired as the 'packing' was sealed). And I couldn't take it off and return it for a new one as most Swedish homes do not have individual water shutoff valves in bathrooms and kitchens like we have in many American homes. So I drove back to the store where I bought it, which is an hour and a half away and went to customer service. They gave me a new one after I showed them the receipt for the defective one, completely understood my problem, and even gave me the equivalent of $12 for my drive (as gas is over $6 a gallon there). Two weeks later another new faucet arrived in the mail!!!

So I think the person in the article had an unfortunate, but rare, experience. As another reader commented, one has to understand that when dealing with discount outlets you have to have a level of shopper's patience and understanding.

How about a good kick in the *ss? Jebus, do you think store staff (IKEA or no) are your personal shoppers?

Get over yourself - it was a $400 couch.

So with philosophy number 2, are the companies that 99%+ of the time provide a fantastic customer service experience are just excused for the times they foul up? After all - they spent a lot of money making sure everyone else was happy. Consumerist doesn't seem to give them any breaks.

i used to live 10 minutes away from the South Philly IKEA. i went there all the time, even just to get lunch. i'm known to all my friends as a super big IKEA nerd. i've never had a bad experience there, but then i've never bought a large piece of furniture, just smaller things.

also, if the poster lived in Philly and wasn't able to find the sofa at the IKEA in South Philly, there's also the one in Conshohocken (across town) or if they're willing to drive an hour or two, IKEAS in Elizabeth and Paramus, NJ too. i would've checked those out first before considering waiting that long.

one other piece of advice to the poster: next time you're looking for a large piece of furniture, try craigslist. it's a great resource, things are cheaper and you're recycling rather than having something new enter the waste stream. i just purchased a like-new futon bed that retails for $400 for $150. as long as you're not squicked by the idea of pre-owned furniture.

The letter is not so much snarky as well-written, which, for a customer service complaint, is a greater sin these days. How dare she use proper grammar and correct spelling when addressing us? What is she trying to say, that she's better than us, with her fancy multisyllabicism and such?

I kid, of course :)

Shop elsewhere. Problem solved.

Yeah, this post did not compel me to outrage either. I'm with DEWEYDECIMATED, a satisfactory resolution to me would be that the appropriate persons were notified of the policy failure and given an opportunity to fix things.

If the company decides to send you a gift card for your troubles, I think that counts as good customer service. It is appreciated, but not expected.

I also think the headline was a little extreme.

Unfortunately, I think that this is typical of customer service in America. I think it partly has to do with the fact that people don't want to pay a lot for products here in the US. In order to cut costs, you also cut customer service and quality of the product.

It makes me sad to hear the disaster stories at Ikea. I'm looking at redoing my kitchen and I really like how Ikea helped me with everything so far. I've heard horror stories from others as well as this...so it makes me wonder if I should take my business elsewhere.

The one story I have that shocked me is The Great Indoors. I bought a Kitchenaid Pro-Line coffee grinder from them a few months ago. After having it for a month and throwing the box it came with out, I bought an espresso machine. It wasn't grinding the coffee fine enough and wasn't working out for me. I took it back to the store I bought it from and had the receipt with me. To my surprise, The Great Indoors took it back without asking ANY questions and gave me a FULL REFUND! I was absolutely shocked. I thought they would for sure deduct 10% off my check for not returning it in the original packaging. But they didn't.

I suppose I just take it as when a store does something right and tries to make you happy, it just sticks in your head and surprises you.

And for some reason, we keep buying product from Best Buy, Ikea, Home Depot...everywhere else...even though they have lousy customer service.

"This is the price you pay for being a cheapskate and shopping at places that don't give a crap about you, don't offer health care to their workers..."

Thanks for the laugh, Meg! Only in Gawkerland could anyone's ideology be so far over-the-top that they can't even get through a post about customer service without interjecting irrelevant political snipes.

Oh, by the way, IKEA does offer health care to its employees. Sorry to interrupt with facts and all, but:

[knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu]

Not to mention that there is in fact a SECOND IKEA store less than 20 miles away. I really don't understand why Amara wouldn't have called the Conshohocken store after returning home from the South Philly store to see if they sold the same sofa. In my opinion, she barely has a case. And I agree with AT203 - the headline is exaggerated and uncalled for. "Lacking" in this particular case, yes, but awful? Not a chance.

I'm really surprised that so many comments on a consumer-oriented site are so anti-consumer. We should just roll over and accept bad service just because it comes from Ikea and the couch only cost $400?

I believe the complaint is justified. I also believe that, sadly, the only way to get the attention of the company is to hit them in the pocketbook. Just shopping elsewhere isn't enough - that's untraceable. But getting asking for a gift card - even if you don't get one - is a something that gets at the bottom line. If it happens enough, maybe they'll do something about basic customer service.

So all of you people saying she was being demeaning when using the word 'young' - check yourself. It could be a compliment. There are 2 totally different ways to read that sentence. Since YOU read it as being negative, that was YOUR choice and that makes YOU the ageist, NOT her.

So you're basically complaining over an extra week's wait? If you didn't have a couch, it might have been best to just buy one that's in stock. "All the way from New Jersey"? You're in the northeast, assuming you have a car, or can rent one for the day, you've got about 5 different IKEAs within a 4 hour drive. When the wife and I lived in Texas, the closest IKEA was a 7 hour drive and on a few occasions we had to buy different things than we wanted because what we wanted was out of stock. Yes, IKEA made a mistake and for it you were inconvenienced for about a week longer than you thought you'd be, but in the grand scheme of bad CS this is merely a paper cut.

@ribex: But that's the Consumerists "MO". If one person has a bad experience with Consumerist's favorite airline, Southwest, they will title it the "Southwest Airlines Has Worst Service". It's a given.

As for North Africa, there are many tourist spots, almost all of Egypt, Red Sea resorts, Morroco, etc. But if they went to Libya or something, that's different.

What should the person who had a bad experience ask for in compensation? Ask for nothing, but write a factual, professional, non-emotional email to IKEA. I had a bad experience with Orvis a year ago, and wrote a simple email to them. I received a reply within 2 days asking me to call the store and ask for "John the manager" (forgot the guys name). "John" apologized for my experience and asked me to come back to buy the product I was looking for and he'd give me $100 off.
Done. Simple. Saved $100 off something I was going to buy anyway.

I hate to be judgemental, but i'm going to anyway. There are people out there who, when dealing with a service oriented industry or when in a situation like this, want everybody to win. You can hear it in the tone of their voice and you can tell by the words they use. Those types of people generally come out on top, with very few complaints, because everybody wants to help them.

This was not IKEA's best CS moment, but how much worse did the woman make this situation by having an attitude? She started judging the first person there, who she claims, looked like they didn't want to be there. Did she give him a hard time? Did he "forget" to put 'call her' on the slip?

IKEA is as fault here, i'm just wondering if she made a bad situation worse by acting entitled to high quality customer service from a big box retailer.

p.s. - while she did have to wait and was given constantly changing information, it doesn't seem like the attitude of the workers was AWFUL and I don't think she deserves any compensation. Being published here should be enough.

Ho hum, more of the same crap after the call for better comments. What did we have here:
1. If they can afford to go to North Africa, they have more money than me so they suck. (Maybe they saved for a loooooooong time to go on the trip)
2. You bought something from xxxx store that sells cheap crap and you expect service, so you suck.
3. Other people don't agree with my insightful and witty banter, so they suck.
Why no post about, the Ikea rep said they would call when the couch got to the store and they didn't so they suck. Or do most people here go down to their local store, order something and pay for it and then go home and wait until they feel like going back to the store to pick it up. "Call me when it comes in? P'shaw. I have no time for that."
"Snarky"?? Look in the mirror, genius.

you should have just picked up your cöuch while you were "globetrotting" in n. africa. it's probably made there anyways to keep the retail price under $35.

also, the ikea employee probably WOULD rather be down by the shore. WHO THE EFF WOULD RATHER BE AT WORK IN A CRAPPY WÄREHÖUSE THAN BE DOWN BY THE SHORE? DUH. in fact, i bet he'd rather be in n.africa with some whiny globetrotters than be there. id rather cry sand than work there.

your sense of entitlement is sickening. you deserve every bit of MDF you will eventually sit on. Enjöy!

It's small wonder that the rest of the world sees the U.S. as litigious if people feel they deserve "compensation" for every negative (but non-damaging) experience they have in life. It's absurd to believe the company owes you something because of a one-week delay in delivery, particularly when you knew the item wasn't in stock and there was a risk that it wouldn't be delivered as quickly as you may have liked.

People need to stop thinking of themselves as kings and queens whose every wish must be fulfilled in full every time they plunk down their money and adopt a more reasonable and patient attitude. The person who wrote this should consider whether or not she has always acted in accord with her stated intentions and has ever let anyone down or left them waiting in a personal or professional situation and extend the same level of tolerance and understanding to IKEA that she wish for herself in such a situation.

By all means, write a polite letter of complaint but don't expect anything more than catharsis.

I wonder if Amara will chime in again.

This has turned into more of attempting to read eachother's tone
(vs) consumer support.

Am curious to get the new angle Amara sees on all this now.