IKEA isn’t really known for their customer service, but apparently one location in LA is trying to change that.

Reader Jeremy says:

I think people go to Ikea because they are cheap, and they have a large selection of stuff. Not for the customer service – but I had such an amazing experience a couple of weeks ago that I have to tell someone.

We’ve got an Ikea sofa, and a footstool, and we recently moved to a larger place, and wanted a second two seat sofa to match, and another footstool. The sofa was called a Klippan, and you can get a variety of different washable covers. We went to Ikea, in West Covina, Los Angeles County, to get these. They had the footstools and the matching covers, and the sofa, but they did not have the matching cover for the sofa. We asked someone (called Kristien), she checked on the computer and said that that style had been discontinued. But she would check if any of the nearby stores had one in stock still.

She came back about 20 minutes later, and said that none of the four Ikeas near LA had one, but she would make some more calls (we overheard her saying “I don’t know the SKU number, it’s discontinued”). She came back 30 minutes later, and said that she had found one in stock in … Philadelphia. We thought this was rather a long way to go. She said that was OK, because someone she knew from the store there was coming to LA, and she would ask them to bring it with them in their luggage on the flight. She took our details.

Two weeks later, I got an email, the sofa cover had arrived, and when I wanted to collect it, I should give them a call. We went there, collected it, they opened a register so we could pay (it was discontinued and wasn’t in their computer), and left with our sofa cover. Oh, and then we went back and happily bought a sofa to put it on.

Way to go, IKEA.

(Photo:scentzilla)

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