Does anyone have any success stories with IKEA at all? I confess, I do like some of their furniture. But their customer service – after the purchase – is some of the worst I have ever seen.
I needed a sofa to fit through a narrow hallway. A conventional sofa would not work. Enter IKEA, who sold a sofa that came in four pieces. Each piece would fit through the hallway, and could be assembled in the room – yay! We don’t have a local store, so I stopped at one in Chicagoland to buy the sofa. Of course, they were out. Oh well. So I ordered it through their phone order system. What followed was a bizarre 6 month ordeal until my sofa finally arrived. They kept cancelling my order because the item was out of stock, but they would never call to tell me. Every time I called them, they would redo the order, then admit somene else would have to call me back later to schedule delivery (why?). One day I called to find that they had, for the third time, cancelled the order, only to find the item actually in stock, and they said they’d ship it, which they finally did. Original order placed around halloween, sofa arrives in April of the following year.
Bought a cool journalist shelf for the same room while I was in Chicago. Drove home to Indy only to find that one of the boxes was missing all the nuts and bolts (totally unique pieces I could not find anywhere else). Called them on the phone, was routinely transferred and disconnected until finally someone got the order placed and said the parts would go out soon. Weeks go by. Finally I call back and after being transferred and messed with for 15 minutes get someone who pulls up the order, sees that it hasn’t shipped, and finally get the stuff out to me. Someone there actually suggested it might be easier to drive up and get the parts – you weren’t kidding, lady.
This last time around (just a few weeks ago), I bought a Pax wardrobe. STUPID me only got one bag of hinges, and I needed two bags. Of course, I did not realize this until I got home. Tried in vain to order hinges online, can’t do it. Called the store, and was transferred to a line that rang about 100 times and no one ever answered, and no voicemail. Hung up and called back, then transferred to someone who sounded like they were in New Jersey, and she said they could ship me the hinges, but the $10 pack of hinges costs $27 to ship. Gimmie a break. I said FINE just send the damn things. It’s been 3 weeks and no sign of them. Sigh.
I really like a lot of their stuff, especially the lighting. Some of the furniture is OK (love my sofa), and some is only a step above Sauder. The company has serious issues with service though. They don’t seem to understand how to process an order (especilly online) without screwing things up. They always seem to want to call you back later to talk about it. I don’t have time for those games, I want to buy it and have it show up – get it?
So, I wouldn’t hold out hope for being able to return you items…