IKEA redefine customer service

[mydogmuppet]

I've got used to online shopping.
Comfort of own home. No traffic jams. No exorbitant parking charges or tickets. Most of the time you order and it appears via the mailman or smiling courier - job done.

The IKEA shopping experience is my idea of hell. Prams, sour faced mothers and nose-picking children after you've spent 20 minutes hunting the parking spot. Then you can queue with the world until the second coming but don't bet on getting the car anywhere near a loading bay.

So you'd think IKEA would up their game on Online Shopping ?

How wrong can I be.

They replicate their online customer service model from that of the stores. You wait. You wait even longer. IKEA don't given a rat's arse how long you wait to speak to one of their less than helpful staff. You can wait just as long as you'd spend in the IKEA check out queue. Its all part of the IKEA experience. (22 minutes).

You can of course email Online Customer Services. But hey, their mailbox is stuffed to overflowing. It will take us 5 days....120 hours to respond. Its all part of the IKEA experience.

And they save the best till last.

Eschewing the delights of driving to IKEA Southampton you order the goods delivered to your door. Parcelforce are the chosen instrument of torture. Yes, that Parcelforce who abandon their vans in narrow streets so you can't squeeze past. The driver always acknowledging his 'couldn't care less' with a cheery little snarl.

So they stiff me for £9 to deliver some plastic boxes. They (cheeky bastards) tell me its going to take 11 ..YES ELEVEN...days to deliver the same. Are they ordering from Sweden ? I get goods from Hong Kong quicker than 45 miles from IKEA Southampton. Its all part of the IKEA experience.

What is the matter with this company and why don't they give a shit ?

Costs us £90 YES NINETY of your finest British pounds to order from IKEA. I would like to point out that we do live on the mainland, not some tiny island.

I was there at 9-10pm this week (getting some extra garden chairs for the weekend) it was positively pleasant of course I bought some other crap as well but that goes with the territory

We found Ikea online absolutely brilliant, turned up straight away, carried all heavy stuff upstairs exactly where I wanted, only charged 35 regardless of how much stuff - we had 3 wardrobes and a massived chest of drawers.

Instore isn't much fun, but its much like Aldi - its cheap because they don't have people on shop floor to help. I don't mind enduring it, because it means I can afford to have a bed. Which is nice.

I much prefer John Lewis, prices aren't that different, free shipping, good returns and nice quality stuff.

Your boxes wouldn't have come from Southampton. Online orders come from the Distribution Centre in (iirc) Peterborough.

Can't comment on Customer Service at Southampton or online as I'm not connected to either but I'm sorry it's failed you. It's really not what IKEA (as a company) wants Obviously company ideals aren't always reflected in individual co-worker actions!

WRT to the cost of online delivery... as far as I've been told, most online delivery prices are subsidised by higher prices of the goods overall. So, even if you aren't having goods delivered you are in effect paying (a tiny amount) for someone else to. As IKEA don't believe in that, the price you pay for delivery is the actual cost. Sucky if you're the one paying for delivery, but good for everyone else.

If you join Ikea Family and wait for your proper card, then scan it through the machine in-store once it finally arrives it brings up an option to pay a monthly fee, a bit like Amazon Prime.

For that fee, you get your own reserved parking space if you ring up the store the day before you plan to visit and let them know you are coming. They ban all prams, sour faces and snotty noses from the store before you arrive and don't let them back in until after you leave.

You get your own personal Ikea servant to push your trolley or carry your yellow bag and they keep a special checkout just for you to not queue at when you leave. They have two more Ikea staff members lie down in the parking spaces of the loading bay to reserve it for you just in case you need it and they don't mind if you park your car on top of those people so it's higher up and you don't have to bend down as far to load things into the boot.

And you get an extra meatball and three more lingonberries in your sauce for free if you stop at the cafe and show them your IF card and do the secret handshake.

We do this every time we go now and we've never looked back.

I used work out of Peterborough DC, until they changed the delivery model from regional distribution to store-based.

In the old days (2011) the DC picked the orders, shipped them overnight to various haulage yards, and dropped them next day. Now, they send the online/home to the stores when they've filled a trailer separate from the store delivery. Then Daz and Baz in their dented Sprinter hammer into your village, run over your cat, knock chunks out of your plaster and bugger off.

Which is why when I want big stuff, I borrow a big trailer and hook it to the 4x4.

I like ikea the shop. I can nip in and out without buying crap I don't want or need and I can do so whilst dodging many if the idiots that frequent the place (and the customers).

What I do object to is their shitty customer service, their inability to tell the difference between black and white for delivery (yes really!) and their extortionate delivery costs (£90 from in store or go home, order online and it's £35).

I don't give a monkeys testicle it's a Swedish company, the staff are British, serving British customers who expect to be treated with manners and not sworn at down the phone (yes really)

But still I shop there.

Why?

Because for the inconvenience of all that and persevering with my complaint I got my whole front room furnished for free

Ikea makes me cry.
Ikea makes me argue with my DP.
Hate the place.

I have just installed an ikea kitchen.

In many ways it was good. BUT the customer service was appalling. I have spent five hours and 4 minutes in total on hold this week. I know the entire ikea hold soundtrack - Mama Mia, then Don't stop believing, then waterloo, then radio gaga… I was cut off five times, I was promised call backs three times that didn't materialise.

In the end I went to a store to get the issued sorted out. This was fine and eventually it was sorted and fortunately I only live 25 minutes away from a store but I shouldn't have had to do it.

They don't cut you off, the line goes dead but you're still connected. It's to make you hang up and reduce queue times. Persevere!!

Oh and I have a named email address for a customer service rep if anyone wants it rather than the generic customer service one...

Swedish & Norwegian have constructions for different kinds of 'please'. They're like the English expressions 'could you possibly', 'be so good as', 'will you', etc. You can also tack 'thanks' on to the end of the sentence to be extra polite

None of the examples are an actual please, most of them are very rarely used in my experience. Tack is used lots but not if someone holds a door open for you, often you don't even get a smile!

Manners are not seen as important for children to learn,insist my 15 month old says "tack" when he is given something, a drink or a bun or a present, he is perfectly capable of saying tack, he does a special little head nod with the tack but often people say "oh he doesn't have to say thankyou" or "he's only a child" I say to them that he infact does have to say tack otherwise he can give the item back.

When I say dead the music stops for 2-3 mins then starts again

I ordered a unit for dd's bedroom. Last one on pallet, so was relief that they had one seeing as it was a 90 mile round trip. Decided I wanted a 2nd, looked on line to see the only only store with one in was in Ireland! Went to the on line 'help' to be told it was an end of range. When I asked why they couldn't have mentioned this on the display unit (like every other bloody shop does) their reply was that they do not have to disclose that information in store....ffs....

we ordered wardrobes in the store but they had to be delivered the next day , no flexibility. was used to John Lewis but lovely wardrobes

I live a long way from an Ikea but we had our first experience of on line ordering from them with home delivery and I can honestly say, never, never again.
Same as above - the telephone service is the worst I have ever had the misfortune to experience.
I waited a ridiculously long time (twice) but in the end discovered somewhere, not on the website, the phone number for an actual store and was able to get to customer service via them.
We ordered a double bed with two plastic boxes to go underneath.
Ok, it's our fault for not checking, but :
the boxes don't actually fit underneath - won't squeeze under
the double bed is not a standard UK size, it's European, so we ordered a mattress locally (felt we needed to actually try it) and lo! It did n't fit .Again, clearly our fault, but felt massively underinformed .
John Lewis every time from now on.

I've only ever had one thing delivered from Ikea and the service was excellent. Dh went to Ikea Nottingham on New Years Eve one year. We (as always) bought far more than we intended and it wouldn't all go in the car. We arranged delivery instore and were told 2we're really sorry but it will have to be tomorrow now" - this was 4pm on New Years Eve! True to their word the delivery men were banging on our door at 8am on New Years Day. The only bad thing was, we had had a big party the night before and had hungover friends everywhere and a puddle of purple vomit outside our front door!!

Our house is full of ikea furniture and we have never had a problem. Lots of it went in our car but our bed, mattress and sofa were delivered on time and on the right day.
oneearedrabbit Ikea product dimensions are clearly stated online and it would seem that Ikea delivered you the products you asked for. Why on earth is it Ikea's fault in any way?
I'm sure many people have bad experiences with John Lewis, no company is perfect and I'm sure they can all do with improving.

You're not wrong- this is a well known thing. Here's an article about Ikea's terrible online customer service. It's actually terrible on purpose, it's part of their business model.

www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/08/ikea_delivery_nightmare_the_business_rationale_for_subpar_front_door_service.html

I like Ikea.

I like the shopping experience, I like putting things together, I even like the meatballs (especially with gravy and lingonberry jam and chips, yum).

I wouldn't order online from Ikea, I'd choose somewhere else.

About the measurements - how can you get bed size wrong (height or mattress size) for an Ikea bed? The sizes are very clearly laid out on the website, and in store, and on the instructions.

I think that online shopping in the UK has got so easy, with free and generally efficient post and free returns, even if the customer has made a balls of the whole thing. I think a lot of people have forgotten how to shop.

It's not 'terrible on purpose'. It's not the focus of the business, I'll go with that - instore customers are definitely the priority, but it's not deliberately bad. Some people have bad experiences, some people have good, the same will go for many other businesses. Hopefully the majority will be good, but people don't tend to talk about that, people talk about the crap and dire parts, which is understandable and a good thing - can't improve if the problems aren't highlighted.

I ordered and paid for a bed a few weeks ago, went for lunch, then went to collect it (it was on a trolley beyond the checkouts, as arranged in the bed department - who told us it would take up to half an hour, hence the lunch).

When I collected it, I commented on the fact that it was a very efficient service - and the girl told me I was the first person ever to say that, or to thank her. Apparently most people go straight from ordering to collection, and then bollock the poor girl for their stuff not being ready.

Sometimes (often ime) the customer isn't right.

AleC4, purple vomit? [baffled]

What on earth did you feed them?

Red wine creates purple vomit

Allegedly