Habitat customer service gone mad... can anyone beat this?

[farewellfigure]

I know I'm BU really, but here goes.

We ordered a table from Habitat in the sale. Very exciting. Anyway, since we ordered it nearly two weeks ago, we've had an automated phone call from them every day, asking whether we would DEFINITELY be in on the day we chose, that the table would DEFINITELY fit the space, that we'd made sure we'd measured correctly and that we still wanted to go ahead with the delivery. As DH and I are adults, and not 5yr olds, yes, we still wanted the table, we WERE going to be in, and surprisingly, we had made sure it would fit. We had to listen to the end of the message every sodding time because you had to press 2 (or whatever) if you still wanted to go ahead with the order.

Twice we had real people ringing up to check the same thing. In the end, the phone would ring and DH or I would say, 'It's probably our daily Habitat phone call', and invariably, it was!

Yesterday we got the daily 'are you sure you want your table?' message, then another one saying the driver would ring today. This morning the driver rang, then half an hour later we got an automated BT text phone call thingy saying the table was due imminently. It rang as the lorry was backing up down the road!

Now either they've had some really bad experiences with people sending stuff back or not being in, or some guy pressed the 'automated phone call to customer' button a few too many times, but it was so silly.

I know I'm BU as if the customer service was appalling I'd probably be on here ranting about lack of communication. But it really was just so over-the-top. Never mind. I've got my nice new table now. Hope it fits!

Anyone else got a customer service gone mad story?

Now, are you sure you're keeping the table.

Just checking

So now that it has arrived are you sure you're happy with it? Does it definitely fit in the kitchen?

Hehe. I can't get the table up on my own till DH comes home this evening, so at the moment, I'M NOT SURE! It had better fit. I couldn't bear having to ring them if it doesn't. Maybe we've got a faulty tape measure. I'm really scared now.

I think we need a photo of this legendary piece of furniture OP once it's up.

I wonder if Habitat will continue the phone calls now just to check that you're happy.

Are you really happy?
Is the colour ok or is it clashing with the walls?
You still satisfied with the shape? Are the chairs comfy?

All manner of things could go wrong post delivery

Eventually it will be a daily, mournful phone call

"Pleeeeeaaase call us back and tell us you like the table, we miss it"

Well you know you have to update us once it's all assembled, yes? :)

Not quite the same scale but I once (ONCE!) went into a car showroom to kill time. We were considering getting a 4x4 and I looked at a few options. The car salesman let me just wander around and asked me a few questions about what we were looking for. For some stupid reason I agreed to give him my details (email/mobile)so he could send me on info about the different models/special offers. I got calls from him EVERY SINGLE WEEK asking me if we had made up our minds, were we still considering this make etc. I was very polite the first few times saying that we were still looking around but thank you for your help we will get back to you if we have any questions/want to arrange a test drive. Eventually I just got fed up and told him that he had completely put me off the make with his constant phone calls and if he rang me again I would report him for harassment.

bumbleymummy that's hilarious. I will try to remember never ever to give my phone number to a car salesman!

DH won't be home till gone 7. The table probably won't even be opened from it's packaging till gone 8. I am really nervous now. I might have to go and try to hump it from the garage into the kitchen by myself. But what if I damage a corner or something? Oh god. It's oak. It might clash horribly with the bamboo floor (which was a concern we only thought about AFTER we'd placed the order).

Hope it is ok. We ordered a table from them. It was defective- fine it happens. They sent a replacement. This happened repeatedly even though I was getting really annoyed waiting in for deliveries and they said they would check them before they arrived. It took five tables. A change in manufacturer and almost a year to why one that was made propely. A year and a half on and the top is all warped and damaged. Just though normal use ( less than normal use actually as it is usually covered with a thick plastic child friendly table cloth.) For an almost £500 table I am pretty unimpressed! I hope yours works out better.

So, when are you sending the table back, seeing as it doesn't fit and you never liked it anyway?

cookiefiend that is not comforting! Argh.

We had a terrazo garden table that we ordered online. The first one arrived with a massive chunk missing. The second one had a huge crack across the whole top. I rang the seller and they said that the boat coming from Morocco had hit a massive storm so a lot of the tables were damaged. I said fine, but stop sending the damaged ones to US! He said they didn't open all the packaging before sending them out, but just hoped for the best. How dumb is that? We accepted the third one, despite it having a bit of a chip. We just couldn't be bothered to go through the whole delivery rigmarole again.

Not quite the same thing but we found some wardrobes that matched the bedside tables we already had. The salesman said they didn't have any in stock so we asked if they'd consider selling us the display models. He said he couldn't because then no one else would see them and want to buy them.
Fair enough, it was worth asking.
So I said we'll just order some, there's not really any rush. But no. we couldn't do that because they weren't continuing with the range...

Salesman logic you see. That's why they can't comprehend that hassling you will put you off altogether, they can't deviate from the programming .

I have bought a couple of items of clothing from Joe Browns, since I signed up my computer seems to have tagged my browsing history with my email address so now every time I click on an item on their website and don't immediately purchase it they send me an email with a photo of said item and a link to their checkout asking me 'have you forgotten something?'
I've stopped looking now as I'm sick of the torment!

Pixel madness!

The table fits! And it's the right colour. And it's beautiful. Phew. Sadly it was so heavy, when we turned it up the right way, there was an audible popping noise and I felt something actually snap in my hip. That'll teach me for moaning. I can just about weight bear!

Hurray for the new, beautiful table! :)

No hurray for the sore hip! :(

We went to buy a new bed from harveys(?) I think.
We walked up and down testing and deciding which one we liked and for once the sale people left us alone which was nice!
When I went up to place an order for the one we liked I was told it was sold out. So we chose another; this too had sold out. After trying another which was discontinued I said perhaps you could tell me which ones ARE available. But no she couldn't do that, I had to keep picking beds and she would check them.
She didn't like my suggestion to put 'sold out' or 'discontinued' signs on the beds to save people time and trouble either.
We left. And got a new bed very easily next door. What a farce!!

Are you going to get your hip looked at OP?

We went to a fire showroom to look for a log burner. The staff completely ignored us, but we found a model we liked. Once home, I looked for it on the internet and found it almost £500 cheaper.

They were too busy gassing to even look our way, even though we were there for over half an hour!

Here's dumb... H&M DON'T deliver to any other address than the HOME address.

I've had quite a lot of follow up from Dreams since ordering a mattress from them.

Its coming tomorrow.

Its only texts though, not actual annoying phonecalls with options.

Hope your hip is okay! Not an achy-breaky hip!

I once had Hilary's blinds out to measure up a few windows, in the end I went with a local company as their turnaround was 3 weeks as opposed to Hilary's 12 weeks. Anyway, Hilary's proceeded to call me every single day for a YEAR to ask if I wanted to proceed/why I didn't want to proceed/if I'd thought about it some more/did I want to see new fabrics etc etc and etc. I stopped answering and they stopped calling a year to the day of the salesmans initial visit. Let this be a warning to you!!

We once ordered a sideboard, which turned out to not be in stock. We waited ages for them to re-stock. Eventually we were called to confirm it was now in their warehouse, and arranged a delivery date. Finally the delivery driver turned up, knocked on our door and checked he had the right house. Went back to his van...then returned empty handed. There was no sideboard in the van. There was no sideboard in the warehouse, there was no sideboard full stop. It didn't exist. We never got our sideboard.

We bought two identical sofas from Argos. They came as a pair in a 'buy one get one free' offer. One was damaged but they said they couldn't just replace one, we had to return both and then they would send out two more. After some argument they did eventually concede that it was pointless taking away a perfectly good sofa for no reason, just to send an identical (hopefully undamaged) one. I am proud of my small victory for common sense .

Have to add that the reason I didn't want to send both back was because we'd already arranged for our old sofas to be taken to the dump that morning to make room. We'd have had nothing to sit on at all!

Pixel that happened to me and my ex and we had to send them back. We had one beanbag and a pile of wood to sit on for two weeks. In that time two lovely and bemused policemen came around to interview my ex about an awful crime he had been a witness too. It was excruciating with them on the wood and the beanbag and us kneeling on the floor. I must have offered a million biscuits as an apology!!

Glad it suits- hope your hip is ok.