Disgruntled IKEA customer

Over the last couple of months I've spent close to £1,000 on IKEA furniture for my study. It's been good, delivery has been great and it all went together well.

However in filling the shelves I decided it would be nice to have some of their Gabbig baskets to fit various small bits and pieces in. Apparently I could drive an 80 mile round trip and collect them from their Warrington store the next day, for which they'd charge an additional £5. Or I could have them delivered for £4, but in that case I wouldn't get them for 6 weeks!!!! So I didn't bother ordering but went back to the site on and off to see if delivery got any better. Oddly after a week or so delivery disappeared as an option. Where that left government guidance about non-essential journeys and staying home I don't know. 

Anyway I still didn't order, but on checking back in midweek they were suddenly offering delivery on Saturday. So I placed an order. 

DPD delivered it at around 1pm but I was bemused to be left a thin package about 30ins by 12ins by 1.5ins, when I was expecting 4 rattan baskets 15ins by 12ins by 9ins tall. No way could my parcel be Gabbig baskets. And they weren't, they were 4 Gnabbas seagrass flatpack baskets which cost £7 each compared to the £9 each of the ones I ordered and are too tall to fit on the shelves I've bought. The IKEA product codes for the two items are totally different but presumably their warehouse uses product names and employs dyslexic pickers.

Then began a search on the IKEA website about what to do if the wrong thing's delivered. That's a lost cause, presumably I'm the only person they've ever sent the wrong thing to. The best I can find is a suggestion to ring customer services, but no email address so that I can post my query and get a response in due course. So I sit by my phone listening to Abba for 32 minutes with someone promising to be with me 'soon' at the end of every song. After 32 minutes I gave up. 

Maybe IKEA should save some of the royalty money they're paying Abba and pay several more staff to answer their phones.

Being held on the phone for any length of time is annoying to say the least. I've had occasion to call Amazon customer services in the past, and when eventually I got through it was to a person who who I struggled to understand as he didn't have English as a first language, which wasn't really surprising because when I enquired I was told they were not in England, or even Europe for that matter.
Al.

Looking at their Twitter pages would indicate that rapid response customer support when things go wrong isn't one of their strengths, nor is answering their phones promptly. However it may be worth trying them via there as complaining on a public social media platform will often get quicker results:

@IKEAUK  @IKEAUKSupport

bikeralw wrote:Being held on the phone for any length of time is annoying to say the least. I've had occasion to call Amazon customer services in the past, and when eventually I got through it was to a person who who I struggled to understand as he didn't have English as a first language, which wasn't really surprising because when I enquired I was told they were not in England, or even Europe for that matter.
Al.

I've had the same with Amazon, speaking to folk as far away as South America, however I have invariably found them very helpful. Amazon also have an option for them to ring you rather than holding on. Latterly I've used the chat facility on their website which avoids struggling with accents and again has resulted in timely, helpful action to resolve my problem. 

IKEA don't seem to have this facility however.

Been there done that yesterday with Barclaycard, 2 attempts each time over an hour, then finally got to the fraud department on my 3rd try.
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Richard

I can understand when businesses are struggling because of the pandemic but we're 12 months into it now and IKEA have enormous resources, so there's really no excuse for not having adapted. 

One obvious thing is to have an email logging system so that customers can register a problem at their convenience and await a response when the staff have worked their way through to the query. Shutting down email and leaving phone lines open means hours of purgatory for the customer hanging on for the call to be answered and then having to respond to a query on the hoof when it might be better handled with more time and consideration.

Having said that, John Lewis have gone down in my estimation of recent days.

I got fed up with our bathroom scales as they weren't settling on a weight but flitting up and down the digital numbers 'til eventually switching off. So I ordered a replacement, reasoning that as they were bought in 2014 they'd be out of guarantee. As it happens I ordered exactly the same model as a replacement and was staggered to see that the box was plastered with a '15 year guarantee'. That got me looking for our earlier set's instruction booklet, which I found and it also said they had a 15 year guarantee. 

I contacted JL who asked for pics of the box and a copy of the booklet page which I sent. The response has been that I need to take the 2014 scales back to the store I bought them from to get a member of staff to give me a refund. Apparently this is because the faulty pair weren't purchased online. When I suggested that they refund me the price of the new scales (both were £25), they said that I could return the new ones for a refund but they couldn't refund the 2014 ones. Of course that would leave us with a non working set of scales and we'd have to go to a store to swap them for a new set, whenever the store actually opens. 

So what they're saying is that a customer who has been shielding for the last 12 months and has spent the best part of £5k with the JL Group over the last year, has to spend £11 on petrol for an 80 mile round trip to a store and use up 3 hours, enter the store, engage with staff, in order to get a £25 refund that it's obvious is due. Doh!!!

Oh and weirdly the JLP website says the guarantee is just 2 years, whilst the box and booklet say 15 years.

For Amazon, I use this number - 0800 279 7234. Always answered straight away by someone on the other side of the world who have always been extremely knowledgeable and helpful.

steamdrivenandy wrote:Over the last couple of months I've spent close to £1,000 on IKEA furniture for my study. It's been good, delivery has been great and it all went together well.

However in filling the shelves I decided it would be nice to have some of their Gabbig baskets to fit various small bits and pieces in. Apparently I could drive an 80 mile round trip and collect them from their Warrington store the next day, for which they'd charge an additional £5. Or I could have them delivered for £4, but in that case I wouldn't get them for 6 weeks!!!! So I didn't bother ordering but went back to the site on and off to see if delivery got any better. Oddly after a week or so delivery disappeared as an option. Where that left government guidance about non-essential journeys and staying home I don't know. 

Anyway I still didn't order, but on checking back in midweek they were suddenly offering delivery on Saturday. So I placed an order. 

DPD delivered it at around 1pm but I was bemused to be left a thin package about 30ins by 12ins by 1.5ins, when I was expecting 4 rattan baskets 15ins by 12ins by 9ins tall. No way could my parcel be Gabbig baskets. And they weren't, they were 4 Gnabbas seagrass flatpack baskets which cost £7 each compared to the £9 each of the ones I ordered and are too tall to fit on the shelves I've bought. The IKEA product codes for the two items are totally different but presumably their warehouse uses product names and employs dyslexic pickers.

Then began a search on the IKEA website about what to do if the wrong thing's delivered. That's a lost cause, presumably I'm the only person they've ever sent the wrong thing to. The best I can find is a suggestion to ring customer services, but no email address so that I can post my query and get a response in due course. So I sit by my phone listening to Abba for 32 minutes with someone promising to be with me 'soon' at the end of every song. After 32 minutes I gave up. 

Maybe IKEA should save some of the royalty money they're paying Abba and pay several more staff to answer their phones.

My wife wanted to order 2 of the very same baskets a few weeks ago but they were not showing up for delivery. When she looked later, she was able to order them online with delivery showing in 2 days time. When I looked at the horrendous feedback for Ikea I told her not to expect delivery for at least 5 weeks (if at all) I was, for once, pleased to be proved wrong as they turned up within the 2 stated days!

Its been  reported that IKEA is one company  whose shipments from other side of the globe are stuck in the Suez canal queue.

In the end I emailed a complaint to the UK CEO. I got an immediate response and the correct baskets sent in 3 days. I've also been given a £20 voucher as compensation. It shouldn't but it appears to pay to go to the top.
The baskets are made in Indonesia, so could be in the Suez traffic jam. The IKEA furniture we bought in February was made in Russia of all places. I can't say that I've knowingly purchased anything made in Russia in all my 73 years.

My biggest customer was a furniture  manufacturer who makes for M&S, Next, Furniture  Village, Harvey's, John Lewis etc etc. IKEA wanted them to ditch all their customers in favour of supplying only IKEA. Needless to say they refused but took an empty factory unit and use that one exclusively  for IKEA, so at least some of their furniture is made in UK .

Hi  

I agree it's very annoying to be kept on the phone, especially when you have to pay per minute to call a premium phone line in order to tell them that they've got something wrong.

bikeralw wrote:. I've had occasion to call Amazon customer services in the past,

I know this thread isn't really about Amazon but I'm another one that's always had excellent service from Amazon Customer Services but you never need to phone them.

rogerblack wrote: Amazon also have an option for them to ring you rather than holding on.

Exactly just tick the "Phone Me" box and the phone will ring within seconds. OK you get an automated reply but they have always put me through to a human again in a few seconds and they pay for the call!

Oh and their refund policy is fantastic. When I send faulty or wrong stuff back (don't need to often) via post office or a carrier the money is back in my account minutes after the barcode is scanned (before they have even received it).

I think other companies could learn a thing or two from Amazon (e.g. Hermes   ).

Brod