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July 18, 2007
Damaged Furniture that takes 5 months to fix!
In November 2006, my finance and I purchased a leather couch with a Protection Plan. February 2007, we noticed a tear in the left couch cushion due to a staple that was protruding from the inside of the arm of the couch. We contacted the store to have the couch serviced and left the staple where it was for the service rep to see for him/herself. The rep came out, removed the staple, and assured us that he would let his superiors know that we need a new couch cushion. We then called the store and spoke with a customer service rep named Jackie who informed me that the cushion will be replaced…to date, it has not been replaced. Over the past approx. 5 months, we have received no more than 5 telephone calls from the store, (we have the incoming calls log to prove this). We have both telephoned and visited the store in person to speak with Jackie and find out what is going on. On each occasion, we have been met with the following excuses, 1) the Warehouse misread the order number 2) the Warehouse fulfilled the order incorrectly, 3) the cushion is being made overseas and they made it wrong, 4) she is overwhelmed with work as her department is understaffed and cannot therefore contact us as she should, 5) she is training other people and cannot keep us updated, 6) she has tried to have her manager sign off on having the item sent express but he is giving her a hard time. We in turn have been extremely patient and have went as far as to have said that we understand that things can happen, but please keep us informed; she has not. So..on Monday, June 25, 2007, we went into the store to have our issue addressed immediately, however, Jackie refused to meet with us, (as well as another couple who was there to complain about a similar issue = waiting too long for furniture/service). We were instructed to meet with the General Manager, Lawrence, who agreed that this was very poor customer service, but told us quote, “You only paid $549 dollars for a couch that it takes us $350 dollars to make. We really didn’t make any money off of our sale”. We were appalled that the General Manager would tell us something like this, to our face, in the middle of the store, in front of his sales reps and other customers. We asked to speak with the store owner and be given more information, and the General Manager walked away. We still don’t know who this person in charge is. One sales rep stated that their head office is in Long Island but when we asked for further information as to how to contact them, we were denied. In fact, we still have not received a direct definitive answer as to when our couch will be serviced. We cannot understand why it would take 5 months for our cushion to be replaced and considering that we have been more than patient, we also cannot understand why we would suffer such maltreatment. Why should customer service be predicated upon the dollar amount that you spend in a store?
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