IKEA, this is your idea of "GOOD" Customer Service? Let's not forget UPS's part

This is Debi's experience with IKEA. A store I love and tote on their customer service.

Debi is a shelter supporter, AND a best friend, one day I was drooling over an entertainment center on IKEA. Not expensive you know, but it was on wheels, and could handle our big, old TV's weight.

She remembered, and thought that she would give me an IKEA gift card for Christmas to buy the entertainment center.

For her thoughtfulness, for her caring, for her wanting to give me a Christmas gift I truly wanted and could use, for all the good intentions, this is what she went through.

Oh yeah, and by the way, finding someone to email, or talk to about the problem is impossible. Did you know that the two people who handle customer complaints or problems do not have email? They want faxes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What’s with IKEA?

OK, all I ever hear from you (and others, as well) is how great IKEA is – great merchandise, great service, great prices, etc.

Well, let me tell you about my IKEA Direct experience. Are we talking about the same company?????

In late November, I ordered a gift card as a Christmas gift. Well, we might be able to chalk this up to UPS, who tried to deliver the thing to me twice at work (it had to have a signature, since the card was essentially cash, so I couldn’t have it sent to my house). At any rate, they claimed the address was insufficient, so the card ended up being returned to IKEA.

I contacted IKEA and asked them to re-send the card, this time with a painfully complete and detailed address. A few days later, I got the card.

About four days later, I got a SECOND card. Of course, I immediately checked my credit card account to be sure I hadn’t been charged twice. I hadn’t. Hmmmmm. I pondered. The card was going to my favorite animal shelter, which could no doubt use double the amount I had requested. Should I keep the second card and give them both to the shelter?

In the end, I decided, that whatever benefit the shelter might derive would more than be offset by the bad karma of doing something dishonest. So, on Christmas Eve afternoon (Sunday, the 24th), I called IKEA Direct and talked to someone named Gwendolyn. I explained the situation, telling her that I’d received a duplicate gift card. She put me on hold (interminably, it seemed – as it would turn out, I’d be put on hold a lot in the next couple of days) to check to see whether my credit card account had been charged twice. Nice gesture, but I’d already told her that it hadn’t. Gwendolyn came back on the line and told me to destroy SECOND card I’d received and to keep the FIRST. Fine. I hung up the phone, shredded the SECOND card, put the first in the shelter Christmas card and delivered it in the course of my Christmas rounds.

Imagine my dismay (not to mention being royally furious) when I got back to the office on the day after Christmas (Tuesday, the 26th) to find a phone message from Gwendolyn waiting for me. To the effect of, “Gee, I hope you haven’t destroyed that SECOND gift card yet, because I should have told you to destroy the FIRST one.” Well, yeah, I DID destroy the SECOND card because you told me it had been deactivated, and that it was worthless. Why WOULDN’T I have destroyed it?

I immediately got on the phone with IKEA Direct to explain to them (Mercedes, this time) that, thanks to them, I had given a worthless gift to someone. What if they had decided to try to use it before I could get to them? Someone would NOT have had a very merry Christmas!

During all the previous exchanges, I spent a lot of time on hold – time that I really didn’t have to spare and that I should never have had to spend. I should have kept the damned SECOND card and let the shelter spend them both.

Anyway, Mercedes assured me that IKEA would be sending me a THIRD gift card, that they were sending it via overnight mail, and that I would have it the next day (Wednesday, the 27th).

Well, “overnight” stretched into the following afternoon. Still, no card. I got on the phone – again – at about 3 p.m. on Wednesday, the 27th, and insisted on speaking to a supervisor or manager. I got a very nice gentleman named Terrell, who, after putting me on hold – yet again – told me that they had traced my shipment and that it was currently in the Cleveland area, but that it wouldn’t be delivered until the next day.

So much for “overnight.”

I FINALLY got the shelter’s gift card on Thursday, December 28. I am assuming it’s good; no one from IKEA has contacted me and told me that this one is a bust.

So, all this brings me back to my original question:

What’s with IKEA?

I told Jean that if she ever has the urge to drop a hint about something from IKEA, let me know and I’d give her the cash. IKEA Direct proved anything but.