I would love to hear your thoughts on how they or I could have handled the situation better.
I don’t feel they owe me anything at this point.
Where should we go to buy a couch? Are any furniture stores better than the others?
My requirements are:
It must be delivered, I don’t want to pick it up or assemble anything.
I want to see it & sit in it first. (Our current couch was bought online, sight-unseen, and is a dud.)
The store has to be able to actually hit promised delivery dates.
I’m stuck on a nice HIGH back after seeing a few.
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Here’s the latest from Levin:
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Eric,
I completely understand where you are coming from. I apologize that we failed to get your correct chair delivered to you during this time. I am the person that called your wife about the Facebook post. I wanted to reach out to you to apologize and see what I could do to help the situation. When we fail to meet our customers’ expectations, we want to make it right.
I know you said you weren’t sure what we could do at this point, but I feel we need to take ownership of our mistake and acknowledge your feelings. On behave of Levin Furniture I apologize for the mistake and the inconvenience this caused you during your recovery. That is a true heart felt apology, I treat customers the way I would want to be treated. I think sometimes we get desensitized and need to be reminded that people have other things going on in their lives and just owning our mistakes and saying I am sorry can make a difference.
I know you said you do not want to shop with a us. But if you would like to give us another chance in the future, please let me know and I will see we take care of you. If there is anything I can assist you with, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.
Best Regards,
Kelly Matyas
Customer Experience Manager
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Should I write/call back?
Actual footage from a staff meeting about my recliner.
Well, I was done with Levin. Then they emailed a customer satisfaction survey. That triggered me again. Here’s what I sent back. Then I dug up as many corporate names as I could, and their email syntax. I know some landed, because about three minutes after I hit send they were calling my wife.
Here’s what I said:
💻
Hello Friends,
I recently had what we’ll call a horrendous experience with Levin Furniture. I had vented about it online, and moved on. Until my wife forwarded me the customer satisfaction survey. That took some immense lack of self-awareness on your part, so I am hoping with this missive to make you a bit more aware. The following is what I typed up & sent along with the 3 1-star answers to the survey. I thought I would look up some email addresses and get it in front of as many eyes as I could. I will also copy the salesman that my wife dealt with who never replied to her email inquiring about delivery.
Already sent was the following:
On Saturday September 9th, my wife & son went to Levin and a few other furniture stores to purchase a powered recliner for me, to help with post colo-rectal surgery recovery.
Looking online at our options and various price ranges, I knew I wanted a chair that had a cup holder, phone charger, and storage pockets… as I was not sure how mobile I would be post-op, and was quite frankly uncomfortable going into surgery.
I would have gone to view them myself, but that happened to be in-between my second and third ER trips & hospital admissions in 4 weeks stemming from a burst pocket of diverticulitis and a nasty ensuing abscess and infection. I was in poor health, and in no mood to deal with furniture sales tactics. I can even provide photos of the CT scans and the drain sticking out of my right but cheek if you like to be grossed out.
My wife ordered an Ashley Model Next-Gen DuraPella Power Recliner SKU # 2200413, mainly because Levin promised to deliver before La-Z-Boy & Value City could on very similarly optioned & priced items. Remember that “before” qualifier as you digest (pun intended) the following paragraphs.
In hindsight, it was a largely false promise on the part of Levin, one that if I were a pessimist would assume is a regular practice on the part of your sales team.
The chair was promised to be delivered by Sept. 19th. That Tuesday came & my wife logged in to the website to see the delivery was now scheduled for Thursday Sept. 21st, and we had no communication on that change from Levin.
On Thursday, my wife called the delivery number, then the store to ask about the chair’s whereabouts. She talked to an Anna who said the original salesperson, Jared Chambers, was “new” and “didn’t know he had to schedule the delivery.”
My wife also emailed jchambers@levinfurniture.com on Sept. 21st to inquire about the delivery, but as of yet has not received a reply. We can forward that unanswered email if needed.
Despite this excuse smelling of total and absolute bovine feces, Anna told my wife that they could “squeeze us in” that Saturday the 23rd for delivery. Were we the first order where this was discovered? If not, why wasn’t it rectified sooner? Does Levin train all new employees this poorly? You don’t really have to answer that last one. It was rhetorical.
Saturday the 23rd came and two nice men delivered a recliner to us. Once they brought it in & put it together, I noticed that it does not have the cup holder, phone charger, or storage pockets. It happened to be an Ashley Model 5930213 Power Recliner @ $1349.99, completely not what we ordered. It was not the same model, SKU #, or price.
The guys sent photos to their boss, their boss contacted Levins, & Anna called my wife.
We tipped the guys $20 and they took the nice new recliner away.
In that conversation with my wife, Anna then blamed an incorrect tag or sku # being on the display model in the showroom. She also used the phrasing that it was “no one’s fault.” This incensed me, as it obviously was the fault of Levin employees on multiple levels. Who tagged the chair with the wrong tag? Who double-checks their work? The salesman did not confirm that what he was ordering matched the floor model? This is not “no one’s fault,” this is a tragic comedy of careless errors.
My wife asked Anna at that time if we could purchase the floor model, as time was of the essence. Anna said she would call back.
We went to Big Lots! in Washington PA that evening to look at couches. Yes, we need a couch, and Levin is off the table for what I believe to be quite obvious reasons.
Anna had still not called my wife as of around 6:00 PM, so my wife called her. Anna said we could have the floor model if we came and got it. Now, I am in poor health with restrictions on lifting, my kids are young, we have a vehicle classed as a station wagon, and my wife is a strong woman, but I would not ask her to move a recliner herself.
You would think the salesman and or store manager eager to make good on a sale, would have delivered the damn thing in a pickup or something.
Customer service is dead.
No concessions on price were offered from Anna. My wife asked for some form of compensation for our aggravation, and at first the only offer was to refund the original delivery fee… for the WRONG CHAIR. Crazy us to assume it would be a given to not pay for that. I believe we got half off of the 2nd delivery, and were refunded the difference between the original incorrect, more expensive chair, and the correct less expensive one.
If your profit margins are so small that you cannot automatically offer a few hundred dollars off on this purchase or even on a future purchase, you perhaps need to rethink your entire business model.
The correct recliner was finally delivered on Tuesday Oct. 3rd. This was a full two weeks after it was promised, after the dates when we could have received a recliner from your esteemed competitors, and 3 days after I was released from the hospital.after surgery.
Did I mention that we set our old chair out for the trash the Thursday night prior to the initial incorrect Saturday delivery?
I would like to ask you to imagine having a foot-long section of your colon and rectum removed, your remaining section of colon & rectum stapled together, a wound vac hanging on your side connected to a tube from an incision above your belly button, and a bulbous drain hanging out of your side right at your waistline.
That makes sitting anywhere uncomfortable. Imagine, if you would, a nice stressless recliner to ease the situation… because I can’t.
Some other person did leave a voicemail for my wife after I left a frustration-venting rant & a comment or two on Facebook, but that was the night of my colon-cleanse. If you’ll forgive the mental image, we already had enough crap to put up with.
Honestly though, for that attention-grabbing shenanigans to be the ONLY thing that triggered some sort of response, you were well past the too little/too late threshold.
Your people skills are abhorrent at the sales and service levels, and your corporate level customer service is merely reactionary to online “bad press” only to save face, not serve actual customer satisfaction & retention.
I actually applaud your testicular fortitude in reaching out with a customer satisfaction survey. It either takes massive ignorance or massive swagger. And you already know where I believe you fall on the scale.
I now intend to send this to every level of your corporation that has eyes. May the best of them find work elsewhere, and may the worst of them stay to drive you further into the ground than the last time you were there.
Thank you for your time, and may whatever deity you ascribe to have mercy on your soul,
I neglected to note we tipped the 2nd set of delivery guys $20 too. But, if they don’t even pretend to care about the customers, they certainly don’t care about the employees, right? While we’re on the subject… was that appropriate, or cheap? I try to check in on these things occasionally.
After Kelly Maytas at Levin left my wife a Voicemail, I got this email…
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Eric,
Thank you for reaching out to us and letting us know about your experience. We aim to deliver a great experience and are disheartened when we don’t. We will use your feedback to make us better.
I apologize for the inconvenience and the stress this has caused you. I personally would like to speak to you about your experience and respectfully apologize and take ownership of our failure to deliver a great experience. I know you need to rest, but at your convenience can you please give me a call at 330-###-####.
Best Regards,
Kelly Matyas
Customer Experience Manage
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I took the time to send this back…
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Thank You Ms. Maytas,
Not sure if you got just the survey response, or the email that I tried to send to a handful of people after researching names and email syntax online.
I am really not sure what you can do at this point for us.
I suggest you get your Robinson store in order… from tagging furniture properly, to sales reps understanding the product, your procedures, or setting up deliveries in a timely manner, and customer service reps that understand what apologizing really is. Only then can you maybe knock it out of the park for future customers.
We are in desperate need of a new couch, but not that desperate. I feel like your team has not only burned but nuked the proverbial bridge, and I concede that I worked on that from my side of things also. I am not a fan of phone calls, I prefer the written word. I also prefer retailers that automatically offer discounts on current or future sales without having to be asked. Again, we’re past that.
Unless you’d like to suggest a competitor that will actually deliver a quality product on time?
Good luck to you in righting the ship at Levins, as your tenacity in reaching out speaks to the fact that you will stay the course! I wish that we could have dealt with you on the store level instead of when it reached a wild level of ridiculousness (again, the online shenanigans are all on me – but it shouldn’t have taken that to garner attention).
I appreciate your time in reaching out! I like you, unlike your seemingly dimwitted and soul-crushed coworkers. Perhaps they need a pizza party or two for morale?
If I could give 0 stars, I would. If Levin’s had the last bucket of water on Earth, I was on fire, and it only cost 5¢, I would still not buy it. My wife ordered a reclinig chair about a moth before I had surgery, the delivery was pushed back twice, they blamed it on the salesman & made no apologies. The wrong chair was delivered. It was sorted out with absolutely no apologies or offered concessions. The correct chair arrived 3 days AFTER it was needed. There was no attempt to make any amends or apologies without my wife asking for them. The Levin employee even had the testicular fortutude to say the “error was no one’s fault” as the chair was tagged wrong. Yes, this is obviously Levin’s fault. On multiple levels, from inventory, to display, to double-checking, and scheduling orders. Any attempts to resolve the issue were made once I was busy & in the hospital getting major abdominal surgery. It was an absolute tragic comedy of errors. What a joke. In summation: [Fornicate] Levin’s, and the horse they rode on!
So, the parking walker has taken root in other neighborhoods. Perhaps this will one day replace that parking chair. I certainly would have an easier time moving a chair than a walker if it came down to it. This was sent to me by my friend Jason that lives over in Morningside, it was around the corner from his place.
By the way, I did see the parking chair pile as was threatened to happen by the Dormont police. We drove by too fast to snap a photo… but I’ll try to get back there before it’s gone. No word if any walkers made it into the pile.
Posted: 3:31 pm EST March 2,2010Updated: 8:31 am EST March 3,2010
DORMONT, Pa. — Using chairs to save parking spots on streets might be a Pittsburgh-area tradition, but one municipality has had enough.
Dormont police will no longer tolerate chairs on streets.
The police department on Tuesday began tagging chairs residents left to save parking spaces. Chairs that remain on the streets will be removed Wednesday and taken to the Dumpster at Banksville Plaza, police said.
Because of the recent heavy snow, the borough had tolerated residents using chairs to save parking spots, police Chief Phil Ross said.
However, when officers recently went around and put the chairs on the sidewalks, residents promptly put the furniture back on the streets, he said.
Dormont begins campaign against chairs for parking spaces
FOR THE PITTSBURGH TRIBUNE-REVIEW Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Dormont’s police department has declared war on chairs.
Dormont residents who are leaving chairs to ensure parking spaces are saved will find their chairs tagged today and picked up Wednesday, Police Chief Phil Ross said.
“I understand if you spent four hours digging yourself out you tend to get a little possessive,” said Ross, appearing at Monday’s council meeting. He said the department has been tolerant during the past three weeks due to the severe weather conditions. Recently, however, when officers put the chairs on the sidewalk, the residents later stuck the chairs back in the parking spaces.
“Maybe they thought kids were doing it,” Ross said. “The parking spaces belong to everybody and nobody.”
After the pick-up, the chairs will be left near the Dumpster by the salt pile at Banksville Plaza.
If you live or work in the ‘Burgh, I’m sure you’ve seen it; The lonely lawn chair sitting in the middle of a parking space. I always thought this was a phenomenon used most heavily on the South Side… but as time goes on, I realize that it’s all over the city… Especially when we have ridiculously snowy weather. I’m sure other cities have this phenomenon… but I’m just talking about Pittsburgh.
As you can see from andybotpgh on Twitter, the “parking chair” can be anything that takes up a space that you labored to liberate from piles of snow. By the way, the #parkingchair hashtag is genius.
While the parking chair is certainly visible throughout the year, my focus will be in the winter months, and well, really during the last couple of days… during the Snowpocalypse 2010 storm.
Like most of you, my wife & I labored for many hours on Saturday & Sunday to clear our sidewalk, steps, and to dig out our cars from the mess that is on-street parking in Dormont. We cleared the sidewalk, only to have a place to put the snow from on top of & around our cars, then to shovel the sidewalk again… lifting snow on to the now approximately six foot high pile of frozen white pain in the ass from above in our tiny front yard.
To appreciate the insanity that surrounded or cars…
It was chaos. If you’re interested, check out the more photos of the surrounding neighborhood & nearby park here.
To put the ensuing rant in perspective… I fully realize that this is not a life-threatening problem, and that I’m not the only one with storm related issues. There were and are a bunch of people in Southwestern PA without power for extended amounts of time. They have problems. This is just a slightly more than mild annoyance.
It was about three hours of work shoveling the cars out on Sunday. It was quite labor intensive… but if it wasn’t done, the cars were obviously not going anywhere. Well, mine might have broken out thanks to the AWD… but I risked damaging those around me, so I decided to shovel.
Of course, work was to be attended on Monday. I had stuff that needed to leave that day, so I needed to be there. I drove Bethany to work, & then went on to my job. After normal working hours, I drove to pick up Bethany who had made it to the nearby Giant Eagle to do some grocery shopping. After we rounded out the last few items, checked out, and headed home… we arrived to find a white Toyota SUV parked in the spot that took about an hour and a half of hard manual labor to clear.
As you can imagine, I was angry. I don’t get angry all that often. I’m generally a pretty mellow guy. I was quiet angry. Quiet angry isn’t good… just ask my wife.
After circling the block, it was evident that there was nowhere else safe to park. Of the spots that had been shoveled-out, they were all filled. Some spots hadn’t been shoveled, but they were filled with about 3 feet of snow, in a pile about as big as a small car… or with the car still under the pile. Apparently not everyone had to be somewhere yesterday.
There were some other factors that added to my anger. If the Toyota who had parked in my space backed up about 3 feet (which there was plenty of room to do), we could have pulled Bethany’s car up, and had plenty of room to park my car. In my house, we call this (excuse the language) “asshole-parking”. Really, there is no more apt a description. There are no lines on the road, so your only hope is to park relative to the other vehicles. Some people ignore this, and park with a half a space in front of and behind their vehicle. Perhaps this is because they’re not good at parallel parking, or perhaps it’s becuase they don’t want anyone bumping into their precious automobile. Either way, they’re still an asshole. A typical conversation would go like this… after I walk in the door visibly winded…
Bethany, “Wow, were you running? Do you have to pee or something?”
Me: “No, they’re all asshole-parked out there. I had to go to the bottom of the hill & park.”
The bottom of the hill? What’s this, you ask? Well, there’s a little parking lot on the cross street at the bottom of our block that belongs to the park. People use it for overflow parking in the neighborhood… because there never seems to be enough space to park.
Why not just park there last night? Well, for one, it wasn’t plowed out properly… and by “not … properly”, I mean not at all. It wasn’t even attempted. The people parked there are in their own separate snow bunkers, not near any of the other cars at all, and one winner even parked in the entrance lane to the parking lot… effectively stranding everyone in the second row of the normally 3-row lot.
I dropped Bethany & the groceries off at the house, then circled the block a few more times… fuming the entire time. I finally settled into a space on the cross-street at the bottom of the hill that no one had bothered to shovel. There was about a car-length of snow about a foot high, so I went for it. The Subaru handled it without a problem, and I got a little rush from driving in the snow.
I didn’t like parking where I finally ended up, because I was the first object on the side of the road road after coming down a poorly plowed and salted hill. I might as well have painted a bulls-eye on the back & side of the wagon.
But, my thoughts were focused on that damn white Toyota SUV that was asshole-parked in the spot in which I spent hours clearing. I wanted to write a passive aggressive note. Something to the effect of… “I’m glad you were able to use the space that it took three hours of shoveling to clear”. I even thought of typing it, and including a photo above. Seriously. These thoughts went through my head. I thought of piling snow on the car, buckets of water… all the tricks. Bethany posted her frustrations on Facebook, and it was instantly echoed by many sharing in our anger and frustration, suggesting what we ought to do to the offender… and even to the extent of my friend Dave saying he’d come over and take care of the problem.
I noticed a bunch of parking chairs stools, and even a saw-horse on the next street over as I circled the block. Why hadn’t I thought of that? Again, Facebook being a great tool for the need at hand, I asked for some thoughts.
The problem is that we don’t own the street in front of the house (and neither does the landlord). I understand this. It’s public on-street parking, and even we need a permit to park there during certain hours, and we have a visitor’s parking pass. This is the other problem… the Toyota had said pass for our zone, so technically, they had just as much right to that space as I do… even if it is directly in front of my residence, and we spent time maintaining it due to weather issues.
Still, on a karma level, it’s a bitch. The general consensus is that it’s not a nice thing to do… but still, it happens. Some people out there are only concerned with themselves. They needed a spot, they took it… end of thought process. Perhaps they didn’t consider that it was hand-shoveled and that I was coming home from a long day with a car full of groceries? Perhaps they did, and still didn’t care.
Here’s where the “what about me” kicks in… Why didn’t I put out a parking chair? Other people do it. It’s a known and oddly respected practice in neighborhoods all around the ‘Burgh, and apparently even on the next street over. Or is it respected? I don’t think I’d park in a chaired space… simply for fear of what may happen to my vehicle. Surely though, if a situation escalated to the point where a chair was removed, the space occupied, and there was some sort of retaliation… the chair placing retaliator would surely be at fault.
Do you respect the chair? Do you use one? Do you move them and park in the space knowing the law is on your side?
World (and Lunar) Domination 