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:

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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 was pretty much done with it all through, after leaving my review on Google Maps and my blog, until that came through.  Bravo.

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,

-Eric
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aixelsyd13.wordpress.com

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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?

Please enjoy some of the free mazes at my blog, or buy my book!

Your Friend,

-Eric

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What do you think will happen next? Are we done here? Oh yeah, this is the now infamous chair…