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.
🪑
Here’s the latest from Levin:
🪑
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
🪑
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
💻
I took the time to send this back…
💻
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?
I wanted to write to let you know that my wife & I had an excellent experience with store manager Matt Walker at DFW in Pittsburgh earlier this evening. We left a Value City nearby wholly disgusted with their salesperson, and our experience at DFW was such a great relief.
…but we want to encourage feedback and interaction from the community on Facebook.
Example : The recent story from Eric in Pittsburgh about his shopping experience at Value City Furniture vs. DFW Furniture in Pittsburgh.
We realize that advertising is always SUSPECT…But customer testimonials are PRICELESS… and credible.
How awesome is that?! I’m famous! Ha ha.
In all fairness, Value City did indeed reach out in the comments of the original blog, and as requested… I did follow-up:
From: Eric Carroll To: jeremy.sipes@vcf.com Sent: Mon, April 25, 2011 Subject: Blog about couch buyin experience…
Hello Mr. Snipes,
I’m responding to your comment on my blog. I’m not sure what else you would need detail-wise, or any way of resolving anything. Did you first read about my blog through your submission form? I don’t really have any other details then what I expressed in my blog. What else would you be looking for, exactly?
Thanks,
-Eric
.seitilibasid gninrael fo nuf ekam ot ynnuf ton yllaer s’tI
And, this was the response:
From: “Jeremy.Sipes@americansignature.com” To: Eric Carroll Sent: Tue, April 26, 2011 Subject: Re: Blog about couch buying experience…
I just wanted to make sure to reach out to you regarding your experience in the store. I apologize for your experience with one of our sales people. I will be in contact with store management in order to address your concerns. I am glad that you found furniture that you are happy with, it is just unfortunate that you were not able to so with our store.
If you need anything going forward, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Thanks for your time
Jeremy Sipes
American Signature Inc.
Customer Service Coordinator
1-800-743-4577
1-614-449-4351
Again, there’s not too much to do at this point, is there? Although, they did have some cool pop-bottle looking bar-stools there…
I like they stripey pillows on the love seat, they came with the set. I don’t think Bethany likes ’em though. We bought the pillows that are on the couch from Kohl’s, but they’re a pretty good match.
So, the wife & I been saving to buy a new couch & loveseat for quite a while. We’ve been very casually looking at furniture stores since last October. Retail sales people in general really bother me. I tense up when they approach. It’s impossible to walk into any furniture store & browse without a sales person being on you like white on rice. I have an issue with the titles too. They never call themselves sales people. It’s always “associate” or “specialist” or “floor manager” or “Archduke of Ass-cushions”. You’re there to sell furniture and make commission, not to help me with the interior design in my house or really even to sell me what fits my needs. You want to up-sell as much as possible. I know that, you know that… why can’t you admit that you know I know it? Pardon me, I’m getting ahead of myself.
At Levin’s they weren’t interested in showing us anything other than the most expensive couches. Once they got an idea of our budget, they weren’t interested. Roomful Express was a veritable pressure cooker with a “buy it now because we’re going out of business” style sales pitch. So, no warranty then? Ikea is great, and we love the place for other reasons, but none of the couches that we saw on our last few trips fit our style and budget. Big Lots had some affordable furniture, but the couch we had considered there only came in one awful orange-tinted brown… and it just brought poop to mind.
That brings us to the events of tonight. We had passed by the DFW on Rte. 51 a week or so ago, but we decided to check it out. We had looked at a few of their pieces online and were happy with the price & selection. We decided to stop at Value City first since it was on the way & we were out looking. The plan was to look around at Value City, check DFW in person, and if we needed to hit Value City on the way home, we could do that. We could not have had two more divergent experiences. I will mention sales persons’ names below, as it’s my intent to contact both Value City & DFW with the details of our experiences. They both need to know what’s going on in their stores, good & bad.
As we were walking up to the door at Value City, we could see a young sales guy looking out the front window directly at us as if we couldn’t also see him. He ran out of our view to his left, not unlike a puppy running to get some treats. I said to Bethany “Wow, this guy’s going to be all over us before we’re even in the door.” I was wrong. Another sales guy was on us as soon as we were in the door. He appeared like Batman disappears in the movies & cartoons. I really have no idea where this guy came from. He was just there. I say “sales guy”, but he called himself a “floor designer”, commented on Bethany’s Penguins hoodie, and introduced himself as Bill. Bill asked what we were looking for, we said couches, and he gave is a well-rehearsed (read: tired) spiel about how we were “here for two things; eye appeal and butt appeal”. Things like “it’s got to be comfortable”, “sit on it, jump on it, relax”, “microfiber is just a fancy way of saying 100% polyester” were said. Also, there were mentions of how their parent company owns Big Lots and DHL and a few other companies… which have absolutely no bearing on me buying furniture. I’m not impressed with image. Cheesy, but at that, he let us off to browse on our own. We made our way up the first aisle, down the second, and were on the way up the third when Bill caught us again. Along the way, we saw two couch/loveseat sets that we really considered purchasing. We had our mind set on one because it was comfortable and within our budget and we were frankly just in the mood to finally purchase a couch this evening. When Bill caught up to us the second time, we may have confused him, as we talked in passing to another family who had just walked in the front door. Bill proceeded to introduce himself to us and give the same “eye appeal and rear appeal” into the “microfiber=polyester” speech that we had just heard less than ten minutes earlier. As we were just into the third aisle, we were beginning to realize that most of this furniture was above our budget… so the plan was to walk through quickly. Bill caught us by a rather ugly yet comfy reclining sofa that was ridiculously priced and begged us to sit in it. We obliged. Then Bill proceeded to tell is that we may recognize him from TV as he’s the “furniture doctor” (or something to that effect) on KDKA. He also said that he sold this same couch to Tyler Kennedy & Max Talbot, then named some Steelers for good measure. This is where my mind was made up that we wouldn’t be buying anything from Value City. I don’t care who else has the same couch as me, and these local sports heroes will never be sitting on my couch… so it really is irrelevant. Also… I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but just looking at us, he should have known that the couch in question was way out of our price range. I would like to make it clear that the only reason that we didn’t buy a couch from Value City this evening is Bill Crewson. I found him to be pretentious, pompous, and obnoxious. We escaped Bill’s sales pitch of doom, and had a discussion around the first corner. My wife agreed with my assessment and decided that worst-case scenario, we would come back & deal with a different sales associate because Bill was not getting a dime of commission from us. We promptly headed to the door. Bill again appeared out of nowhere and handed us a business card as we were on the way out the door, title being “Home Furnishing Consultant”. Get your title/position straight, Bill. Consistency is a good thing. As soon as we got home, I fired up Firefox and Googled the bejesus out of Bill’s name on KDKA’s website. I can find no mention of Bill by name or by “furniture doctor” or “couch doctor” or whatever he called himself (or anywhere else on the web). If someone knows Tyler Kennedy or Max Talbot, tell them to call me to talk about their couches.
Next, we went to DFW. The experience there was as refreshing as Value City was exasperating. We weren’t immediately pounced upon when we walked in the door. After we had made our was across the front of the store, we were casually approached by a Mr. Matt Walker. He asked us what we wanted, and what our needs were. He explained what they had, how the discounts worked if you bought outright vs. a payment plan, and set us free to roam around the store. Still reeling from Value City, I thanked Matt for being the first sales person in a furniture store that wasn’t so far up my rear-end that they were looking out my mouth. He laughed like he hears that a lot. Bethany & I were able to take our time, look at the prices, sit on the couches… and we again found two sets that we liked and that fit our budget. The one didn’t come in any different colors, so we happily picked the other, and we had to seek out Matt to let him know that we were ready to make a purchase. To not be hovered over, or approached a second time with some sort of practiced sales pitch, or to not be only shown the most expensive pieces on the floor was a huge deal. Happily, the set we wanted was well under budget at the advertised price. Not only that, but we got a discount for paying for it all at once. There was also another deeper discount because the floor model was the only one left. We looked it over, were satisfied with the condition and quality and went with it. We did purchase a reasonably priced protection plan for the cushions and there was a standard delivery fee… and we were still under the advertised price for the set. I urge anyone in the Pittsburgh area looking for cheap quality furniture to seek out Matt Walker (Store Manager) at DFW on Rte. 51. DFW should send all of their managers and sales persons to Matt to be trained. They would be wise to pick up his tactics and demeanor. The delivery is set for tomorrow, I’ll have to pop up a photo and let you know how that goes!
World (and Lunar) Domination 