The Anonymous Widower

Customer Service – IKEA Style

I like their products but their customer service has an eccentric style all of its own.  In my view, it’s crap.  Or to be honest, very crap!

I had identified that to solve some of the problems in the kitchen, I needed a nice wall-mounted spice rack.  After briefly flirting with the idea of using a design promoted by a well-known celebrity chef, I decided that the IKEA on in their Grundtal range was ideal.  The way it was mounted on a rail, also meant that if I found a better solution, the rail could be used to hold something else.

I started out late morning by going to IKEA at Edmonton.  It is a surprisingly easy journey from where I live, as a 341 bus from a stop about a hundred metres away drops me outside the door of their store.  I found the spice rack on the wall and confirmed it was what I wanted.

But it was out of stock!

So I bought a few pieces and came home.

I should say that I tried to order the spice rack from their website, but it is for buying in-store only. And the only store I could find it locally, was the one at the home of the infamous, Sid and Doris Bonkers; Neasden.  IKEA call it Wembley to be a bit up-market, but that area has always been Neasden for me.

At least the web site was showing that eleven or so were in stock, so I took a chance and went, using the 38 bus to get to Green Park and then a Jubilee Line train to the dreaded Neasden. A badly misspelled sign at the station, directed me to walk to IKEA down the side of the railway, alongside the North Circular Road and then over a high footbridge.  Light-controlled crossings were non-existent and in at least two places crossing of minor roads was dangerous to say the least.

Welcome to IKEA. 

Well not quite yet, as you had to find the entrance and that was very much hidden behind the car park.  Alright if you can drive, but then I can’t.

It took me only a couple of minutes to find out that there are lies, damned lies and statistics on IKEA’s website.

So I’d wasted three hours on a wild spice rack chase.

And then of course, IKEA has no quick exit, so they delayed me even longer.

After perhaps twenty  minutes wait, at a bus-stop with no information, I got a bus to Harlesden and a train home on the North London Line.

I did find the bin I wanted for my kitchen, or at least the base of it.  But it was one of the shop bins and they were not for sale.

This surely is the worst customer service experience I have had in my life.

I still want that spice rack, so if anybody finds one or wants to sell me their’s I’m on!

To add insult to injury, it is now shown as being available at Edmonton.

January 24, 2011 - Posted by AnonW | World | Design, IKEA, Shopping