An IKEA Joke
Whilst I’m waiting for the spice rack, here’s a joke.
Answer: “Sorry, we ran out of light bulbs. We expect them to arrive early next month. We do have ladders though! You just go straight on, then left and then right. No, thanks, anytime.”
Ikea is Swedish for ” how the f_ck do i put this together”
But that’s not my problem. I just want the product.
The IKEA Nightmare Continues
I thought I’d cracked problems over the spice rack yesterday, when IKEA’s web site said that there were spice racks in the store at Edmonton. But the web site was leading me up the proverbial garden path again. In a way, it wasn’t so much of a disaster, as I had to go to Stoke Newington to the excellent A & B Framers to drop some work in. But it did add perhaps forty minutes to my trip.
So now I’ve resorted to e-mailing them.
I am trying to buy a Grundtal Spice Rack – 90022781. I would prefer to buy it on-line, as I have had a stroke and can’t drive. However getting to your Edmonton store is just one bus ride and as I need one or two other small things, it is not a difficult journey. I always check the web site to see if the product is in stock and three times now, it has shown availability, but when I get to the store about 30 minutes later, they say they have all been sold. I have better things to do than sit on a 341 bus.
At least get the web site right, so I don’t have any more wasted journeys. In desperation I tried Wembley, but despite showing 11 before I left, there were none available. I can’t even pre-order on the web, which for me would be the ideal solution.
Ill add their reply, if I get one!
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.
The Anonymous Widower 