Tuesday, March 06, 2018

This is Bad Customer Service

La-Z-Boy.

I love La-Z-Boy. We have a couch that has two recliners and it's the best piece of furniture I've ever owned.

Each side of the couch has a little recessed handle, and when you pull that handle, the recliner lets pop up. It's fantastic.

Two weeks ago, Eli 16.7 pulled up on the handle on his side--and nothing happened. Well, a little piece of plastic tinkled out.

The handle itself was fine, but nothing happened when you pulled it out.

I called La-Z-Boy and talked to a customer service person. He asked which part broke. I wanted to say, "I bet it's the part that breaks on every single couch after about three years," but I didn't. So I gave him the information, and he sent a follow-up e-mail asking for pictures and whatnot.

Sent it all back the same day.

Oh, and the part was free, but shipping was going to cost $13. For a part that weighs a few ounces.

Fine.

Two weeks pass. No part arrives.

I call back today, give my case number, and they confirm that they have my email. They also confirm that absolutely nothing has happened.

Oops.

Now, does La-Z-Boy do anything different in response to their mistake? Absolutely not. It's still going to take an additional 5-7 business days for me to receive the part, and they're still going to charge me $13. No expediting, no waiving of the charge, nothing.

Even worse, when I asked if they'd send me some kind of notification that the part shipped out--so that I'd know they'd actually, you know, done something--that wasn't possible. I have to call back into their Customer Service center, wait on hold, and then prod them for verification.

That's stupid.

If you don't notify the customer, then they don't know if you actually shipped the part for over a week. Then they'll wait a few more days before they call, like I did. So anytime the company makes a mistake, it's magnified.

It's so easy to avoid those annoyed customer service calls, just by having the correct process in place, but they don't.

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