This is a question I’ve struggled with many times, and have good reason to be struggling with it again now.
At what point does a business have the obligation to compensate you for a mistake they made?
I’ve asked this question of several business whose service I patron, primarily of cell phone companies. AT&T did a piss-poor job of compensating me when they were unable to successfully port my number over (a year and a half ago), and had me waiting for weeks. So I left them, and T-Mobile has done an adequate job of answering for their mistakes.
When T-Mobile accidentally released my number back to Sprint (woops), and was unable to retrieve it (holy smokes), they gave me two months of service free, and a new phone…after all, I had a NEW number, and needed to share that number with my contacts.
That’s fair, and I’ve come to hold most businesses to that standard – rightly or wrongly.
This weekend I dropped a fair amount of money in Ikea, as we’re creating the nursery for Callista. She’ll be born in early October, so we’re running out of time.
Regardless, because Callista’s going to need a crib and such, Kia, our other daughter, gets a loft bed. After all, fairness is demanded in this house.
So I spent a few hours assembling the loft bed, only to realize that I was unable to assemble the ladder (the very last step) because I didn’t have the right dowels. My wife, who’s something of an expert at Ikea assembly, saw the problem immediately: there were two sizes of dowels, and I’d probably used all the wrong size in assembling the bed.
You’ve GOT to be kidding me.
So we began disassembling the newly assembled bed.
An hour later, when we got the entire bed apart (of course, the dowels were used in the first three steps), we realized that I hadn’t used the wrong dowels. No, we were given 44 of the same size – rather than 24 of one, and 20 of the other.
We put the bed back together, and as it was midnight by that time, waited until morning to head to Ikea.
Here’s my conversation with the customer service rep at the Ikea store:
“How can I help you?”
“I was given 44 of this dowel, but I needed only 24 of them, and 20 of a smaller size.”
“Let me look up the instruction manual..one second.”
I wait for it to download on her machine.
“Okay, here’s the manual. Which one are you missing?”
“This is not the same manual that I have. Our manual distinctly shows two different dowels, and the dowels that I have do not fit in the ladder.”
“Hmm…this might be a new version of the bed. Let me see if we’ve got some old manuals laying around.”
She heads in the back, and checks a cabinet.
“Is this the manual you’ve got?”
“Yep, and these are the dowels I don’t have.”
“Ahh…yeah. Sometimes they create new versions of furniture, and it looks like the NEW version has 44 of the same dowel, but the old one has two different kinds.”
“So they gave me the hardware for the new bed, even though I have the old bed.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. Here’s your dowels.”
“That’s it? I spent an extra three hours trying to figure out what I’d done wrong…”
“…don’t worry, you didn’t do anything wrong. Our fault.”
“Okay, I’ve gathered that. What does that mean for me?”
“You don’t have to pay for those dowels. They’re on us.”
I was too exhausted to waste any time on this, so I took my parts and went home to finish the bed.
But it makes me wonder: what is three hours of my time worth? I know what my employer thinks it’s worth, but what should Ikea think it’s worth?
Am I wrong to think I am due some sort of compensation for their mistake?
It’s probably worth noting that Ikea is a good 20 miles from my house, and it’s not particularly convenient for me to just “stop in.”
Thoughts?
i’ve noticed that ikea has probably the worst customer service on the face of the planet, not to mention in the entire galaxy and the surrounding universe.
and so i’ve come here to share two stories. they’re short.
once upon a time, two years ago, i bought a coffee table at ikea. i was stoked because it was an awesome table– perfectly plain and flat, just how i like them. anyway, it’s a somewhat high table, with a “magazine shelf” underneath. basically, another table surface. so, this magazine shelf rests on metal pins that are to be inserted in the legs of the table. these pins are just like wooden dowels, only metal. a year later, i moved, so i took the table apart. my family helped and my brother francis unknowingly took home two of the pins. he found them in his pocket, figured they were extra, and threw them away. i discovered that i was missing pieces, and so i called home, found out that they were lost forever. called ikea to ask how to order replacement parts, since i couldn’t figure out how to do it on their completely user unfriendly website. ikea transferred me to the actual store where i bought the table. i spoke to a customer service representative who asked me if i still had the packaging for the table. i said no, explained that it was purchased two years ago. they said that in order to even be able to PURCHASE these two tiny little replacement hardware parts that i would have to produce the instruction manual as well as the receipt from the sale.
i went to home depot and bought some tiny wooden dowel pins of the appropriate size.
around the same time, i needed to buy a futon. my roommate wanted to get it from ikea, so we drove NINETY MILES[!!!!] to the closest ikea. we browsed the show floor and found a few different futons that we liked. while we shopped, six female ikea employees congregated around the info desk and chatted and chewed gum. i had some questions, so i went over to the INFO[!!!!]desk to get answers. after saying “excuse me” several times, the employees finally turned to look at me. “can you give me some information about these futons and mattresses and covers?” i asked, and i was scornfully told that everything i needed to know was on the pamphlets next to the furniture. so i go over and i look at the pamphlets, and lo and fucking behold, everything printed on it is in swedish. i went back to the infodesk and let them know i don’t speak or read swedish, and that i’d need one of them to take time out from their chatting to help me figure out which futon i wanted to pay a couple hundred dollars for.
jesus.
my advice to you is: never shop at ikea again.
as for how you should be compensated for your time… in order to get compensated, you’ll just have to spend more time dealing with ikea bullshit. do you really want to hassle yourself doing that? i just don’t know if it’s worth it. but, if it is [and if you want to make a point], i’d say you should call the customer service number on their website and do some bitching. they may be willing to do something for you. but they might not. you never know.
sorry this was longer than the bible itself. [wow, i still love hyperbole!]