IKEA Canada - frustrating experience with phone order in GTA, Ontario

I know the IKEA Customer Service ("ICS") phone number by heart.  Why?  Because I have had to call them almost every day for the last two weeks.

My frustration started with the downloadable IKEA Home Planner, a useful but user unfriendly program to design your kitchen or office.  When you open it you get a message that the prices are only valid until July 1 2010.  So I called ICS and got put on hold for a long time and then I think I was transferred.  

I almost always get transferred - it's like they have so many customer complaints that they want to wear you out by transferring you around, by having you repeat your story all over again, and by keeping you on the phone for a long time.  The shortest call I had with IKEA was 20 minutes.  One call took over an hour.

Anyway, back to the Home Planner.  Someone on that first call told me to just ignore the message that the prices are only valid until July 1 2010.  Imagine that!

I finally got my order together and phoned it in.  I must say that Jake, the guy who took my order was great and made suggestions of what I might have missed.  He took the time to go through the measurements.  He updated my plan for me and sent the final version to me with a list of all the things I ordered call the Distribution.

On this Distribution there was a Prel. Delivery Date (PDD) of Aug. 3.  No one told me that the goods are never delivered on the PDD.  I guess I should have called to confirm so that I didnt waste a day staying home.  So I called ICS three days in a row and got three different stories of why my goods werent delivered on the PDD.  It was only when I griped after getting the third different story that I was but through to the only people that seem to know anything, Resolutions.  This of course took many minutes on hold before I could speak with them and only after the ICS person took many more minutes opening a file.  

Resolutions people must be so important that they have a frontline of gatekeepers who take your call and then decide if youre upset enough to open a file that the eminent people at Resolutions require.  

So Resolutions tells me that the PDD is the first possible day that the delivery company would call me to set up a day for delivery.  Of course I had to ask the useless question, Why wasnt I told that in the first place?  So I asked why the delivery company hadnt called me.  I was told they would look into it.  They did call me back to tell me that they had not as yet put together all the items in their Montreal warehouse that I had ordered.  I guess their warehouse is not as efficient as their sales people had been in charging my VISA a week before

I eventually found out that the order had left the warehouse and was making its way West with my order and many other peoples orders.  A day or so later a Resolutions person told me that my order had been delivered to the GTA warehouse and was being sorted.  I was told that the delivery company would call me on the weekend.  I asked who I should call if they didnt call me on the weekend.  I was told they would definitely call on the weekend but if something totally unforeseen happened that I should call Resolutions on Monday.

So I called ICS and asked for Resolutions on Monday.  (By the way, you cant talk to Resolutions or anybody else at IKEA without going through the gatekeepers of ICS AND you have to have that sacred file number.)  They said they had to call the delivery company to see what was going on.  They called back and said the delivery company would definitely call me at 5 PM Tuesday to arrange a delivery date.  This time Resolutions was right.  

I asked the delivery company if the delivery people would bring the stuff inside where I wanted it.  They said of course and asked me if the next day between 12 noon and 5 PM would be OK.  Of course I said yes it had now been ten days since the PDD.

At 4 PM the next day in pouring rain the delivery guys showed up to say they only delivered to the main floor, not to basements.  I threatened to call their boss and they relented.

I had my distribution list ready and checked off each box as it came through the door. It seemed I didnt get everything I ordered so I called ICS and asked for Resolutions. Of course they asked for the file number.  I gave it to them and they told me that that file was closed.  I explained my problem and they told me that they had to create a new file and talk to the After Sales (AS) people.  Great, another 20 minutes of holding and giving my name and address and phone number for the umpteenth time

The AS people told me that I had to open every box and make sure that the missing items were not in any of the boxes despite the article number on the outside of the box.  Luckily I didnt have to open ALL the boxes but I did find the missing items. It sure would have been a lot easier if they had indicated on the outside of the boxes the article numbers of ALL the items in the box.

Now all I have to do is put it all together...

I am writing this so that you will know what you may experience when dealing with IKEA.  Best of luck!