Ikea customer Pete Targett was in the queue for the delivery of a “small desk”.
“It’s now going to be six weeks from the point I ordered it to the point it gets delivered,” he told Checkpoint on Thursday.
“I realise there’s going to be a fairly high demand on opening day, so I was up at seven o’clock and I placed my order and got a delivery date of December 15, which was 11 days away. But I realised that there’d be a lot of customers wanting deliveries, so 11 days – I could live with that.”
On December 14 he checked the progress of the delivery and discovered “it hadn’t even been picked out of the warehouse, let alone packed or shipped”.
He tried contacting Ikea’s customer support via the website’s chatbot, but it was of little help. It eventually gave him a phone number, and after spending time navigating the interactive voice response system, he got through to a human being.
“They were helpful as much as they could be, but told me that the only day they could give me was the 13th of January. And I said, ‘Well, if that’s the case, then can you just refund my shipping cost, because it wasn’t cheap?’ And then my $69 desk was going to cost me $80 to get it shipped to Wellington.”
He negotiated a $40 rebate, but was then told he had not paid for the desk – when he had. Next he got a credit note for the refund but it was for the wrong amount.
Yet his dealings with Ikea were not over. He got an email saying delivery had been changed to January 14 and asking if he could “please pay the bill” or they would cancel his order. A similar email arrived the following day. Ikea apologised for those too, Targett said.
One of the call centre operators even told him they had been helping out in the warehouse.
“It’s all hands to the pump over there, apparently.”
He suspected training was the problem, considering Ikea, an international retail giant, likely had robust IT systems.
“It’s disappointing... may be some time before we order anything else. Let them get their act together, you know?”
In a statement, Ikea said it had extended shifts and increased capacity where possible to move things along. But during the customer support centre shutdown, customers would not be able to contact the team.
“The sales and orders secured over the first few days have surpassed our expectations and as a result some of our fulfilment services are currently unavailable,” its website told customers.
“As a brand-new team, we are learning quickly and adapting our operations to meet this incredible level of demand, and we are working around the clock to secure optimal operations as soon as possible.
“For now, click and collect and some delivery services are temporarily unavailable while we catch up. Customers with existing orders will be contacted by our customer service team in the coming days to agree on a convenient time for delivery or collection where possible.”
Targett estimated there was a 50% chance the desk would show up on January 14.
– RNZ
