Real customer service from IKEA

This weekend I had to buy a new bed. Best one I could find was Ikea in Leeds. I like Ikea it's cheap yes but the quality is pretty good. I had a budget and their designs fitted it.

So off I went to Ikea to get my bed. Browsing the shop as always was easy and enjoyable. I ordered the bed and mattress very easily. Picked up the flat pack sections for the bed and paid. To get my mattress I had to go round to the collection centre. This looked pretty easy. Ikea had already got my money and I was confident that they wouldn't let me down when I picked up my mattress.

God I was wrong.

When I arrived the queue was massive, some people had been waiting for over 3/4 of and hour and were getting very irate.

But the was one beacon in all this. The smiling and very over worked lady handling all these angry and tired customers. As I stood there waiting in the queue she smiled and acknowledged each and every customer even speaking to the queue to apologise for the wait they were experiencing. The guy in front to me had been waiting for 40 minutes and when he got to the front he said he wanted to complain, rather than giving this man the usual response the lady I now know as Denise said "Certainly, just fill in this form and the customer service people will see to your complaint, I'm so sorry for the delay, I'll just have a quick check to see if your parcels are here." This instantly calmed the man who didn't bother to fill in the form. At one point Denise called for help from the front house staff at Ikea and was told they couldn't spare anyone.

This was a big mistake in the long run for Ikea. The customers who had a happy warm feeling about their new piece of furniture were now only remembering the bad and boring experience they were now having. This was the experience that they would remember. I'm sure the marketing and PR team fro Ikea would be fuming.

Denise even helped a man who's baby needed changing because the nappy dispenser in the toilets was broken. She then made sure she spoke to the mother of the baby to ensure that they were all ok.

I'll be writing to Ikea to let them know about the hard work Denise did. I hope they take note and advance her to head of customer service were she clearly needs to be.