The customer service is terrible, at both this store and at head office. We purchased a new dining…read moretable and sideboard in September 2017. With three weeks until Thanksgiving, two weeks until the arrival of overseas guests, and a one-week delivery window for our purchase, we thought we had plenty of time. Alas, the sideboard arrived severely damaged. As directed, we called the store as soon as we made the discovery, but the call rang out four times without ever connecting.
We then tried the Customer Care hotline we found online, and we thought we had everything sorted. A claim was opened and reference number was provided to us and we were expecting a follow up within 48 hours to arrange an exchange. We were very clear with the gentleman we spoke to at Customer Care that time was of the essence as we had overseas guests coming to stay with us in a week's time. He said that this would not be a problem and that we could easily get this sorted out before their arrival.
The following day, Chris from the store where we made our purchase called. He was rude and apathetic about our problem, complete with quotes like "I don't know what you expect me to do about this," and "I can't help you." He even went so far as to refute our claim that we had spoken with anyone from Customer Care the previous day, as he believed it was not operational on weekends.
Chris, whom we believe is the assistant store manager at the Hampshire Gate Oakville location, went on to tell us that the earliest date for an exchange would be the day AFTER our guests were set to arrive, which was also a day we already had plans set with them. He said whomever we spoke to at Customer Care had no right to promise us an earlier exchange, since those decisions are made at store level.
We had to rearrange our plans with our guests to accommodate the exchange. We waited a full week for a confirmation call, which never came, so we followed up ourselves and were almost delayed another time when at the last minute another individual at the Customer Care hotline tried to switch the date of our exchange again. After several phone calls we sorted that issue out and got our original date and a time confirmed.
When the replacement arrived, it was ALSO damaged. We insisted on the delivery contractors staying on the premises while we opened and inspected the second piece, and at first we thought it looked good and they rushed out the door with the original piece. As soon as they left, we found a hidden defect, albeit smaller than the major damage from before, but still not suitable, as the doors would not close properly or sit straight on their hinges.
Once again, we were on the phone with the store. It took a full afternoon of phone tag to get in touch with the store manager, Rick. All he could offer us was for a third-party repairman to come and look at the unit. He took our contact details down and said the repairman would be in touch with us within 48 hours. We were going to be on vacation for the next two weeks, and we had a very full itinerary planned out of with our guests. We told Rick that and since we'd already missed one day with them, we weren't going to miss another while waiting around for a repairman.
The repairman left us a voicemail three days later. As we'd already communicated to Rick that we would not be able to accommodate a repair visit for a little while, we didn't not return the repairman's call right away. Rick called us the same day to confirm that the repairman had gotten in touch with us, and we told him yes and that we would get back to him at our earliest convenience.
More than ten days later, Rick sent us an email saying that the repairman had been trying to get in touch with us several more times. Clearly, there was yet another communication break-down -- between the store and the third-party contractor this time -- Rick had known all along that we were busy with our guests, and yet he apparently hadn't passed that message along to the repairman. Meanwhile, we had not received any more missed calls, voicemails, or emails from the repairman.
A friend of ours was able to fix the door hinges. We did not need the repairman, or thankfully, another exchange. I sent a detailed complaint to the Customer Care Help Desk via the website, asking them how they would remedy the situation to win back our trust. A simple apology would have sufficed. After not hearing anything back for four weeks, I followed up. Now eight weeks have passed since the original complaint submission and four weeks since the follow up, and I still haven't received any reply at all. But since they can't even take their complaints seriously, how are we expected to trust that this company can ever deliver a quality product with acceptable customer service? We can't, and therefore we won't be shopping here again. I hope you'll reconsider if you're planning a purchase there, too.