Initially our experience with Ogden Flooring and Design was positive. The store manager helped us with flooring options and even working with us to meet the time frame for our house showing. Without going into detail the job spanned two appointments and refreshed about 2k square feet of flooring in my house. It was not an inexpensive quote.
The two appointments happened but not without incident. My wife was unhappy with the quality of the work on the laminate flooring. Because of our constrained timeframe rather than have it removed and reinstalled he suggested having the installer come back out and "try to tighten" the larger gaps between the planks. The next day the installer did return but evidently had not been briefed on what he would be doing. He pushed back, arguing with my wife that the floor was fine despite his manager admitting the evening before that it was below standard. He "tried to tighten" for about five minutes and then left.
The laminate flooring was the second appointment. The carpet had been left without transitions completed until the laminate floor had been installed. However, the day the laminate flooring was installed the installers simply left without stating when they would be back or if they would be back. In hindsight this was very odd because after all the back and forth the transitions took less than 10 minutes to finish. I had to call the store and confirm that someone would return for a THIRD visit and finish the work the next day. We were given another four-hour window the next day to wait.
This operator, names Luis was obviously not happy when he showed up to our house. I learned later that he had been pulled from another job to come finish our transitions. He was unpleasant, and unprofessional. I walked him through the area, showing him the five transitions that had not yet been finished. The fifth one for some reason was an issue. He made comments that it was not his job, and that I should call someone else to handle it. Luis intended to do two of the five transitions and leave the others for some undetermined future appointment and evidently a different installer.
At this point I directed him to leave my house. We were already double the number of appointments that it should have taken to finish the work and I had already determined to talk to the store again to ensure that all five transitions could be done in one appointment. Luis however did not leave my house but instead became more agitated and hostile. I tried to lead him back to the front door and again repeated my direction that he vacates my premise this time with the instance that he should immediately stop all verbal interactions with my wife (his voice was raised). He still did not leave. He blocked my front door, turned, and made sure me and my wife knew exactly what he thought of us and our transition.
I called the store immediately. The representative assured me that Luis had been with the company a long time and that didn't sound like him. I was frustrated at now being accused of lying and hung up without even having a new appointment made.
My wife (a singularly independent woman) took it upon herself to drive to the store and attempt to get resolution. She was met with similar barriers. She was told her husband had escalated the incident. She was told Luis was refusing to work with us anymore. This representative insisted that the whole incident was some sort of workplace interpersonal altercation.
His story changed when my wife revealed that we had had two general contractors working in the basement that Luis had not seen but had witnessed the entire exchange and could corroborate that it had been Luis that had become aggressive and hostile ahead of being directed to leave. My wife had to talk to this representative for over half an hour before he finally provided her with a new (now fourth appointment) to finish the transitions and fix the issues in the laminate flooring.
Later that afternoon Jesse the store manager called and after I agreed he came by the house to inspect the work. He agreed with my wife that the flooring was subpar and agreed that Luis had been out of line.
Evidently finding the installer that was willing to install that piece of plastic required three additional appointments and entirely too much effort. As someone that has made a career of leading teams, I suggest Ogden Flooring work on cross training and their work order distribution process.
Also, I understand that you cannot always assume that the customer is right. My wife and I both work in customer-oriented careers and had positive interactions with every other installer that came to our house despite our frustrations with the process.
I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had been at work and my wife alone had attempted to remove Luis from our house. read more
