A Tale of Two Settees

OFTEN IN THIS SPACE I enthrall (or bore) you with my own tales in the trenches of direct marketing.

But as you may have noticed from the last few month’s letters to the editor, our alert readers have their own stories of DM woe and wonder. I’ve heard two whoppers recently about brave souls who shopped for furniture direct. Both illustrate one of my major rules for judging a company’s customer service standards: how they handle returns.

And no – neither, to my knowledge, actually involves settees. I just liked the headline.

We’ll start with the more scathing anecdote.

Third Out

One of our readers – a longtime DM professional – made his first purchase from the Ballard Designs catalog about three years ago. It took numerous returns over three months before the glass top of the side table he ordered arrived unbroken.

But these things happen, he reasoned, and gave Ballard another chance. His second order was a wrought iron bench, which wasn’t of the quality he had hoped. The bench was returned without incident.

Third time’s a charm, right? Our intrepid DMer gave Ballard one more try, ordering two display shelving units at $260 a pop.

They arrived soon enough, but again weren’t what he hoped. He called the customer service line – open only from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday – and sat on hold for an hour before he had to hang up and go into a business meeting. A second attempt at a different time of day (when he reasoned they might be less busy) left him on hold for a half hour before a rep finally answered.

No problem, the rep assured him, we’ll send a UPS pickup slip. A month and no slip later, our friend called again, waited on hold for over half an hour again, and this time told the rep he’d like to not only be credited for the items but the total shipping and handling charges (about $60) for his troubles.

No problem, said the rep. (Where have we heard this before?) This time the slip arrived, and as the Ballard rep instructed him, he left the boxes – each about five feet long – by his doorstep. And waited. And waited.

After another call to Ballard, UPS finally picked up the boxes. A short time later, our friend called his credit card company to see if the credit had been posted. It had – for only half the amount.

He called again, waited on hold for close to an hour, and explained his situation. The rep’s response? “Hey, it’s not our problem.”

Needless to say, our friend is not amused.

“UPS generally does not lose boxes the size of a coffin,” he said. “What galls me is that their performance reflects on the rest of us.”

Our friend is still waiting for his credit. And as for his business, well, it went to retail. While waiting to meet a dinner companion at a shopping mall one evening, he and his wife found better shelves at a lower price in a local store.

Back for More

The second story – one I overheard in a conference session recently – is more humorous. A woman who had a new home to furnish was impressed with how Furniture.com allows you to plot the layout of your abode to pick out just the right furnishings. (Or maybe the talking cat in the commercials seemed knowledgeable to her on the topic of sofas.)

Anyway, she dove in and placed a sizable order. The items arrived on time but aesthetically weren’t what she had expected. She called the company and they promptly arranged for pickup of the items and credited her for the returns.

End of story? Not quite. For several Saturdays after, trucks from Furniture.com continued to visit her home, attempting to deliver items she didn’t order.

If you ask me, as long as they’re not billing for extra items, what’s the problem? Who couldn’t use an extra ottoman now and then?