After careful consideration, today afternoon we decide to go there again and try to buy some for our rooftop garden. We have a lemon tree there and I think it may needs a new pot soon. So the largest pot we saw in IKEA will be a good new home for it.
When we arrive at the gardening department, there are a few of them left. As we want to buy 7 of them, it is very difficult for us to carry them home. So we decide to pay for the delivery service provided by IKEA. Moreover, it is impossible to put all of them into their largest shopping cart. I also don't expect IKEA will treat their customer in such manner.
Then we ask the staff at the garden department to see how can we place the order and the delivery, he directs us to the ordering counter near the checkout. He said the staff there will help us to place the order and we don't need to carry all these gigantic pots to checkout all by ourselves. So we continue our shopping through the many other departments and finally reach the ordering counter after half an hour later.
At the time we arrive, there is no customer waiting. So we quickly approach one of the staff at the counter who named Frankie. We said we want to order something and want IKEA to deliver them to our home. So I fill in the form for the address and said we want to order 7 of these gigantic pots. Then suddenly Frankie said we have to pay extra for the pot (HK$200 in total). Before we place our order, we have already calculate the delivery cost in advance based on the information provided. As the total amount of our order is less than HK$1000, we should only need to pay HK$100 for it. So we don't understand why he need to pay more for ordering pots. We ask Frankie kindly for the reason behind. But he starts to become impatient and talk to us in a very rude manner. Then he knocks rudely on the shipping cost board to answer our query. Moreover, he even claims that the counter here wouldn't help us to place order and we should to carry all these 56 cm x 60 cm pots to the checkout on our own. But as I have mentioned before, it is impossible to do it without any assistance and he clearly doesn't care about it. He doesn't bother to explain anything and just tell us to go back to the gardening department, which is very far away from the counter. Actually he can simply use the phone on his table to contact the staff there for us but he is too lazy to do so.
With such impolite attitude, we decided not to buy anything from IKEA today. So we go straight to the customer service counter and file a complaint about Frankie immediately. After we explain the incident to the staff, then we are greeted by the supervisor responsible for the ordering counter. First, he apologizes for Frankie's inappropriate behavior. Then he clarifies that we shouldn't have to pay extra for just ordering the pots and Frankie is wrong. Moreover, he also claims that Frankie is just a part time staff. He may not familiarize with the company's delivery service and lack the proper training. Although he offers free delivery service to compensate for our unhappy shopping experience, we kindly refuse his offer as we are not filing this complaint for any compensation.
No matter you are a part time or full time staff, the customer won't care and he is expected to have accurate information about the product. In my point of view, it is alright for having some unclear or misleading information as everyone will make mistake. But I definitely can't withstand any impolite attitude from the staff. I always favour the IKEA brand and think that they have good customer service. So I hope this is just a special case and doesn't reflect their overall service. But the damage has already been done and it may take some time to heal. After what happens today, I guess we should stop going there for a while.
