Unhappy Customer (not mine)

I got a phone call from a gentleman who wanted some advice on how to deal with the problem he was having with his new Hancock and Moore purchases. He elected to purchase from one of my competitors 25 miles south of my store and has never made a purchase from The Keeping Room, though he shopped us both prior to the buy. It's a free country - buy from whomever you like, I never have issues with that. Probably that other store beat my price by a few dollars, I don't really know and didn't ask as it had no bearing on the issues at hand. The store he did buy it from was very slow on delivery to him he mentioned, and the delivery team was very rough with the pieces - putting holes in the black underneath dust panels and scuffed the pieces up going through doorways. He complained and the store sent out a repairman who apparently was a hack, and made everything worse than it was before. Now they are not responding to his calls for yet another fix and he wanted to know if he should demand all furniture should be replaced with new.

I told him that a dust panel is a very easy fix, that is not particularly hard to do (I have done many of them myself) and most touch-ups are not difficult, either. But, like most things you have to have some intelligence to do it right and not just be a monkey with a staple gun and brown magic marker. I advised him to speak to the owner of the store and request the pieces taken to a professional local upholsterer to fix them correctly, not an in-home service. That was about all I could do for him, and didn't want to get involved too deeply and speak on behalf of another dealer.

So what's the point of this post? I think its just to show that you should never buy on price alone, with high-end pieces you want to check reputation and service if you can when choosing a dealer. In 30 years, neither I or my delivery team have ever put a fist through a dust panel, that's caused by hiring people off the street that don't know how to deliver fine furniture. We always use door jamb pads (there are two in my delivery truck at all times) and remove legs and doors if necessary to get clearance. And if we did need to replace that panel, I would never do an in-home repair, the piece would come out and go to John Spicer at Spicer's Upholstery (10 miles from my store) as he's the best in the region at what he does. And finally, I never ignore my customers calls - I will always keep the communication channels open.

I assume this other dealer was slightly less in price, but that dealer has a reputation for roughly handling furniture and a trip to their showroom will reveal that in their floor models alone. Most are banged up pretty good. Now this gentleman is having a miserable experience with his new purchases with no resolution in sight and he may have saved just a percentage point or two. Choose wisely my friends!