Duane,

I am commissioning a study of customer service practices within the furniture industry. The plan is to take 10 furniture retailers and comparatively examine how they react to routine and not-so-routine customer service situations that can come up in the course of business.

Each of the 10 studies would be published independently and then all would be combined into a single blog.

At this point I am thinking that the study might need to be separated into in-stock sales vs. special orders. As you know, a company's customer service handling of a special order can be very different from the way they treat an in-stock order.

Of the 10 stores to be surveyed, I am currently thinking of including:

1. IKEA
2. Ashley
3. CSN.com (probably the largest exclusively on-line furniture retailer.)
4. JC Penneys
5. Simplicity Sofas

I would like to include The Keeping Room, if you have no objection.

I would also like suggestions from you and your readers as to the other 4 furniture retailers that should be examined in this study. (We need 1 or 2 more well-known high end retailers.)

Even if you decide to opt out of this project, I would love to have your input and the input of others on this forum concerning good questions that these companies could be asked.

For example, in a hypothetical situation, a customer receives a special order sofa but complains that the fabric is not exactly the same as the swatch they ordered from. They want to return the sofa for a refund. What do you do?

Looking forward to reading some interesting responses.

Jeff