Unpleasant experience - Hancock Moore delivered by A&O

[drcollie]

There is a huge difference in local deliveries making time stops vs trucks coming from North Carolina headed to New York. I've made that run myself in my trucks over 200 times and a trucker can lose over 2 hours at the weigh stations alone along the way if they get pulled for a log book check or DOT inspection. Also, you can fuel a car in 10 minutes but a truck is 30 minutes at the pumps. Additionally on I-95 trucks have to stay in the right lanes, and many a time I've been caught over there at 45 mph between dozens of trucks while the cars zip by in the left lane at 70 and that can go on the whole length of an Interstate / Turnpike.. Point is, there are so many variables on long distance runs that to accurately predict an arrival time 500 miles away is just wishful thinking. FYI, on local deliveries that I do with my team, we do +/- 30 minutes on time estimates and can make 90% of them within that time frame. Much more control over short hops vs long ones.

On average I speak with forty customers a day via phone, email and in-store. It's impossible for me to remember verbal communications for even a day, much less four months. Please be sure everything is in writing, that's why I send out a Special Order form with every single order so you - the customer - can review it and make correction and changes as well as understand the terms of the order. If its not written down, then its likely I will not recall it. As to small marks, the majority of pieces WILL arrive with them, even in my store. That's expected in the trade and dealers are to look pieces over and 'deluxe' them as its called in the trade. I go over every piece and have a touch up kit I use to detail them - when they come to my store and before delivery. Most are very minor and require no more than 5 minutes. When you order long distance, there is no one going to do this (I have addressed this in several forum posts in the past). That's your trade off for a lower price! You become the 'deluxer' in effect. We are talking cleaning off tool or grease pen marks, adding a color touchup to a leg finish, or perhaps a bit of color to a welt trim corner, nothing major. That is part of the long distance furniture experience no matter what dealer you purchase from. The key is to recognize when a mark is not something that is an easy fix and refuse such a piece at time of delivery. Use good judgement and realize that if the furniture can pick up new marks going back and then returning to you. Obviously you don't accept major damage, but I have had customers refuse pieces when they detect a flaw the size of a ballpoint pen tip and that's a mistake to do that. There is no hard and fast set of criteria one what to accept and what to refuse, all I can say is perfection is a difficult goal to achieve and at the same time no one expects you to live with damages on new pieces.

All my order forms will have "Order times are estimates only and not guaranteed as they are outside our control". That is 100% true! No dealer can tell you how long your order will take to build because we don't control the production (obviously). The best we can do is call during the weekday to see if the cover is in stock and if it is, then the normal time frame to build is usually 6 weeks. We don't know if there is a problem with the frame plant, or the springs did not' arrive from the supplier, or the cushion vendor had a fire and can't deliver the cores for three more weeks or if they pull the cover (leather or fabric) and find they don't have what they thought they did. And the makers do not notify us! I wish they would - but we can only call on the phone to get status checks. I don't know of any store that goes through their orders and does that automatically - but its done upon request. I have some customers that call weekly, and thats fine - and others don't call at all. I will always get that status for you but if you send me an email at 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon then you won't get an answer until Tuesday!

I try to balance the terms of the order on my form that I send out to keep it all on one page. I cannot make the print too small because Mastercard/Visa/Discover/American Express demand the font be a certain size and some of it in bold type. Do you really want a 5 page contract of the terms of order that requires you to initial each paragraph? That's what it would require to go over everything that might come up in the course of the deal, to cover all the bases. Most my customers wont' even read the whole one page, much less five. As to delays, I have no better idea than you as the customer and that's the truth. For customers that want things delivered in a specific time frame, then its best to go over several cover choices and take the one that will be more timely to make. Ask questions! I have no hidden agenda nor am I a mind-reader. If there is an element of the purchase that is important to you them make me aware of it and I will do my best to see how we can accommodate it in conjunction with the supplier. I don't feel I write disclaimers but it can be construed as that, I'm sure. What I do is try to spell out the terms and procedures as is best possible to do without making it seem like you're buying a house.

The weak spot in the whole distance buying experience is the Delivery Services, and I have written countless posts here on the forum regarding that. They are not companies I can control, and they operate according to their own terms and conditions. I don't have any 'pull' or influence with them and will always side with my customers on issues. No dealer can control how your order is handled, but the guys on the truck are paid only on successful deliveries. If they damage your pieces then they don't get paid for that stop, so they have a powerful incentive to get it to you pure. They don't want marks on pieces any more than you or I do and the overall damage rate requiring returns for repair is less than 3%. But if you are in that 3% then you're not happy.

There is only so much I (or any other store) can do as a distance seller, that's important to realize. This is not for everyone to do - some folks should buy locally and pay the higher price prices because there is more control over a local delivery than a distance one and the chance of marks on pieces are lower buying locally as well. You have to decide what is important to you and make a wise decision. If you expect the lowest price and the highest level of service all-in-one you will most likely be disappointed, and that's true for most every industry, not just furniture. It's not all doom and gloom however. Just today I got a phone call from a customer in Pennsylvania who is very happy with her outcome on an issue. She was not happy with her (2) Sundance sofas that arrived and said the cushion cores were too small and voids too much in the leather casings. We worked together to fix this by having her remove all her cores and sending the casings to H&M via UPS. I worked with H&M to have custom cores made (12 cushions total) so that there was no void in the fill and they were all shipped UPS back to her. She called to say they were now PERFECT. This took some time to do and she was without her cushions for three weeks - so there was an inconvenience factor involved and she had to bundle up the casings and UPS them to H&M at her expense. However there was no charge to do this and return shipping (nine boxes) was also at no charge. This is how distance problems can be solved but its not entirely a 'painless' process.

[Marjflowers]

I'm going to stick by my advice to criticize privately. At the very least while the transaction is still ongoing. How responsive is a dealer of any product going to be if I harangue and criticize the dealer in a public forum to make things right? I know if it's me, I'm going to reach a point where the answer is not too likely. It's embarrassing, and when I take great pride in my service, this is either going to make me angry or hurt my feelings, or both. Being a human being, I might take it personally. And I just might be fed up enough to not care quite so much. I'm not saying it's excusable; I am saying it's human nature.

And I usually do evaluate customer service after the transaction is complete. When I receive a customer satsfaction survey, I assume I'm dealing with someone who genuinely wants to know what went well and what could be improved. This impresses me, and I take the time to reply as truthfully as possible. Most of these surveys are not meant for public consumption, and so I don't share them publicly.

Don't get me wrong -- when i have a transaction that has gone horribly, inexcusably wrong, I do not hesitate, and in fact, take some satisfaction in spreading my dissatisfaction far and wide. But when I do this, I understand that I have burned my bridges, and I think about that first. And while many more people take the time to complain than those who have positive to say, I guess I'm the exception. It gives me great pleasure to share a good experience wherever I can. I guess it's kind of an existential thing -- i believe in creating as much happiness in my life as I possibly can. And sharing a positive experience makes me a happier person, and so I make it a point of doing it. It works for me.

[drcollie]

I personally have no issues with anyone posting their experiences here or anywhere else on the internet, either pro or con, as long as they are presented in a rational, non-raging manner devoid of threats and bad language. Every customers expectations are different and some feel there should be more to things than there really are. I get that. Whenever possible I try to assist in finding solutions to unrealized expectations on behalf of the customer and that old adage of 'reasonable people get reasonable results' rings true. My job is to assist in a purchase and make it go as smoothly as possible for the customer in any way I can, which is different from guaranteeing a perfect buying experience. And overall, I have a much better than average 'track record' with customers for this industry. At the end of day, my goal is to make sure you are satisfied with the outcome which is not the same as guaranteeing you might not be inconvenienced in obtaining a satisfactory solution. For example, There are stores out there like Nordstrom's which guarantee 100% customer satisfaction and set the bar so high that other retailers cannot match it. You can buy a pair of shoes from Nordstrom's, wear them for two years until they need repair, then return them and say you don't like them and they will give you a full refund. They can do that because their profit margins are very high, that kind of thing would ruin my business (I tried that policy early on, it was a disaster). Let me tell you just one story how so....

Back in the 1980's a woman came into the store and I told her we had a 100% satisfaction guarantee policy. She proceeded to buy about half of everything I had in the store, her order came to $ 47,000 or thereabouts all to be delivered on the coming Saturday and all off the floor. That was two truckloads of furniture in the 80's (equal to about a $ 90,000 order in today's money). It took us most the day on Friday to take everything out of the store and I had to rent a second truck as well. We delivered everything and placed it in her home. My delivery guys worked hard to set it all up, it was more like a house move than furniture delivery. That was my best sale to date, I was very happy and gave my delivery guys a bonus for working so hard. The following Wednesday this customer called and said she wanted to return EVERYTHING - come pick it up. I was dazed by that and didn't understand it but she said "You have a 100 % guarantee and I don't like any of it, so come get it". And we did. Many more hours to get it out of her house and back in the store and it required two trips to get it all. I refunded her American Express Card and since you don't get transaction fees back that cost me $ 1,400 in credit card fees I had to eat and about $ 800 in labor to my deliver guys for a total of $ 2,200 or so. For a guy making $ 40K a year from his business, that was a terrible hit to take. I couldn't figure it out - what happened, until another lady came in a few days later and said "Oh, you must have Mrs. _________ as a customer, I was at a fund-raising party at her house for State Representative ____________ this past Saturday night and she had those exact rugs and lots of this furniture in her home, is she a customer of yours?" It all clicked then, we were used as the no-charge rental store. That woman had the gall to come into the store about four months later and I told her I knew what she had done and she was not welcome in my store, if she ever set foot in the store again I would have her arrested for trespassing. She responded by spreading false rumors about my store in the area to her cronies for years afterwards and that was the end of the 100% Satisfaction Guarantee experiment.

So that's why there are policies in place and 'disclaimers'. They are developed over a period of time based on experiences in the business with an effort to be fair and balanced, yet to also protect the store. That's why its important to read and understand them before you buy and if you're not comfortable with the language, discuss them with me or even consider a different store to buy from. I'm proud of my reputation that I have built over the years, and will try to help you out if there are issues as best I can as long as expectations are reasonable. There are certain things that are outside of my control,especially when it comes to how third parties operate their businesses.

[EddieB]

That was nuts! As much as you try, you can never satisfy all of the customers 100% of the time, even if you REALLY DID satisfy them. Keep up the great work, Duane.

By the way, my family and I are flying up on July 24th and I want to come by your store so my wife can see what I am raving about. We will be ready to make purchases at that time as well. In the meantime, I want to drive up to H & M for a visit. I will PM you to figure out exactly what I need to do.