Poor Bradington Young Customer Service

I purchased a Bradington Young leather piece. It was a tufted leather piece with wood accents. I received the piece at the end of July. The day the piece was delivered and in my home I heard a pop. About an hour later I found out what the pop was one of the buttons had broken. I also noticed that one of the wood corners was pulling away from the frame since it was not properly glued. I contacted the place where the piece was purchased and setup a repair appointment. The person could not fix the piece and a new button was ordered. The second attempt using the new button was not successful but the wood was glued to the corner. I contacted the retailer and they indicated a third attempt would be made. I asked for B&Y phone number to contact them directly. The B&Y person was pleasant but indicated that they would contact the retailer and probably attempt to repair again. If this is not successful either another repairer would attempt to fix it or send it back to the factory which would mean possibly not piece for 1 month. I let them know since day one I have not had a piece of furniture that looked new. The quality was poor for a piece that was expensive. I have been patient long enough and I’m not satisfied with the piece or B&Y customer service. The warranty on the product is one year, my concern is since the quality of this piece is suspect I’m out of luck after one year according to B&Y. Also I let them know I would be posting this and they said it my prerogative.

Long time readers of this forum KNOW I am a Hancock and Moore fan, because they take no shortcuts in making their furniture. I like BY as a less expensive alternative, but I will find far more faults in BY pieces than I will in H&M. I also sell ten times the Hancock and Moore that I do Bradington-Young for that reason as well. The only way to offer something for less is to take shortcuts, and BY does that (as do all companies work to a given price point).

Case in point are the buttons on tufted items. The only correct way to do button tufts is to manually sew them on. Its time consuming and laborious, but I have never seen one come off in 25 years of doing this. The shortcut is to tag them on, using a gun-like device that is similar to a fabric tagger. When you tag the button on, they can - and do - fly off. I've replaced many BY buttons as a dealer. There are many labor hours saved by tagging rather than sewing. When it occurs, I use a professional upholstery service to replace popped buttons and it has always been successful on first repair attempt with no go-backs.

Unglued joinery is another thing I have seen frequently on B&Y (and I've seen it on one piece of H&M to be fair). That's a very easy fix for anyone in the furniture business - shame your dealer for not being able to handle that simple a repair. Literally, its a 5 minute job if you know what you're doing.

You are the customer of the dealer. The Dealer is the customer of B-Y. You will NEVER have any success complaining to the factory for service. All repairs and warranty responsibility is handled through your selling dealer, and your service level will be as good - or bad - as that dealer's reputation. Having said that, BY loves to say "No", and H&M is more likely to say "Yes". I am not a champion of the BY Factory Customer Service - its marginal.

Typically BY will send the dealer three or four buttons covered in your leather. The dealer should easily be able to have it repaired locally (it will be a tag repair, not a sewn on). Ask to keep any leftover buttons.

I keep BY as a line because some customers simply don't want to buy - or cannot comfortably afford H&M prices. But there is a difference. Do make things the right way costs more, and you are seeing what occurs when shortcuts are taken. Believe me when I tell you that there are LOTS of manufacturers that take far more shortcuts than BY. It is not bad furniture, but its not top quality, either.

Keep working with your local dealer, !!save any extra buttons!! Good luck.

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Originally Posted by yogi

I purchased a Bradington Young leather piece. It was a tufted leather piece with wood accents. I received the piece at the end of July. The day the piece was delivered and in my home I heard a pop. About an hour later I found out what the pop was one of the buttons had broken. I also noticed that one of the wood corners was pulling away from the frame since it was not properly glued. I contacted the place where the piece was purchased and setup a repair appointment. The person could not fix the piece and a new button was ordered. The second attempt using the new button was not successful but the wood was glued to the corner. I contacted the retailer and they indicated a third attempt would be made. I asked for B&Y phone number to contact them directly. The B&Y person was pleasant but indicated that they would contact the retailer and probably attempt to repair again. If this is not successful either another repairer would attempt to fix it or send it back to the factory which would mean possibly not piece for 1 month. I let them know since day one I have not had a piece of furniture that looked new. The quality was poor for a piece that was expensive. I have been patient long enough and I’m not satisfied with the piece or B&Y customer service. The warranty on the product is one year, my concern is since the quality of this piece is suspect I’m out of luck after one year according to B&Y. Also I let them know I would be posting this and they said it my prerogative.

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Sorry to hear about your luck so far with getting you're BY piece fixed correctly. I see Duane already responded about ways to fix things and how the customer service process works. I had to send my couch out for repairs and thankfully it took about two weeks from the day it was picked up till it was returned. The dealer offered a loaner in the interim which I declined because of such a short turn around time but would of accepted if it took a month or so.

I suggest if you do have to send the piece out for repairs that could take 3-4 weeks or more to ask about a loaner, a good dealer will try to make something available to keep you somewhat happy during the repair process and hopefully keeping you're business in the future.

I have two very expensive Bradington and Young recliners we purchased in 2005. we like the chairs but the leather on one of them has deteriorated to the point where it is almost unusable. The back and other high contact areas are sticky and the dye is transfering off of the leather. the leather in these areas almost looks like it is melting ang gooey. The chairs have not been abused and have been maintained using the suggested cleaners and conditioners. Bradington and Young obviously have some issues with their leather treatment process. I have had far less expensive leather furniture hold up way better than this stuff. I will never buy B&Y furniture again.

That's unusual. What leather did you have the chairs covered in? Do you have a the leather code which will be four digits and then two more? XXXX - XX

What cleaners and conditioners did you used on the leather and how frequent? (brand name of the product?)

I am beginning to see the light regarding B&Y and agreeing that Hancock&Moore may be the way to go. I am hearing way too many "horror" stories regarding how long it takes to receive the furniture to obvious quality control issues. I wonder why the owners or CEOs don't realize their quality control is jeopardizing their bottom line in profit? (or do they even care anymore?)

Like I've said many times, the furniture business is not rocket science. EVERYONE knows how to build it the right way, but the right way is the expensive way. There are only two ways to build for less:

1) Cut production costs and raw material usage.

2) Cut Labor

You start out with a company like H&M that says 'no cuts', we build it as best we can and let the price fall where it may. For this purpose, lets say its $ 3,000 for a sofa.

A company like BY decides its best opportunity for success is to sell sofas for 25 % less than H&M so they target a market price point they want to be at and build to that level. To get there, they have to use less expensive materials in the construction AND a less costly work force to build it. (Tagged on buttons vs sewn on is a prime example).

And from there you get other companies that want to be even lower, and again further reductions. So its not that the people that run these companies don't care (they do), but they are working to a price point and there has to be some give to achieve it.

I was in a Pottery Barn store today in a high-rent mall location. I could not believe how poorly made their upholstery is. UNBELIEVABLE. Poorly tailored, poorly built junk. The price was not all that cheap, either - mall rent is expensive. I looked around the store and it was busy, full of the 30-year-old crowd that looked like they were making their first purchases after coming out of college hand-me-downs. They have NO CLUE what they are buying. None. If they did, they wouldn't be there.

You have to buy in your comfort level. If a $ 3,200 sofa is too expensive, give up the H&M and go downstream to a B-Y at $ 2,200 os so . Its still several light years ahead of the junk at Pottery Barn.