From unsatisfied to satisfied on wooden living room furniture

Been awhile since I posted but figured I'd share a story on my search for living room tables (coffee and end tables) and how I went from unhappy to very happy after finding what we thought was the right pieces for our living room. Since moving into our house almost eight years ago we had been searching for a nice coffee and end table set for our living room but having no luck finding something that we liked the style, size, and of course price of until finally some friends told us about a place an hour and half away that makes custom furniture at reasonable prices. Hearing that this place was an Amish furniture store and reading this site enough I had my reservations until I saw the buffet and dining room chairs they had made for our friends, though it wasn't heirloom quality everything seemed well made and looked nice enough that we decided to take a drive and check it out.

Finally arriving there we find that inside they have a bulk food store along with furniture show room in an barn like building, we walk around and are ready to leave because what we see frankly is not our style and it just seemed a rather odd setup but the one sales person working there who greeted us came over and asks to show us a few pieces before we leave. She takes us over to an area and has us look at a few pieces we like design/features of though not the whole piece itself and tells us how they can make us custom pieces taking the features/design we like to our measurements. After some more discussion we head home with some basic pricing and to take some measurements. Weeks later we head back with design, features and measurements we decided on and pour over what wood and stain we'd like for the pieces. After what seemed an hour and them offering to bring a piece out of their warehouse in a stain close to what we are leaning towards we finalize the order and go home waiting to hear from them when we can pick up the furniture.

Time goes by and we finally get the call and arrange a pickup of the three pieces (2 end tables and a coffee table) and after a bit of a drive we arrive and see our pieces all ready to be loaded up looking very nice in the mid day sun. They load the pieces up and away we go to get them home where I notice the pieces now look very dark in our living room to where it's hard to see any of the detail of the wood grain. Everyday since we brought them into the house I grow more and more dissatisfied with the appearance of the pieces to where I'm sure it's not buyers remorse and something is amiss. After going back and forth and debating with the better half about the pieces being too dark we call the seller and they advise us to bring the pieces out to inspect if we just picked too dark of a stain or their was some kind of mix up. We load the pieces up and make the drive again, we arrive at the place and they help us unload and at first they feel the wood choice may have caused the stain looking darker until they bring out the sample we used to pick the stain, we discover the sample is considerably lighter than the pieces are when comparing. The sales person apologizes and after some more investigating discovers the small sample piece is incorrect and they immediately pull that sample from their display. Before I can even ask what can be done she asks "do you want those pieces or would you rather we make 3 new ones with a different stain instead?" after a few seconds to make sure I heard her right, I let her know the pieces while correct and very nice looking are just way to dark for our house and say I would prefer three new pieces. The sales person asks us to go pick out a different stain which we do and she double checks it's correct which it was and places an order for three new pieces at no additional cost to us. We thank her for working with us and their handling of the issue when sales person actually asks us if we want to take home the 3 "incorrect" pieces while we wait for the new ones to be built, we decline because we have our old pieces still and would hate for anything to happen to the ones we are returning.

Awhile later we get the call the replacement pieces with the different stain are ready, we head out and pick them up and they are exactly what we wanted, we couldn't of been more satisfied with the pieces and the customer service we received.

Though the "problem" with the furniture was solved I wanted to share this that there are still good companies out there and sometimes just asking "i'm not sure this is right, can you check?" does work.

Glad that all worked out. It can be very difficult to get accurate colors off samples and likely the sample in the store was old. I try to replace all my wood finish samples every three years, as they change with exposure to sunlight, use, time, etc for that reason.

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Originally Posted by drcollie

Glad that all worked out. It can be very difficult to get accurate colors off samples and likely the sample in the store was old. I try to replace all my wood finish samples every three years, as they change with exposure to sunlight, use, time, etc for that reason.

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Yes I'm glad too and at first that's what we thought, that it was a sample that was a bit off but it was considerably off and thankfully the company made it right with us. I decided to share the story because when you buy from a company that wants repeat business they will do their best to make things right as long as the customer does their best to communicate in a civil manner with them.

as the customer does their best to communicate in a civil manner with them

Ahhh! The secret of good diplomacy......

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Originally Posted by drcollie

as the customer does their best to communicate in a civil manner with them

Ahhh! The secret of good diplomacy......

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True though sometimes no matter how patient, polite, and succinct one is with customer service you may find yourself getting nowhere or playing the game of having to call back until you get someone who is properly trained and cares. Depending what I am buying I'm willing to pay more and/or go a bit more out my way if I know the customer service/support will be there.