Tag Archives: customer service

Colder's, customer service, furniture, home furnishings, incompetence, Milwaukee Area, shame on you, Wisconsin

Colder’s Northshore / Grafton – Another Customer Service Failure

Some Colder's Employees Might Be Aliens

Here’s yet another now-former Colder’s customer who had a bad experience with Colder’s Northshore in Grafton last year and shared it online:

Like the furniture, hate the service

I am very disappointed in the poor quality of customer service I’ve experienced from Colders.

I purchased a living room set of a sofa, loveseat, and recliner at the Grafton store. I placed my order with Cindy Hoffart on Saturday 7/12. She completely neglected to tell us the chair was on backorder and when we left the store we were expecting a complete delivery of all three pieces.

On our scheduled delivery date, Friday 7/18, I called the store because I had no idea what time to expect the delivery. The person on the phone read my order out loud and mentioned a love seat and sofa. I said we ordered a recliner too and her reply was, “The recliner is on backorder. Didn’t you know that?” I replied that I didn’t know that and she said she would email our salesperson to find out the details. Shouldn’t the “customer care” department know the details? It was then I finally looked closer at our receipt and I saw BACKORDER after the recliner.

Early Saturday morning we received a voice mail from the saleswoman we worked with. It was a standard courtesy call after a delivery. She asked how everything went. She did not mention anything about the recliner in the message so I called her back. I asked her when we were getting our recliner and she said that was the reason she called earlier (but said nothing about it). She told me she was not at a computer where she could look up the status of my recliner and she would call me back in 30 minutes. She never called back.

I called the store this morning, Monday the 21st., and asked once again, when I could expect to receive my recliner. The woman on the phone said more were due in this week and one could be sent to the Grafton store for me to pick up. Even though I paid to have all of my furniture delivered I am going to pick up the recliner with my own car because I am tired of waiting.

I might also add that everyone I’ve talked to on the phone sounded like they were half asleep, they weren’t very friendly, and your phone system is awful. I could barely make out anyone is saying no matter where I called from.

Over the next year my wife and I were planning on buying new office and bedroom furniture. I can assure you we won’t be buying these items or anything else from Colders ever again. We certainly won’t be recommending your store to our friends and family either.

It may be Standard Operating Procedure. It may just be incompetence, too, but that’s an awful lot of repeat stupidity…

Either way, it’s undeniably terrible customer service–completely unacceptable behavior for any retailer.

Colder's, customer service, furniture, home furnishings, incompetence, Milwaukee, Milwaukee Area, ripoff, scam, shame on you, Wisconsin

More Colder’s Customer Disservice

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Another dissatisfied Colder’s customer.

Milwaukee Rising.net‘s original article–posted just last month–asks the question:

Guess which company is more likely to get repeat business from my family and me?

The article compares/contrasts two recent customer service experiences had by the writer, with both Amazon.com and our Milwaukee-area Colder’s Furniture. Amazon handled things well. Colder’s–surprise!–did not:

Amazon — which resolved the issue within a few hours — or Colder’s, which finally dropped off a table without the leaf and a chair that was broken en route and “repaired” with glue that was still so wet when the furniture was delivered that the piece broke off when I brushed against it? (No, the delivery guys did not disclose the problem.) And then did not return our calls? And when I finally went to the store myself and demanded action, ordered the wrong leaf at least twice? And then told me the replacement chair had been delivered when it hadn’t been and did not return my call when I tried to follow up just a few minutes later after talking to my dad? And then, six months to the day after the furniture was delivered, finally came up with a chair that matched the set, but was not the requested captain’s chair (the kind with arms)?

Just guess.

No need to guess. Wet glue? Six months later, and still got the wrong merchandise? You would logically think there’s simply no way any company could be so incompetent and unwilling or unable to get it right. But we’ve had “The Colder’s Experience”. Others have, too.

Something Less Is Not A Deal

This same family was also unnecessarily berated by Colder’s staff, another apparent hallmark of Colder’s customer-service program:

Colder’s […] customer service rep berated my sister when my dad’s new furniture didn’t arrive for more than an hour after the store called and said the deliverers were on their way

So familiar. It’s happened to us, and it’s apparently happened to far too many of you, too (and is still happening). It’s almost amazing that anyone is surprised anymore.

Bad customer service increasingly seems to be the rule with Colder’s–rather than the infrequent exception from even the best businesses. Sketchy sales promotions, bad customer service… it’s just not worth it.