Ikea has been listening to all of your complaints about how difficult it is to put together its furniture. And now, it’s making a change.
The Swedish company is introducing a new method of building some of its furniture that should make the assembly process a lot less complicated. The method uses something called a wedge dowel. It essentially creates fitted grooves in each piece so that the different parts simply snap together. No more complicated directions or unrecognizable tools!
The company has been working on this new assembly method for some time, and will introduce it gradually, starting with the Stockholm cabinet series and Regissr storage products. But it plans to add those easy-assembly features to even more products over time. However, the company did note that certain products may always require those extra steps and tools. So don’t expect to snap together an entire kitchen setup anytime soon.
For frequent Ikea shoppers, this change could represent a huge win. The difficulty of building certain pieces of furniture has been well documented across social media, online articles and almost certainly throughout Ikea’s customer service channels.
The Importance of Listening to Customers
But with this move, the company shows that it has been listening to customers. And offering this type of solution could make its current customers happier, and potentially even draw in new ones as well.
IKEA Photo via Shutterstock
Aira Bongco
Yes. Their furniture looks good but they really take a long time to assemble and it is really hard. I am glad that they are finally doing something about this.
Anon O'Maus
If you Google Ikea customer complaints. for the US, the most common and irritating complaint is unreliable home delivery and poor resolution of delievery delay and errors.
Andrei
July 14th 2017 I had a misfortune to buy a sofa at IKEA in Tampa, Fl. I charged it on my credit card that didn’t have enough funds there. My mistake. July 21st I tried to correct it. I went to the store with my receipt and asked the clerk to issue me a refund and charge a different card. This simple 30 seconds transaction became unsolvable problem. The clerk Charles told me to wait. I’ve seen him talking to 3 different people before he told me that “We don’t do that.” The next person I talked to was Customer Service Manager Maria Pilar Bernal. She said that in order to cancel the transaction and give me a refund and then charge another card I need to bring the item back. Needless to say that the “item” is about 100 lbs heavy and in order to bring it back (to “show and tell”) I have to rent a U-Haul, carry the sofa from the 2nd floor and back, drive to another part of town, load, unload etc… The last person I had a “pleasure” to talk to was the Acting Store Manager Ahmed Velez. He told me that current policy is “for my own good.” It’s to prevent fraud. When I asked how could that be fraud if I brought my receipt, ID and 2 credit cards both on my name – he couldn’t explain how… I have 10 credit cards and excellent credit score. I was able many times to get a refund or to charge my card at any store just by showing the receipt. Never in my life was I called “a fraud.” Never in my life was I treated so badly. Considering the fact that I was asked 3 times to move from one counter to another, and was subject to “dirty looks” of a number of employees, I came to the conclusion that “innocent until proven guilty” is not for IKEA. Evidently, it was “for my own good” for them NOT to help me. Thank you, IKEA! You just lost a customer.
vishnu
They say you take the biggest risks when you are going down. After IKEA dressers and cupboards were found with a flaw that could kill (and killed!) infants, IKEA launched one of the biggest recalls in furniture history. The truth – they never paid out refund checks to the millions whose items were recalled!
After spending 35 hours on the phone over 14 phone calls, and being promised the check for all my furniture that was recalled, after 5 months of harassment and constantly being lied to, I’m asking other customers in a similar boat to reach out – let’s punish IKEA together. Already a few neighbors have joined hands.
Wonderful work, many thanks for taking the time to post this,
ill definitely give it a share on my twitter.