Larsen Idealog

Hanna vs. Anna

This post was originally intended to highlight a wonderful thing that happened in the "As Is" department in our local IKEA. It started 3 years ago, when I purchased my first real bed, a HOPEN. After 3 hours of assembly, I realized that my kit was short 1 single bed slat. It wasn't a structurally-integral piece, but it was something that irked me. So every time I went to IKEA I would stop by the "As-Is" desk and ask if they had any extras lying around. Once, an IKEA employee - we'll call her Apathetic Anna - told me what I SHOULD have done when I noticed a slat was missing. Anna said I should have disassembled the whole bed, then repacked the boxes and loaded them in my car, driven them back to IKEA, sat in the returns line for awhile, then picked up a new bed and hoped for the best that this time all the pieces would be included and intact.

This is IKEA problem-solving.    

Six months ago, a very nice woman - Helpful Hanna - promised to keep an eye out for the bed slats and hold some aside for me. When I made a stop at IKEA last week to buy a STORÖN patio table (and sample the $3.99 Lumberjack breakfast), I dropped by the "As Is" section as an afterthought. To my luck, Hanna was there, and she had a bundle of slats that she'd set aside for me months before, with a sweet little note to make sure no one put them on the sales floor, and another one that said "NO CHARGE." My bed would finally be complete, three years later.

We took our new treasures home, and I started assembly on the STORÖN, visions of days spent out in our yard swirled in my mind. Barbecuing, entertaining friends, playing bocce and fetch with Cooper. All of that came to a screeching halt when a piece from my table splintered just as I finished assembling it. Adding insult to injury, a 2" by 2" piece was left out of my kit, thus rendering the table incapable of holding an umbrella.

I checked the IKEA web site for instructions on how to get replacement parts. "Anna," the IKEA customer service-bot, directed me to the "Returns" page. Electronic Anna agreed with Apathetic Anna as to how to solve this simple problem. In short: disassemble, repack, reload, return, buy a new one, hope for the best.    

Unsatisfied with this "solution," I talked to a nice lady at IKEA who told me that all I needed to do was bring in the broken part, as well as my instructions to show which piece was missing. They'd crack open another one, and give me the parts I need. So they did. And those broke too. So I talked to a few more people, until I finally convinced someone to give me two more of each piece that broke, and to ship the pieces to me this time. I think it's best for everyone if I don't see the inside of that store for awhile. 

Now I hear my Dad saying, "You get what you pay for, Bud." But what IKEA shoppers pay for is a piece of furniture. We pay for it to be complete and in working order. The aim of IKEA is to bring you higher quality furniture at affordable prices by eliminating extraneous expenses. Unfortunately, one of the things they deem too "expensive" is taking responsibility for their own mistakes. Instead, they place the onus on the customer to do the bulk of the work in solving problems that IKEA caused.

What the company could really use is more Hanna's and fewer Anna's.