Customer Service in Italy (Again)

We’ve been customers of Ikea for over 15 years – sometimes satisfied, sometimes not. I suppose that eventually we will replace most of our cheapish Ikea furniture with stuff that Rossella won’t be embarrassed to inherit, but for the time being, given budget constraints, we still buy Ikea. The Ivar unfinished pine modular shelving has mostly migrated out to the garage (after I spent hours this summer cleaning, sanding, and staining shelves coated in a decade’s worth of Milanese grime – I thought we were going to use them in the house!). The Billy bookcases are still in use, though by now they’re so old that Ikea doesn’t even make them in this color (pine) anymore. At least all this old stuff is no longer in the fancier public spaces in the house; my office and the taverna(basement den) have become the repositories of our less-presentable furniture.

Anyway, my point set out to be about customer service at Ikea. Which has markedly improved. A few years ago we got very angry about some customer service failing, I forget now what it was. As we stood arguing at the counter, a non-Italian Ikea manager observed, and came over to set things right, going the extra mile to make us happy, and showing the staff that this was the correct approach. I supposed that Ikea HQ had detected customer unhappiness in Italy, or this particular store, and sent someone from Sweden to make improvements.

During our latest visit, we saw that they’d taken great strides in staff attitudes. All the floor staff were knowledgeable and enthusiastic, in spite of being swamped with customers. It appears that Ikea have finally found the secret to training Italians to provide good service; this is knowledge they could sell, if they chose.

They could start with Telecom Italia, who continue to lose marks on both competence and politeness…

1 comment

  1. Quiero presentar esta queja por que el señor que esta en la oficina de Grosseto,Italia me estafo el dia 5 de octubre.
    Alquile un coche por internet que debie recoger a las 13h.,Por causa de los autobuses(no sabia horarios)llegamos 15 minutos tarde.Este señor nos increpo por llegar tarde haciendonos sentir incomodas, y no cambio su actitud hasta que le pregunte si podria alquilar un dia mas el coche y devolverlo en la oficina del aeropuerto de Florencia.Entonces se vuelve amable y nos dijo que si ,que serian solo 55e.mas y ya esta.Mi hermana y yo con los nervios de llegar tarde y el idioma no le pedimos factura de los 55e.que le pagamos en metalico en ese mismo momento.Tambien le preguntamos si le debemos algo por llegar tarde y nos dijo que no,que no pasaba nada.
    Nuestra sorpresa, cuando al devolver el coche en la oficina del aeropuerto el dia 9,no solo me vuelven a cobrar los 55e.si no que tambien me cobran 25e.Por los quince minutos de retraso cuando el nos habia dicho que no era necesario pagar nada. En la oficina de el aeropuerto de Florencia la señorita que me atendio lo unico que pudo hacer es informarme de como poner esta hoja de reclamaciones al no tener factura de los 55e.que le pagamos al señor de la oficina de Grosseto,pues al llamarle me paso el telefono pero el me hablo muy rapido en italiano y yo no le entendia nada.
    No solo me costo 85e.mas el alquiler del coche ,si no tambien el disgusto del incidente que fue grande.

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