Room & Board — Local services in Atlanta

Uniquely unpleasant experience.

I ordered a bed from here two months ago. It has not come, and delivery has been delayed twice now. Their supply chain is wholly unreliable, but even the second delay, pushing delivery of my bed right up until against the birth of my first child, could be forgiveable were it not for the lamp they screwed up.

We found an incredible looking cantilever lamp at their Atlanta showroom, last one in the store. Floor model, so heavily discounted to 50%, looked great, wanted to buy it. Was ready to carry it out that day, make room for new merchandise in their store. But because of some moronic policy centered around making sure they "didn't have a hole" in their showroom, I wasn't allowed to take home the lamp I'd just paid $750 for - I had to wait on them to deliver it two weeks from the date of purchase. So I agreed to this ridiculous stipulation, two weeks have passed, and I have found out that they broke my lamp in transit. The lamp I happily would have taken home the same day I paid for it but for their moronic, self-serving policy. The lamp that can't be replaced because they don't make it anymore and the model I bought was the last one in the showroom.

Following some further excuse about how I could "wait on the manufacturer" (to send an item they don't make anymore?!), I refunded the lamp. If I can find a bed elsewhere, I'm going to refund the bed too. Don't give your money to these people, their logistics are a mess and you won't get what you paid for.

Edit: I also ended up refunding the bed and will not be doing business with Room and Board...

Room & Board has styles that I like and I appreciate the one price no gimmicky sales policy. The staff at the store, the delivery team, and the customer support teams have been very nice and professional.

However, the quality control, delays, re-orders etc. are no better than what I've experienced at lower end retailers. After waiting many months for my furniture, two of my large furniture pieces were damaged. They offered to replace them. One of them is backordered for another 8 months. The other was 4 months and when they came to deliver it, it was the wrong color. Other items I ordered were damaged and had to be re-ordered.

About half of the items I've ordered have had damage or were not made correctly and had to be re-ordered. This put many months of delays on my home being completed.

It was nice when I could work with my sales person to resolve the issues, but now I'm told that "Room & Board just recently made changes to our responsibilities and now want all claims, exchanges, or returns to go through customer service." which requires that I put additional effort into getting updates and resolution.

After spending almost $15,000 in furniture, I expected better service. Not one agent offered any compensation for the...

Very kind people at the store and would encourage anyone to buy product that is in stock or floor models. That said, I would discourage anyone from ordering custom furniture. As it was explained to me by the rep. from Room & Board "the furniture comes from another vendor. We do not get updates until it arrives in our warehouses and then we'll call the customer to schedule a week or two out from there. And, after the projected arrival date, they only update us if it's late."

It just seems like this service model is outdated (no online updates, vague timelines on a possible delivery and curt telephonic customer service). It's hard to believe that a couch and two chairs with different Room & Board cloth would take 70-80 days to be delivered...