west elm — Local services in Boulder

The original post exceeded the character limit, so here’s the takeaway…We ordered an expensive sofa-sectional from West Elm in August. West Elm shipped half of it, which arrived weeks late and was not what we ordered, and claims to have lost the other half. We have been let down every step of the way, have spent over ten hours on hold, navigating the Kafka-esque labyrinth of corporate customer service, and now may not receive anything, including a chance for refund or compensation, until March 2021, seven months after placing our order and paying thousands of dollars.

TAKEAWAY FOR SMART CONSUMERS: DO NOT TRUST WEST ELM. THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU AND THEY WILL NOT HELP YOU, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE AT FAULT. TAKE YOUR MONEY ELSEWHERE

Please note: This review only tangentially relates to the hardworking, kind employees and managers at the West Elm Boulder, CO location. We have nothing against them, they have been patient and helpful, and if they were the ones in charge of the corporation, we would continue to do business with West Elm, as this situation would never have arisen. The last thing my wife and I want to do is complain and leave ugly internet reviews. This is the first--and hopefully last--time that we’ve ever done such a thing. The only reason we feel compelled to leave this review is because we have been unable to receive any satisfaction from West Elm and we feel as if West Elm—and the William Sonoma corporation—could care less about our situation and have no intention of making our situation right

At the end of August 2020, we purchased a $3600 sofa-sectional from West Elm Boulder. I’d like to detail the events that have occurred since, but I cannot do so in detail because of the character limit. Here's a brief summary of what's occurred since placing the order.

We are now almost a month past the last day of the three week delivery window and have been forced to spend close to ten hours on the phone, on hold, getting punted between Customer Service, Delivery, and our local store. We scheduled multiple deliveries that we took time off work for, moved around furniture and emptied the driveway, only to have West Elm cancel the appointments with no notice given. West Elm's tracking system says our sectional has been delivered.

Half of the sectional was finally delivered, weeks late, and the wood stain we ordered was not the wood stain we received. We understand the privilege here, but we spent $3,600 and waited three months only to receive half of what we ordered, and the half we received was not even what we ordered.

West Elm claims that the other half of the sectional is lost (how do you lose a sofa?) and we will have to wait until March of 2021, seven (7) months from our date of ordering, before we can get the other half. Our entire experience with West Elm has been one of feeling entirely insignificant and lost within their corporate system. There appears to be no accountability, and abysmal inter-departmental communication, between the Boulder store, Customer Service, and Delivery.

Our experience, which is ongoing, has so completely soured us to West Elm that we feel compelled to warn other consumers about doing business with this company.

It remains to be seen whether they will do anything to rectify their mistakes or offer any sort of proper apology or compensation for the late delivery of only half of an incorrect product, as well as the hours which should have been spent working that were instead spent fruitlessly advocating for ourselves with customer service.

This is the first time we’ve ever posted a negative review but we intend to see to it that no one in our community, both locally and digitally, does business with an entity that behaves in the way which we have experienced. If you’re going to spend thousands of dollars, do it with a company that actually cares about its customers, not just its bottom line.

DO NOT SHOP AT OR DO BUSINESS WITH WEST ELM OR ANY WILLIAMS-SONOMA INC....

Worst experience with a store in my life . You couldn’t make this up if you tried . Me and my girlfriend went into West Elm on June 13 to purchase a sectional the day after we closed on our new house . The sales rep assured us that the couch was in stock, and would arrive within 2 weeks from purchase. Once the delivery hub contacted us they told us our estimated delivery would be July 19-29 . It wasn’t quite two weeks but we were ok with that . July 29 comes around, and we have yet to receive our couch ,or an update on its status . So I call, and I am greeted on the phone by some employee with a massive chip on their shoulder who then informs me that the delivery date has been postponed to august 12 . Ok wow , since we are eagerly awaiting this couch, and it is not only the style couch we wanted , it is the exact measurement we need for the space . We are committed , so we agree to wait until Aug 12 . Well now it’s Aug 12, and we have yet to receive a call or notification about the status of the couch . Guess what , we call them back and are put through to another call center representative who informs us that now the couch is delayed until aug 29 ..... then we call on august 29 and they say September 9 .

Finally on September 9 we still have no couch and we call to see why. They tell us now that they lost the piece they were waiting for and need to re-order it from manufacturing . So our new estimated delivery is now November 4. Oh and guess what , 4 days later they change it to November 20!

So we call the store and they take our case higher up to a district manager. Who then calls us and tells us that if the couch doesn’t come by November 20 , we should just get a new couch ...... How is that helpful customer service in an way shape or form ?

They have not given us any compensation , or offered us a floor model ,temporary couch , literally nothing. We have continued to make payments on this couch the whole time with nothing to show for it. This store prides themselves on being sophisticated, reliable, and friendly . It’s all smoke and mirrors. They will say anything to get you to spend money and once you walk out the door they could care less . If they had been honest about this absurd delivery issue from the get go we would not have bought the couch in the first place .

Thank you for ruining the feeling of settling into...

UPDATE: The situation below was fixed once I filed a formal consumer complaint and the furniture was delivered.

Original reiew: We ordered furniture for my daughter's new apartment in Boulder last July and were given a delivery window of Aug 5-14, which coincided with her moving into the apartment. As the time window came and passed, "track my order" showed a new date of Sept 10-29, and it appeared that the bed and dresser were being held up waiting for a chair that she had thrown in as a sort of accessory. We called and asked if they could just deliver the bed and dresser, and they said they would ask for a split delivery. But apparently this requires "approval"- what abysmal customer service. They should be bending over backwards when they're a month late with their delivery. Nothing happened with this request, and a new delivery date appeared of Sept 29-Oct 5. It's currently Oct 3 so I called to make SURE we weren't going to get another run-around and I was connected to the delivery department who told me I had to wait until Oct 5 and, if the items arrived, they would schedule a delivery. I asked, "What if they don't arrive? Do we get a new time window?" The customer service agent repeated the same line over and over about the fact that it's not YET Oct 5 and seemed incapable of understanding we were already 2 months past the original delivery window. So I demanded to be connected to a manager. The manager was EXTREMELY RUDE and told me to "calm down so she could help me" as I expressed my irritation with the situation. She then offered to do a split delivery. I informed her that we had already requested this and she told me there was NO RECORD of this request. I will update this review when we find out if they approve the split delivery and give us the bed and dresser but I am not currently holding out hope. My daughter has been sleeping on the floor with clothes in suitcases for 2 months. The manager had the gall to act like I was being difficult and seemed to have zero concern that the customer service was so bad. We will demand our money back if they don't approve the split delivery and order from anyplace else. If I had known this is the abysmal service this place provides, we would NEVER NEVER NEVER have purchased anything from them. RUDE. INCOMPETENT. UNCONCERNED WITH CUSTOMER SERVICE. I welcome a response from...