La-Z-Boy Chandler — Local services in Chandler

My wife and I went to the Chandler Mall location on Saturday 7/10. We are past La-Z-Boy customers and have always been impressed with the quality of their products as well as the service we've received in the store. Yesterday was a much different experience! When we arrived at the store the parking lot was fairly empty, I was actually thinking that they might not be open. They were indeed open, with only one other customer in the store. Because we're looking for numerous pieces of furniture we walked through the entire showroom. We were in the store for almost an hour looking at sectionals, sofas, loveseats, and recliners. We counted a minimum of 6 employees in the store, none of which ever said a word to us. Not hello, welcome in, can I help you, NOT ONE WORD. At one point, we were trying out a reclining sofa not 20 feet from a cluster of 4 salesmen who were talking and laughing among themselves, apparently far too busy to consider helping a customer.

As an individual who has worked in a myriad of executive roles, all in customer facing businesses, I was mortified. We all know that big box stores are struggling against online competition, which makes it that much more important to deliver "World Class Customer Service." This store failed to deliver ANY customer service whatsoever!

About an hour ago I called the store to ask for the manager. A very attentive woman told me he was in a meeting. I briefly explained the challenge we had faced yesterday. She listened and told me that what we experienced was unacceptable and that she would interrupt the meeting and have the store manager call us. Ryan, the store manager did call me back very quickly, however I was far less impressed with him than I was with the woman who initially answered the phone. He told me he was in yesterday, but doing paperwork in his office. He said this is not typical of how they do business. When I told him there was another customer who had almost the same experience on Friday who also posted a negative review, he said that he has some things to work on with his staff. He also stated it's a delicate balance between providing good service and being overbearing with customers. He continued to say things that make no sense like "we've been short staffed and our new hires will be starting next week."

Being short staffed was not the problem yesterday. Six staff people and 1 manager should be able to handle a couple of customers. He didn't seem comfortable or particularly interested to hear my complaint. He did say he was sorry and repeated that he had some things to work on.

If you get a horrible review on Friday, which was addressed online immediately. You would think that on Saturday you would have your team ready to provide quality service to their customers. Getting the conversion rates required to be successful in the retail business will be impossible to attain if you won't interact with your customers. The furniture space is filled with competitors, and only the best operators will continue to find success. The rest sadly will become just another empty retail space with a "FOR LEASE" sign posted in the window.

Today my wife and I will go to several other stores to try and spend our money with companies that put a...

I want to extend a high five to Jessica and Ilene. For at least two years I have been dragging my feet to replace all the furniture in my living room and kitchen/family room area. I've also been just spinning my wheels going from furniture store to furniture store feeling overwhelmed. I came into Lazyboy just intending to find a recliner and quickly found out Lazyboy has changed from the recliner store that I remembered to a full blown furniture showcase.

Dante was very nice and helpful in welcoming us in and pointing us in the right direction. Candy went a step further and suggested certain furniture sets based on my likes and found a beautiful patterned fabric swatch as an accent (which turned out to be the starting point of my design). I told her I have a lot more decisions to make and asked if Lazyboy had interior designers.

This is where Ilene and Jessica came in. They came to my house and were brimming with ideas. What had been a stressful job started to become fun. They were very professional but felt more like friends. They seemed just as excited as I was when things came together. They suggested things I wouldn’t have thought of. I tend to choose the same, familiar things; they gave me a new perspective.

I was really impressed when I went back to the store a couple days later to see everything we chose in a diagram (to scale) on the computer, like on HGTV. Jessica and Ilene were a good team. Jessica surely has the design knowledge. It would have taken me another six months to figure out wall hangings where she had them already picked out. She even saved me the headache of picking out the paint color for my walls.

Ilene had ability to sense what I was thinking. There were only a couple selections that didn’t resonate with me and Ilene picked up on it right away and suggested options. So if I had to recommend a design team, it would be these two, they complement each other and work well together.

Now fast forward. The furniture arrived a couple days ago. Everything fits like a glove, just like the diagram. Beautiful, high quality furniture that will last. Today I get an email from Ilene asking how I like everything and that she would love to see pictures. I think that says a lot that after the sale, they still care about you. So...

I ordered a chair from the Chandler store. There was a wait time that was fully explained from the start. When the chair finally arrived a part fell out of it while the delivery personnel were bringing it into my home. Turns out it was a pin for the headrest mechanism. So the chair was delivered broken and I had to call and schedule repair and wait about 10 days for the first appointment. That repair was make and I finally got to use the chair. After about a week of use it felt/sounded like a grenade when off under my chair while I was calmly sitting in it and the chair lurched forward and would no longer recline/lock. I moved the chair to inspect under it and there was a pile of parts, pins, plastic, grease all over my floor under the chair. At this point I was over this $$$ chair and wanted it gone. I called the store and was told that a repair had to be schedule again before any other steps could be taken (refund). So after another wait, another repair tech came out and told me he could not fix it that day and had to order parts. I called the store again and they agreed to pick up the chair and issue a refund. Long story short, I think I got a lemon of a chair that I paid a lot of $$$ for and was left frustrated with a useless chair. HOWEVER, this lemon chair was the fault of the factory and their QA folks. The Chandler store did everything within their power/procedures to take care of the customer. The chair was picked up in a timely manner and a full refund was issued. I always thought LZB chairs were of high quality and was very dissapointed by the one I got. I am not sure if I will trust my time/money to them again, but if I do, it will be at the Chandler store because their staff James and Thomas, etc where the ones that made the whole situation somewhat satifactory. So thanks to them at the store. And to the factory.....get your $h!t...