west elm — Local services in Houston

We’ve been looking for a small kitchen dining table and chairs for some time. We really like the West Elm furniture and style but had reservations because our sister-in-law had a very slow and negative experience with West Elm. We kept seeing this one particular table that we like but the reviews regarding their customer service were less than stellar and that’s a big deal when you’re spending a nice chunk of change…that should come with good customer service. We finally broke down and went to the Rice Village location to buy the table we’d been looking at online. When we got there we were greeted but not offered assistance. We started looking around and couldn’t find what we were looking for so we started looking for help. Even though there were several (at least 5) employees that appeared to not be overly busy, it was difficult to get someone to help. They were milling around having their own conversations and not offering any assistance. When we finally got assistance they didn’t have the table at that location, so we asked if they would call their sister store to see if they had a floor sample, but she basically refused. We ended up making our own call to the sister store to see if they had a floor sample but they didn’t, thank goodness we called because it’s quite a bit further away. Ok…so we moved onto chairs, still positive we were going to get that table (sight unseen)…but getting her to help us and getting her to answer questions about fabric, delivery etc felt like we were taking up her precious time. While shopping for the table and chairs I found some other marked down items and went to purchase them…but no one was at the counter. Finally, someone came to the counter but even though she didn’t appear to be tending to someone she couldn’t even be bothered to say “I’ll be right with you.” Overall, we walked out without spending a dime and will NEVER STEP FOOT IN...

We purchased a media console from the Rice village location as we needed something decent and quick. After talking with the sales rep and asking availability, we purchased the media console on July 29. We were due to receive the media console the following week by August 3 delivery. Well we did get a delivery of only part of the media console, 3 of 3. Apparently the media console comes in 3 boxes. The next day we received box 2 of 3. Very odd, but it was what it was. The next day nothing. Expecting that it may come in the next few days we waited patiently. After not receiving the final box we tracked our delivery and were given a vague message “sorry delivery date isn’t available yet, please check again for latest update.” We called the store and they basically said the same exact reply. West elm charged us $89 delivery fee plus a $10 surcharge so we can receive 3 separate deliveries in which the final delivery will be a surprise. Not sure if that’s a smart way of delivering items (actually I’m very sure that’s not smart nor economical).West Elm please get rid of whomever is in charge of your logistics and warehouse management. Still waiting for the final box and we are into the second week from time of purchase. Seems like this is very common with them. At this point we may never receive the final box, and will have to return 2/3 of the media console and request a refund. What a waste of time.

Update 8/16: our delivery date is continually changing. We are pushed back by 2-3 days every day that we are are tracking. Called customer service and they are basically useless with...

I went into this location yesterday and was looking around at dressers because my daughter is going off to college in a few weeks and thats when i met Grace. My god she was a breath of fresh air, I had been shopping tirelessly for weeks and was frazzled and at the end of my rope because my daughter is so picky. Grace was so nice, she and her co-associate Shelly were having a great time, laughing and made it so fun. they helped with bedding, were brutally honest about the quality of some items vs other ones and made us feel like we were long term friends. I cant rave about them enough. HOWEVEE I did not know they were affiliated with pottery barn and i HAVE NOT had the best experience with the one in memorial OR highland village but I had such a blast with them that it made me slightly reconsider… we will see. As for now, West Elm all the way! Thank you Grace and Shelly for the good time....