Joybird — Local services in New York

I wish I had only read the reviews before I had the shadiest delivery experience of my life. It would have saved a lot of heartache. Before I get into the gory details, its only fair that I commend Kyle from the Brooklyn store who was professional, supportive, and genuinely concerned during my whole delivery disaster ordeal.

Delivery day was an absolute DISASTER! I knew things were off to a bad start when I received a call from the driver whining that I did not have an elevator and that a five floor walk up was a lot of work. (Mind you, I am not so callous that I don't understand that moving furniture up 5 stories is back breaking work). But his statement was in complete contrast to the amazing customer service I had received at the Brooklyn store.) I had to explain to him that I had been clear and upfront about these details with the store and they had told me its was not a problem.

Upon arrival things went downhill fast, the two moving guys insisted that I pay $300 because of the 5 floor walk up. Supposedly, according to their policy, they could not pass the 3rd floor without charging said fee. I immediately called the Brooklyn store (Kyle) who was perplexed by this. The whole situation was incredibly awkward and believing this was a legit policy, I was at one point even willing to give them the three hundred dollars to keep things moving (literally). But then they would only accept cash and not provide a company receipt. Clearly something was up.

The driver of the truck then came back upstairs now saying that the sofa and credenza pieces were two big. Mind you the pieces were still on the truck. Annoyed, I went downstairs to measure the hallway, doorway, and staircase. I had to provide them a measuring tape (which THEY should have had) so they could measure the pieces on the truck. There was a lot of vagueness around confirming if the pieces would fit or not. The two movers said one thing the driver another. But overall they just did not seem willing to make make the effort to move the furniture. Was this because I didn't give them the $300? ($100 for each?) Frustrated, I offered to cancel any pieces that they struggled with to make things easier and they agreed to move the smaller night tables and asked me to prop open the building door.

I went upstairs to wait and after 20 minutes came back downstairs. They had taken off and left left me high and dry with no furniture. I felt so disrespected. They could have communicated to me they were not going to bring up the furniture.

I immediately called the store and explained the ordeal and demanded a full refund. Months of planning and anticipation wasted for nothing.

But the story doesn't end there. I had to fight with the phone customer service manager for a refund on the lamps that had arrived a month before the order, because it wasn't within the "return window". I had to explain my rational for the return even offering to make the example that I'm not returning the lamps because I don't like the color but because my entire order had to be canceled due to the shadiness of the deliverymen who tried to hustle me for $300 and took off without delivering. The rep was excellent but the manager would not speak with me. She offered me a "one time" exception to return the lamps. What a joke - You cancel an order because the delivery men are potentially trying to steal $300 from you and you get a one time exception as if this were your fault.

I wouldn't flat out say don't shop at this store even though they deserve I say it. No one should risk potentially being hustled by the "gangster" tactics of the delivery service. If I had acted as they did on my job, I would have been straight up fired.

Until that is resolved, you as a customer are...

Sectional sofa - a sofa which can be broken into sections.

My wife and I decided to limit our search exclusively to sectionals, because apartment living means we can't move a nine-foot-long sofa into our apartment. We researched different furniture companies that offered sectional sofas at competitive prices, and we found Joybird. We visited their Brooklyn location. We got assistance on selecting our sofa, selecting a fabric, and setting up a payment plan.

Their construction process took a few weeks, but this was expected; we knew up-front that we would need to wait a few weeks as they constructed our made-to-order furniture. As they promised, we received regular-yet-cryptic updates on the construction of our furniture. Steps like "design approved" and "team assigned" weeks in advanced of actual construction likely reduce their call volume, but don't really mean anything. Unless they're either explicitly rejecting someone's fabric selection, which they won't, or they're letting me know who is building my sofa, which they don't, neither update really matters.

After a few weeks, they shipped our sofa via rail to a last-mile shipping partner, JB Hunt. At this point, the real mess began. We had four failed delivery attempts between 2/22 and 3/7. The first was simply because they ignored our delivery instructions and scheduled their truck to arrive before my building accepts deliveries. The second time they struggled to assemble an acceptable COI. The third time they rescheduled due to snow, which is fair, except they did not notify any of their recipients of a reschedule. We made the mistake of throwing out our sofa the day before the first failed attempt, so we have been without a sofa for two weeks.

The COI was in place, and our scheduled appointment was in-tact. I notified my employer that I would need to work from home to accept this delivery, though at this point, this had become a running gag in the office. I had already notified my team that I would be working from home 3 times prior, only to show up at the office each. Of course they ask: what company did you order your sofa from? Joybird.

Sectional sofa - a sofa which can be broken into sections.

Joybird's definition turned out to be a fairly lax one: the sofa had a separate chaise, and an extra long pillow so you can pretend it is part of your sofa. Hence "sectional". The nine-foot-long sofa itself could not be deconstructed as we had thought, nor would it fit in my building's elevator or stairs. I called up Joybird, and I was told that after I refuse my delivery, I can instead order a "true" sectional, which indicates to me that yes, I purchased a faux sectional.

We did not select our sofa online, so we were not previously exposed to their distinction between "sectional" and "modular" sofas. I'm sure some jerk in marketing at their headquarters, wherever it is, thought selling this sofa + chaise combo as a sectional would enable them to charge as if it were a sectional. That is bad enough, but the salespeople in their showroom should have raised the issue with us. A company with a showroom in Brooklyn really must be more sensitive to the needs of apartment dwellers.

So far, it has been nearly 2 months since I ordered my sofa, and I have been without a couch or sofa for two weeks.

I'm waiting for my delivery refusal to be confirmed.

Bonus picture: the closest I got to getting a piece of Joybird...

While I loved the design of my sectional, my praise stops there. The quality is mediocre at best, but the customer service is ATROCIOUS. First of all, they have ONE supervisor for the whole company so you have to "be put in the queue" to speak to someone. Next, they just regurgitate the same nonsense you get in their form emails and say they have no "authority" to fix your problem.

Next I want to point out how incredibly deceptive their advertised return policy is. I don't know about most people, but a $3,000 couch was a major purchase for me. Especially including that I couldn't actually try it out before I bought it. It took me about 7 months between ordering the swatch kit and actually deciding to purchase. The only reason I felt alright about pulling the trigger was their advertised 365 day return policy. A "365 day home trial" is how they put it. When after about 2 months I decided that I was unhappy with the way my chosen fabric was wearing (it looks like I've had it for years already, and I'm the only one that sits on it), they told me if I want to return it they have to quote me a return shipping price (which I know will be exorbitant based on the size of the piece). They told me they would process an EXCHANGE if I wanted to replace it with a new fabric and that there would be no return shipping fee if that were the case.

Fast forward after a couple weeks of debating my options and now they say that they won't exchange it (like I have in writing from another customer service agent) and that I can only purchase a new item and they will process the refund when its picked up/the new one is delivered. This means I'll be making payments on two very expensive couches at the same time which is utterly unacceptable. The two separate "customer service" people I spoke to claim to have no authority to process it as a replacement even tho I'm asking for the EXACT same item, just in a different fabric. "It's not a warranty issue." You're correct, it is a quality issue. And you should be doing what you need to do to ensure that your customers who even want to give you a second chance to replace something subpar are being accommodated.

I also want to note that even before this war with customer service I left a (more favorable, 3 star) review on their website and it mysteriously was taken down. So, don't trust them at all because they are only allowing 4 and 5 star reviews to be viewed on their site. I wish some of these other 1 star reviews were available when I made the decision to purchase from them back in June and I would've been spared a lot of money and stress.

Joybird-- terrible customer service is not the way to succeed in the already-overcrowded furniture space, especially when people are making major purchases on what amounts to a whim because you don't have physical locations to even test...