Pottery Barn — Local services in Salt Lake City

At the end of September, PB's website showed that they were having a big sale, including some of their larger furniture pieces--their "Premier Event" they called it. "Great!" I thought, "I need some new furniture." I see that they have the Banks Buffet at 50% off, but the shipping cost is 25% the cost of the buffet. I call this store and speak to Tracy. I ask her if they have a Banks Buffet there in the store that I can purchase. She says, "yes, but it's their floor model and they're not selling it." O k a y??? So then I move on to something else...trying to purchase a bed online, but I can't get the order to go through. I call the store to see why I can't order it online. Response: "we don't know, must be a glitch in the system and it's not available in store." "O k a y??? I'll order something else, then, but it's an upholstered sofa and I want to see the color/fabric in person first." I call the store and ask if they have a floor model I can look at, and they do. So I go into the store the next day and speak with Mark. He is very nice, but he tells me that the sale is over and I can no longer get the sofa at that price. "That was a great price on these sofas," he says. "I sold five of them yesterday." But that doesn't help me because apparently I've missed the sale by one day because the sale was only for one day. "There's nothing he can do," he says. O k a y ???? Fast forward to earlier this week. I receive an email that this store is having a huge furniture sale, so I call the store to get more details. Emily tells me that there will be specific pieces that I'm interested in available for purchase (Raleigh, Cameron, Pearce, Turner), so the next day I drive an hour to check it out. It's hard to find a parking place! The store is crowded! I'm in a hurry. I have five teenagers waiting in the car. I walk up to the first counter I see where some employees are working and stand there for several minutes, but they're busy with other customers. So I move on to a second counter where there is no line and walk up to it, where Doug (I think he's one of their main managers) is standing alone, looking at his computer. I wait to be acknowledged so I can tell him what I'm interested in purchasing, as I pull out my Pottery Barn card from my wallet. He looks up at me with a blank stare and doesn't say a word. I stand there for several seconds as we stare at each other, then he looks past me and waves another customer over from across the store. I walk away, as no words are exchanged, and put my Pottery Barn card back in my wallet. Then I walk over to a third counter where there is a long line, and wait there. Finally, an employee calls me over to the counter and curtly asks me what she can help me with. I inquire about the furniture pieces I'd been told about the previous day. She motions over to a building on the other side of the parking lot and tells me that that is where the furniture sale is happening, so I walk over to see. It's chaotic and items are haphazardly stacked in random aisles. It's difficult to tell what is actually being sold; things are still in boxes. I wander through the makeshift aisles, squeezing through small spaces and stepping over strewn-about items. I had been told that there would be several different types of sofas and beds, which is what I came to purchase. There is not one bed there and only one stained sofa. Lots of rugs, single chairs, mirrors, outdoor furniture, dressers, but I had not come to purchase those items. I look around for an available employee to see if someone can help me, but they are all busy. I came with money in hand to buy several large furniture pieces--none to be found and no one available to ask. I walk out the door. I had been duped by PB yet again! What a waste of time and energy! Keep in mind, it takes me two hours round trip to drive here. And the rudeness of some of their employees--second to none. I won't be back! My month-long ordeal to purchase furniture and I have come up empty handed from PB yet again. Just really the worst experience I've ever had...

I worked at RC Willey Corporate Customer Service for 7 years and I am shocked at the apathy of Pottery Barn. RC Willey were not saints but we adapted and did it fast. There is no consistency and proper regulation with Pottery Barn. Bought a sofa in desert. Loved it, so I ordered the love seat, chair and ottoman. All three pieces came at separate times. Why? They said some are mass produced others are special orders. OK. The ottoman came, right fabric, wrong color, too dark -even for being mass produced? Declined the ottoman. Chair came as camel(?), refused that. The love seat came and it was green! I have pictures below of all three together The sofa on the right in desert, the chair on the left in camel(?) and the love seat cushion in green. There's even a fabric sample of the ecru color just to show the sofa is not ecru. Big difference. At this point I had already spent three different times on the phone for a total of about 4 hours, never getting the same damn person and having to explain everything over and over again. Luckily, I was able to get money back for the ottoman and chair but the love seat was a surprise credit. Why? Because they are incompetent and didn't want to do their job. The people at the delivery company said this "happens ALL THE TIME. That the fabrics are dyed naturally and each bolt of cloth is a slightly different color, but green is very unusual and that's why I got my money back. I should take an extra piece of fabric from the inside of the sofa and bring it into the store to get a proper sample match. " Ugh, I got more information from the delivery company! Pottery Barn is supposed to pride itself on natural eco friendly techniques and products yet will burn a bunch of fuel for their trucks to get orders wrong. I don't even know what to do at this point. There isn't a loose piece of fabric anywhere on the sofa. Customer Service is a futile effort. I'm a busy person I have enough to do! I have five kids, one has a disability, I'm going to school for my bachelors and I own a business. Give me a...

Greetings,

I would like to share my feedback about my experience at PBT. My mirror order was delivered almost a month later. After hours on the phone with customer service agents, I finally got to a supervisor James Stephens - he found my mirror, but he demonstrated very little care regarding my case. I didn’t feel like all of my concerns were heard and more importantly the resolution to my problem was not fair. I thought of Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma and other stores that belong to the same company as high end, very customer service oriented, but I was mistaken. Phone associates showed very little knowledge of what they very talking about and then the floor supervisor James didn’t even care to meet my compensation needs. Due to service failure on their end, I have only asked for 10% more of what James originally offered ($60 refund), which I think is fair based on how much frustration this incident brought me. James quickly shut down any discussion about any additional accommodation and firmly told me no further refunds will be made, which I think is not how any customer service should go, especially Pottery Barn. If you think about it, those extra 10% means nothing to a huge company like Pottery Barn, however now you have a dissatisfied customer for life. I wish this service failure never happened to begin with, so I didn’t have to spend hours communicating with Pottery Barn. I just wanted to be heard, since I expected a lot more from them as a company. It was my first purchase at Pottery Barn and I promise I will never shop at any other related stores ever again. I will encourage my friends and family to do the same. I hope this letter will get to the manager that actually cares and you will improve your service with someone else, but it won’t be me.

Have...