west elm — Local services in Vernon Hills

5 stars to their employees, 1 star to my overall experience.

1 Star to the company: After a basement renovation, we put in an in store order before Thanksgiving for a Black Friday deal, and bought a carpet that would look great with the new sofa fabric. 5+ weeks later we get an email simply stating that our order was canceled since our fabric choice was unavailable. No statement regarding refund. No explanation as to why it took 5+ weeks for them to figure this the f out!

We immediately went to our local store, and the manager called Customer Service and found out that they should be calling my cell in 24 hours (but very likely sooner), with a % off a full price offer. With that in mind, we selected a few fabric options to consider and headed home.

No call came over the next 72 hours, so I called and was offered $250 off my next order. No expedited shipping. No % discount. And definitely not acceptable considering the substantial time it took the company to figure out they didn't have enough fabric (and now we're quite beyond the time when most quality furniture companies are no longer having good seasonal sales).

My partner and I are incredibly frustrated and declined the offer, since the shipping dates (at least those listed online) were 2 months out. We purchased a lower quality couch from another vendor that would get here substantially sooner, as we are fed up and want the basement to be whole.

5 stars to the actual humans we spoke to: -Our initial contact, Christine (I think that's her name!), who helped us find and design our dream couch, and guided us to pick a wonderful fabric that would look great in our newly remodeled basement and would be black kitty friendly, and which I then was able to coordinate buying a carpet around. -Tim, the store manager, who helped us the day we found out our order was canceled, who contacted Customer Service, shared our frustration, tried to find out what the % off we would get (customer service wasn't able to tell him), and helped us pick a few samples out that I could consider at home. -The customer service rep who I personally spoke to, Katherine, who was pleasant, kind, and tried to appropriately escalate the case. She was wonderful and it wasn't her fault that I left the call completely unsatisfied and disappointed.

All three individuals provided exemplary customer service and this review is no commentary on them or the service they provided, but I will not shop at West Elm again.

Room & Board is pricier, but my family and I have always had excellent full cycle experiences there and I will...

Very disappointed with this store because of 3 specific reasons. Lack of follow up from this store when they were supposed to get back me twice on product questions. Felt like they didn’t care if they got the sales or not. I followed up with the store a year later to let them know I didn’t hear back from a prior question (and no apology a year later when I stopped in to browse again and mentioned that they never emailed me back on something they were working on for me). Ordered an expensive small coffee table last week for $799 and I just noticed it went on sale for around $629 (and haven’t gotten the table as it’s in process of shipping). I called the store for a price adjustment and they just said to call customer service! Can you believe that? Way to pass the buck West Elm Vernon Hills. Called customer service and got passed around between electronic phone system with hitting different number options and talking to humans, only to find out they stopped doing price adjustments! Asked to speak with a customer service manager. Was told then that they would do a one time store credit of the price difference to be used for future purchases. I wasn’t pleased with this because it limits you to their stores which are way over priced to begin with. My product was delayed and want informed of the delay until I called. If customers have issues with a West Elm product they ordered in the store, then that store should handle it! The store shouldn’t tell the customer to call customer service! Infuriating (as am on hold with customer service as I type this)! While on hold forever with customer service I asked if we accidentally got disconnected if they could call me back and they said “no they didn’t have that ability to make outside calls”. Great! That would mean if we got disconnected I’d have to go through the phone...

I ordered a mid century show wood leather chair via online then made very unfortunate decision to pick up from this particular unhappy miserable store. Arriving at the store, not one single employee would make eye contact: simple hello or assistance obviously is an excruciating torture for them. Finally picked up the chair and drove an hour home….. just to find out the chair leg was broken. I called West Elm and was places on hold awhile just to be told to contact the store where I arranged pick up. West Elm obviously thought the customer being bounced around isn’t amusing enough for them that they specialize in poor customer service for these employees. Not a single word of apology, but rude and unprofessional and accusatory. However not all is lost. Now knowing the (lack of) quality of West Elm products and customer service : AVOID Vernon Hill West Elm. Better yet avoid West Elm all together. Vernon Hills West Elm store represented company well. I will get my living room and dining furnitures and rugs...