IKEA Singapore (Alexandra)

I'll like to share my latest experience with Ikea. I'm going to be as factual as I can and leave it as information for those that's considering engaging ikea for their delivery assembly service.

We stay in a HDB flat and decided that more storage was needed quickly therefore Ikea. Selected the Besta wall cabinet series and engaged the delivery installation service (subcontracted to a local logistics company PSC). It costs 1/5th of the purchased item but I thought to save us the trouble, we'll go with it.

Made myself available on a Wednesday morning and the cabinets arrived promptly at 10am. The installers asked where I would like to wall mount the cabinets, had a look a the wall (which is a standard HDB wall) and proceeded to assemble the furniture quickly. There was an electrical duct on the wall which I had to tear up so that the cabinets can go up which I thought, ok, that's going to ruin the paint but the cabinets will cover it so I wasn't terribly concerned.

Nightmare begins. The workers started to drill on the wall, after 1 hole, the guy said the wall is too hollow and unsafe to mount the cabinets. I was surprised. Reasons being:

1) There is already an existing shoe cabinet and kitchen cabinets that are wall mounted in the apt (same type of wall). These hold alot of stuff so they are bearing a lot of weight. 2) This is an original HDB wall, 80% of housing in Singapore is HDB. If the product wasn't suitable for HDB apts, Ikea should have made that explicit to customers to save us the pain. I can't imagine that to be the case though, they run a value, mass consumer type business, 20% of the market wouldn't make business sense. 3) The installers should have 'tested' the wall before beginning with the entire installation and given me the impression that it was ok for me to tear up the electrical duct and ruin the wall.

After discussion, (i suggested using a more robust wall plug instead of the cheap plastic 'red' ones) the workers insisted it was 'unsafe' and did not want to bear responsibility, packed up their tools and left. Leaving me with this mess (see picture http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/116/dsc0004pf.jpg ). I was told to speak to the customer service officer. Did that, and was told to wait for a recommendation from Ikea. After a while, they called back saying that Ikea said it 'should be ok' but recommended the use of a more robust 'butterfly' type plug (which i had suggested before).

I was even more surprised and asked, 'shouldn't someone from ikea come down to have a look before sending another team over?" Response was, "No it's ok, we will send our expert team".

?!! what was the team before then?

Anyway, I went, "fine". And it was agreed that the installation will happen at 6p.m the same day. Went out for my meetings and received a call at 4.30pm from the 'expert' installation team. "Can we come up to do the installation now as we are near the area?". I was halfway through with my meeting, therefore said no, I will be home at 6pm as agreed.

The reply I got was, "Aiyah, so Leceh! (meaning troublesome in Malay)" and hung up on me without another word.

I was still staring at the phone in disbelief when another call came in and it was the customer service officer. "Hello, err you not at home issit?" Can you pls. make sure you will be home at 6 pm sharp? I said, sure thats what I've committed to and therefore will be there.

Rushed home after my meetings and was back by 5.50 p.m No show from Ikea at 6pm. Waited till ard 7.10pm, annoyed, I gave a call and asked when will the "expert team" arrive? I was then told, 7.20 - 7.40pm.

Fine. I'll wait.

At 830pm, stomach rumbling, totally annoyed, I gave up waiting and left for dinner. Up till then I still wasn't contacted by anyone from customer service. I had to call customer service the same night, to give them feedback and had to call again the next day, even had to hunt down ikea's customer service number (apparently, I was speaking to the subcontracted installation company before) before I was finally given some attention. And even then, ikea tried to refer me back to the installation company!

Anyway, to make an already very long story shorter. The service I received was appalling, totally disruptive and came as an absolute shock. I had expected so much more from Ikea.

I wish anyone that is considering their service, the best of luck and my advice would be to pray hard that all goes well! Personally, I will use a local carpenter from now on, never mind the wait. Much more robust quality, fully customized, and probably cost the same.

BTW, I had to live with the mess for 2 days! Anyone with similar experience pls. share, we can all learn from it.

ikea doesnt need much introduction and im sure everyone knows its one of the most well known brands in the world.

most of my furniture comes from ikea. from the real ones to small items like table lamps etc n some of their products are real cheap especially during sale. but neither can i deny that their quality especially for bigger furniture are just not comparable to those from normal furniture shops. it may just last you half the time of usual furniture before they wear and tear. can you imagine a kid jumped once on my bed and i had to change the wooden plank beneath it?

however, id say the quality of the smaller products are not too bad and furthermore, they are cheap! (not all, but there are still bargains to grab)

one of the reason they gave us for the self service system is to provide us with cheaper pricings. but sometimes it gets so frustrating when you cant find the items yourself or when you just to make simple enquiry and no one is around. i know there are many complains about its services but i guess its just one of the thing we have to bear with for such low pricings.

another bad point id say is the lack of uniqueness. have you seen many of your items appearing on the setting of many TV programmes?

but nevertheless, i think in all ikea did quite a good job in their overall system. it allows people to show their creativity with their products and provide lots of services from tailoring to full refund within 7 days.

with regards to its yet to be improved services, i guess theres just no perfect deals and we just have to find out the good points and be appreciative of it :)