Ikea Is Making a Massive Customer Service Mistake, and It’s a Warning for Every Modern Business
Companies that hand off critical moments to third parties to save a few bucks are sacrificing future sales and brand equity.
EXPERT OPINION BY HOWARD TULLMAN, GENERAL MANAGING PARTNER, G2T3V AND CHICAGO HIGH TECH INVESTORS @TULLMAN
In the not-so-distant past, and long before the carefully crafted legends of Nordstrom’s in-store customer experiences spread far and wide, the state-of-the-art in the consumer retail business from a customer service and satisfaction standpoint was Chicago-based Marshall Field’s, which was later folded into Macy’s.
There were myriad stories passed down through family generations of how Field’s would accept years-old goods for no-questions-asked returns and refunds, how every fall, senior staff from the store would ride along with their delivery drivers to personally oversee the seamless delivery from storage of important clients’ furs and other winter garments, and how expert tailors, seamstresses and jewelry specialists could clean, repair and restore virtually anything for their clients as they worked tirelessly in their underground ateliers and craft workshops.
This kind of demonstrable commitment to end-to-end customer satisfaction and thinking far beyond the immediate sale toward a long-term and loyal relationship—and the entire organization’s willingness to go above and beyond the basics to deliver whatever was required—was built on decades of exemplary service, a powerful brand promise, and a culture where every expected action was a personal commitment, a one-to-one connection, and an obligation to do things right, start to finish. No sale was complete until the buyer was 100 percent pleased. The result was the kind of consistent customer loyalty and exceptional degrees of customer satisfaction that every new business dreams of. It was driven in no small part by a strategy of vertical integration and across-the-board accountability so that the entire process was under consistent supervision, direction, and control.
Today, even some of the most well-known companies with high-quality products, like Ikea, spend millions of dollars promoting their image and product quality and then totally drop the ball when it comes to support and delivery. They seem to fail to understand that every step in the process is critical. Nothing is more important to a completed sale than a smooth and successful delivery and a competent installation, especially when you’re dealing with bulky, complex, and expensive goods, including furniture of all kinds, onsite and in-home assembly of storage units, and connecting large-scale electronics. As amazing as it seems, and rather than making this a strong source of positive competitive differentiation (as other vendors in the same space, such as ABT and Wayfair, have done), Ikea has farmed out the entire delivery process to third parties.
Worse yet, Ikea washes its hands entirely of any responsibility for their delegees and their results and outcomes. It’s hard to get someone to answer the phones or follow up on delivery, and it seems like the left hand has no idea what the right hand is supposed to be doing. It’s unfortunate and unhappy customers are stuck in a whirlpool of denial, indifference, and finger-pointing, wherein no one at Ikea makes any attempt to resolve any difficulties or performance problems. They lay all the blame on Task Rabbit, which might just as well change their name to Trash Rabbit or Task Rubbish.
By farming out their future connection and severing the customer connection at the very worst point in the process, they’ve just become the latest business to believe that the “savings” from incorporating the often untrained, incompetent and indifferent minions of the gig economy into their delivery system are worth the damage to their brand and reputation as well as the psychic injury and actual harm done to their customers. There aren’t too many ways that a lazy moron can mess up a pizza delivery, but there are a million ways that some part-time installer can ruin a brand-new wall unit, misalign or otherwise damage hinges, handles, and closers, or simply rush through an assignment and do a half-assed job.
We’ve heard for years that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and while that’s largely true, the more important consideration is that the most lasting impression, reaction, and feeling that any customer has is the final touchpoint, which is always the delivery. Companies that hand off that critical moment to amateurs and untrained third parties to save a few bucks are sacrificing future sales, positive word of mouth promotion, and vast amounts of brand equity.